They Said It: Brind’Amour, Skjei, Niederreiter on shootout loss

The Carolina Hurricanes came up short to the Dallas Stars Thursday night at PNC Arena as they lost 4-3 in the shootout.

Despite winning the special teams battle and a two-goal night by Nino Niederreiter, it wasn’t in the cards for the Canes as Scott Wedgewood (44 saves) outbattled Frederik Andersen (12 saves) to give his team the win.

After the game, head coach Rod Brind’Amour along with Brady Skjei and Nino Niederreiter spoke with the media. Here’s what they had to say:

Rod Brind’Amour

On them playing their game but things just not going the right way again: Yeah. I don’t know if I’ve seen a better game in 20 years being here as far as doing everything we were trying to do. We just didn’t get it in the net as much as we’d like. And then we lost the talent show at the end. That’s the end of that.

On the lopsided calls: What are you going to say? I need you guys to write about it. You guys need to say what you want to say. It’s a little tough. Fortwo periods we don’t have a power play, and we have the puck the whole game. And we’re actually minus two on the penalty. The only one I didn’t like was Trocheck had a beef there. He got cross checked right in front of the ref. He gave it to the ref coming up the ice, but it certainly wasn’t that much. That was a little bit tough. The other ones, whatever. There’s no point in talking about that.

On Seth Jarvis: He’s still figuring it out, but he’s played well really all year. He had a little stretch where we took him out, but since he’s come back you’re noticing him. That’s what you want out of him. He had a lot of opportunities tonight. He missed on a few real close. That’s what we need out of him.

On Max Domi: That line was good. At the end I kind of didn’t play them as much because the way the game was going. But they were good. He’s going to need some time to figure out how we play a little bit because of the new system, but I thought he was effective.

On if that was the angriest he’s ever seen Brett Pesce: For sure. Guys were into the game, that’s for sure.

Brady Skjei

On more of the same in this game: Yeah. Kind of similar to the last game. We played a really good game, I thought, overall. We created a lot of chances. The shots were pretty mismatched. If we play like that, we’re going to win a lot of hockey games. We all know that. Obviously a tough result tonight, but we played well and got a point. We’ll move on from this one and keep playing the same way.

On Brett Pesce jumping up and defending himself: It’s good to see. I didn’t really see the hit so I can’t comment on it, but it’s nice to see he stuck up for himself and did that. That was awesome.

On the frustration of not getting some calls: Yeah. Obviously I don’t need to comment on the officials. It’s out of my control. But we’d obviously like to get a few more power plays. That’s just how the game went.

On how difficult it is to keep a positive mindset when they aren’t getting two points: As a team, we know that were in a little bit of a rough patch right now. You could say that. But we know that’s the way we need to play. We’re all still confident. If we play like that, we’re going to win a lot of games. We make it really hard on teams. We’ve just got to keep playing like that, and we’re definitely still confident and optimistic in that room.

On if he’ll be looking for Niederreiter extra hard next game: Yeah, we’ll see. He found some good areas for me. We always talking of him having his stick on the ice, and he did a great job on his two goals. He scored them and got open and made the plays to finish them.

On if the first Niederreiter goal was a textbook play for him: I don’t want to say it’s textbook, but I made a read and it obviously worked out. Nino was wide open in the slot. That’s what’s nice about our system, our D are able to jump up into the play. We feel like we can meet the puck and we’re able to go. It definitely opens up those types of chances.

Nino Niederreiter

On keeping confidence up despite the results: It’s tough. I feel that we did a lot of good things out there and I feel like we dominated that game and had a lot of chances. We had a lot of shots on net, but right now we just have to stay positive and find a way to get some greasy goals. It’s definitely not been easy, that’s for sure.

On him and Brady Skjei’s connection: We found each other pretty nice today, which I told him we have to keep doing that. It was two terrific plays by him and I had the chance to finish them. Felt good, but at the end of the day, we came up short and that kind of stinks.

On getting frustrated by hot goaltenders: I feel like at the beginning of the year, all the pucks just found a way to go in. Now, I feel like the luck isn’t on our side just right now. But at the end of the day, we just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing and keep shooting the puck on net and have a chance to get a little more traffic on net to make it not too easy for them. Overall, we just have to keep playing like we’ve been doing and eventually the luck will turn to our side again.

On the lack of calls the team gets: It’s tough to say sometimes. We’re a team that may yell a lot to the refs and maybe the refs don’t like us as much as we are hoping for, but at the end of the day, the game goes sometimes that way, sometimes the other way. Just have to stick with it.

On Vincent Trocheck’s unsportsmanlike penalty: It’s tough. Those are things we can’t control, so we try not to worry about them too much. We killed it off, I believe, but it’s tough. You want to do the right things out there and sometimes you get the right call and sometimes you don’t and you just have to find someway to stay out of the box. Just outwork them and hopefully we get more calls for us.