They Said It: Brind’Amour, DeAngelo, Andersen after OT loss in Toronto

The Carolina Hurricanes made their return from the All-Star break Monday night in Toronto, falling to the Maple Leafs 4-3 in overtime.

The game was the return to Toronto for Canes’ netminder Frederik Andersen, as he squared off against former Carolina goalie Petr Mrazek. The goals for the Canes came from Nino Niederreiter, Tony DeAngelo and Derek Stepan, with DeAngelo scoring just eight seconds into the third period.

Following the loss, head coach Rod Brind’Amour, DeAngelo and Andersen met with the media via Zoom.

Here is what they had to say:

Rod Brind’Amour

On if this was the type of game they needed to get going after the All-Star break: Yeah, it was a good game. I thought we played well. I’m not disappointed at all in our effort. Obviously we’d love the two points, but for not having any power plays I just felt like we created a lot of offense. Especially in the second period, where we had four or five breakaways, 2-on-1s that we just didn’t cash in on. It could have been a different game there. We took a breath on the one right at the end of the second period, and it’s in your net. That’s what these guys do. If you give these guys any room, forget about it. To come out in the third and have a chance to win, I thought it was great by our guys.

On if he felt like DeAngelo was the difference maker in the game: Yeah, he was great. Solid. Making plays all over the place. He had a good game, no question about it.

On the Canes’ lack of power plays: It’s always frustrating. I don’t know what to say about it. It does get frustrating. But we can’t talk about it every night. For whatever reason, it always seems like we’re getting less power plays every night. You think it would even out a little more. We had an opportunity to win that game. We took a breath on one and made a turnover on another, which we don’t normally do. Against this team you just can’t do that. Good lesson there.

On the depth scoring: You have to have that. There’s going to be nights where your top guys, you can’t rely on them to score all the time. All the great teams have depth and no weaknesses. It’s very important.

On the importance of late/early period goals: You don’t want last minute, but what about the middle minute? They all count the same. It’s all about how you handle it and look at it. We know that was a mess up. We don’t need to dwell on it. Get it back. I love how our guys fought back and gave ourselves a chance to win.

On if he has any theories as to why the Canes don’t get many penalty calls: I’d love to have a conversation with you about it, but it’s not worth it. It’s not worth it for me. At the end of the day, we didn’t get any tonight. Maybe it might be different tomorrow. They got a power play goal. We needed to kill it. In the end, that’s the difference in the game. Tough loss that way, but it was a good game. I do give players credit on both teams. Those guys played hard tonight. I thought it was a good game.

Tony DeAngelo

On the leadup to his goal: It was kind of just a broken play off the faceoff there. It was going to [Slavin] and the winger jumper, so I jumped around him. It was a nice play by [Fast] actually. A little bump out. A lot of teams play man-to-man so sometimes if you get a lucky bounce you can get in. That’s all it was. A nice play by Fast and Slavin.

On what he made of his team’s first game back from break: I thought we played real good. I thought we had a million chances to score goals that we didn’t capitalize on, but we still had three goals and plenty of chances to win. It was disappointing, but I think our effort was real good. I thought we played well and didn’t give them much, but they’re the type of team that when they get chances, they score. That’s kind of what happened.

On the lack of power play opportunities: I thought there were plenty of times to make calls back the other way. You’re talking about all the hooks and trips that can get called all game on both teams, not just for us. Some of our stuff was deserved penalties, but we should have had a power play tonight for sure.

Frederik Andersen

On his thoughts on the loss: Obviously disappointed. I thought we played a really good game and I thought I had a good game up until that last little play that I mishandled. Obviously sucks giving them one of those that lost the game. Hurts a little bit, but I’m sure we’ll get over it and move on to the next one.

On the play of the team in front of him: I thought they played really hard. The guys came after them and obviously they scored two late ones against us in the second, but we didn’t really dwell on that. We came right after them in the third and I thought the guys responded really well. We played a really good first period as well.

On being back in Toronto and if he felt it impacted his game: Not too much. You see the energy in the building and it’s tough to get too emotional in these circumstances. Obviously it was nice of them to say, ‘Thanks for the time here.’ But moved on and focused on the game again. That’s a little bit weird, but the game eventually has to come first. It was back to focusing on that.