They Said It: Brind’Amour, DeAngelo, Jarvis, Raanta on Game 5 win

The Carolina Hurricanes dominated on home ice once again Tuesday night, beating the Bruins 5-1 to take a 3-2 series lead.

The Canes jumped out of the gate on fire, as Antti Raanta put together a wonderful 34-save effort to take the win. Seth Jarvis scored twice to make it 3-0 and 4-0, while both members of the Tony DeAngelo-Jaccob Slavin pairing had goals in the first period to get the early lead. Vincent Trocheck added an empty netter.

Following the impressive game five win, Canes’ head coach Rod Brind’Amour, DeAngelo, Jarvis and Raanta spoke with members of the media.

Here is what they had to say:

Rod Brind’Amour

On the performance: It’s all about the result. It was a good result. They always play hard. It was nice to see us get the breaks, like the puck go in the net when we have opportunities. It was a good win.

On Raanta carrying the team through the first few minutes: Yeah, that’s what goaltending does. We have to get those saves because you’re not going to not get chances. That team is going to generate opportunities, and they certainly did. He was good. Then we had a real good solid two periods to put us in a comfortable spot.

On being the more disciplined team: The playoffs you traditionally think of the power play not being as important. You would have one or two a game. But now we’re seeing who knows how many you could get. It’s so important. We’ve beat this to death. It was nice that we only had to kill a couple. It only ended up being three. Still three too many, but it was nice that the power play got going a little bit. That was a big part of the game.

On DeAngelo letting his game do the talking: He’s an elite passer, and he’s got a good shot. We know the offensive stuff. He’s sneaky good defensively, too.

On Slavin’s masterclass Tuesday: Great observation. I just take that for granted now at this point. I shouldn’t, but I do.

On Jarvis getting to the net front and his maturity: You love seeing that for anyone on your team, but for the young kid that comes in. He’s earning his way in the league. He’s earning his way up the chart in every aspect of the game. I can’t say enough good things about him. I think he’s going to keep getting better. There’s a lot still to learn. He’s a young kid.

On his philosophy on DeAngelo’s emotional play and on if he told him to reel it in or let it rip: We have lots of conversations. I’ll just leave it at that.

‘So, you told him to reel it in?’: I told him to let it rip. Especially bar down.

On if this was their most complete game of the series: I think it was solid. We got ahead there in the third and kind of took a breath. And they’re so good. But overall it was a pretty solid game.

On everybody contributing: You have to this time of year. You have no chance if you don’t have 20 guys dialed in. It’s so important every shift. Every aspect could be the difference.

‘I like the tie’: Thank you. I got grief for this today. I did pick it out.

‘Grief from who?’: The guys.

On the crowd: This place is electric. I know every fan base their players and coaches are going to say that, but when we score a goal I get excited. I wish I was playing. That feeling, you can’t beat that feeling when you pump one in and the crowd goes crazy like that. It’s special.

On if he was surprised to see Charlie McAvoy back in the lineup so soon: No. If he was cleared, I’d put him in. There was no way he wasn’t going to play if he could.

---

Tony DeAngelo

On what he’d say to those who didn’t believe they’d come out like this in game five: I’d say you’re wrong. We know how we’ve got to play. We talked about it and everybody has probably told you 50 times in a row now, but the penalties got us out of our game last game. When you take nine penalties, you’re not going to have success. We come back tonight and even the penalties we took could go either way. I think we had three. When we’re on our game 5-on-5, we’re very confident that we’re going to come out on top. We were all over the puck. We were above the puck so much tonight. That’s the way you’ve got to do it. I thought all four lines, all six D and Raanta were fantastic. The power play. I’ve said it 10 times during this series, but whoever wins the special teams battle is going to win the game. That’s the way it’s going all through the playoffs, not just our team. It happened again tonight.

On scoring first and on scoring on the first power play: The power play was really good. Good entries. It’s not always going to be a perfect entry where you are dangling through a guy and you make a play through a stick. I thought we did a good job of just keeping it simple. We were winning our puck battles to get it back. The first one they could have cleared it twice. They don’t clear it, and we wind up getting a goal with good screens in front. Special teams are huge. You’ve just got to keep it going. One game is not enough. We’ve got to have this power play consistent. Every time we go out there it’s got to be a threat. Boston is a threat every time they go out there. We know that. Our penalty kill has done a great job. We’ve got to be a threat every time.

On Slavin’s game-opening goal: Huge. The first goal of the game, I think we’ve had that every time so far. You build off it, especially in front of the home crowd. The road crowd is a bit different. You get a big goal, it’s good. But in front of the home crowd they start roaring, and then you get a power play and it’s two. The momentum just swings on your side.

On him letting his play do the talking Tuesday: Yeah, you guys are trying to stir that up more than me. I’m not really worried about it. The Boston media might be a little angry tonight, but that’s ok.

On the key to getting so many shots on net: In my opinion, you’ve got to plug the net in the playoffs. You’ve got to get guys there. You’ve got to keep making it tough on the goalie. If you get one dirty one in a game like this it could swing the game in your direction, right? You’ve just got to put pucks to the net. Sometimes there might be a little bit of a play there, but if it’s not 100 percent why not just go to the net and see what happens. You might get a rebound. You might draw a penalty at the net. A lot of different things can happen. At 40 is right where we want it.

On Slavin’s game: I have a front-row seat for that just about every night. It makes the game a lot easier on myself, too. I have to worry about my job, and my defending becomes a lot easier when you don’t have to worry about the other side of the ice. I think they come to my side a little more and try to attack me, right? But [Slavin] was really good. He’s chipping in offensively in this series, too.

On Jarvis getting to the net front: There’s a word I would like to use that I can’t use right now, but he’s a feisty little guy. He gets in there. He’s all over the place. Even when guys try to hit him, he seems to come out of the pile with the puck. He takes contact. He actually initiates it half the time. I don’t think he cares about getting hit. He’s been a really good player for us. He’s only 20-years old. He’s having a big time playoffs so far. We need him to keep going.

On if they are both ‘feisty little guys’: I’m not as little as him, am I? We need that.

On Raanta’s night: Really good. He made that save on [Brad] Marchand in the first period. I thought that was a huge save for the momentum of the team. He’s been good the whole series, in my opinion. We missed him in that game three. He’s been really good. He’s sharp. He makes really good saves. Not many rebounds at all. He’s huge for us.

On if they were surprised Charlie McAvoy was back so soon: No, I’m never surprised when a guy comes back in the playoffs. McAvoy is a gamer, too. He’s a real big player. He eats up a lot of minutes for those guys. You never want to see anybody get sick or hurt. We want to see them at their best, so it’s good to have him in the lineup.

On what the key will be to taking this performance into game six: Like I said, penalties were a big thing in games three and four. I don’t think we played bad 5-on-5 at all. I think if we stayed at 5-on-5 for the majority of those games, it could be a different outcome. We’ve just got to go in there and do what we did tonight. We’ve got to dictate the pace of play. We’ve got to dictate the 5-on-5 play and stay out of the box. When we get a power play then we’ve got to make something happen, especially on the road.

---

Seth Jarvis

On his first goal: I don’t know. A lot of things have to go perfect for that to even happen, but there was great puck movement from everyone on the ice. We did a good job snapping it around that time, and [Sebastian Aho] made a heavy shot. I was trying to swing it back to [Aho] because he was sitting in the slot. I think the D-man shot my stick with the puck on my stick. The puck went off someone’s foot and alley-ooped over the goalie into the corner. I’ll take that every day of the week.

On if he’s feeling better after the game than he was in the morning, physically: I wouldn’t say that. I would say I’m probably in the same kind of boat still. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll get a little bit better moving forward.

On not having second thoughts about getting to the net front: No. I don’t care. If I get hit again, I get hit again. Well, I say that now. But if I get hit again...

On staying out of the box: I think we did an outstanding job. Obviously a few calls, but for the most part. I think we had nine penalties the game before, so to cut down like that made a world of difference for us.

On what worked so well for his line: Honestly, [Andrei] Svechninkov when he has the puck down low and nobody can take it off him, that kind of jumpstarts everything. Obviously [Aho] is probably one of the smartest players in the NHL, so he always knows where to go. So it’s just a matter of supporting each other. When there’s a loose puck be the first guy to jump on it and create the play from there.

On DeAngelo’s game: Tony is awesome. You can always expect that from him. He’s so fiery and so competitive that everybody knew he was going to be coming out hot. To have a game like he did was huge for us. It’s awesome for that guy.

On having last change and on Jordan Staal’s line handling the Patrice Bergeron line: You could list a million things. They do everything right. There’s no shortcuts with that line. I think all of them are veteran players. They all know what to expect from each other. I think their chemistry is really incredible. They always know where to be. And they are all so big and heavy. [Jesper Fast] is not the biggest guy, but he plays heavy. He controls pucks. That line taking that job to shut down the Bergeron line was huge for us.

On what they need to take from this game into game six: I think the 5-on-5 play. We have to keep carrying that forward. That’s always huge for us, especially when we’re staying out of the box. Being able to be dominant at 5-on-5 and playing as well as we did today, I think that’s the biggest thing carrying forward into next game.

On Raanta: He was awesome again. It was great to see that. He played incredible. He had a couple of awesome saves. He was a big reason for that first 10 minutes of the game.

On getting pucks to net: Yeah, for sure. That’s the premise of our game, throwing pucks on net and creating chances off that and rebounds. To put up a lot of shots like we did tonight was huge for our offense.

---

Antti Raanta

On getting dialed in right away: Yeah. Since the last game you kind of start to prepare yourself for today’s game. We had a skate yesterday and this morning. It’s all about just going out there and battling. Be sharp with your movements and trying to get into good place and be good in your balance when the shot is coming and controlling rebounds. That’s kind of how the game went today. In the first period there were a couple of rebounds, and as the game went on it started to get better controlling it. The whole team played great in front of me, so they made my job a little bit easier.

On if he’s starting to feel a little bit like a playoff veteran: Yeah, well, when you get that first one under your belt then you just play the game. The game comes to you. Obviously you know that it’s the playoffs and you have to play until the end. Even if it’s 4-1 or 5-1, the other team is still trying to get some momentum going into the next game. It’s kind of staying in the moment and focusing on one shot at a time. That’s kind of how it’s been. But obviously it feels nice to play these kinds of games. These are the games why you work so hard and play 82 games and have all the practice. When you get to these games it’s the most fun thing you can do as a hockey player. You’re happy to contribute in these games, for sure.

On the team staying out of the box: Yeah, we were talking about it before the game. I think it was more disciplined today, for sure. And obviously our power play was working. Special teams are the biggest thing in the playoffs. Today we won that battle. Now we just have to keep it like that and get to Boston and make sure we stay out of the box there.

On Jarvis bouncing back after the puck he took in game four: You would never believe that he is so young with the way he plays. He goes to the net. He’s always there. That’s why he scored those goals. He’s getting to the net and getting to those dirty areas. Sometimes you might get hit with the puck. It’s nice that players get to know how it feels to get those shots not in the perfect spot. That’s what it takes sometimes. You might get the puck in the area where you really don’t want to, but it’s been amazing to watch his season. He’s growing pretty much every day. That’s what we need in the playoffs. Somebody has to do it, get to the net and score those ugly goals.

On the Staal line shutting down the Bergeron line: Obviously Jordan’s line has been really good the whole year. They’ve been playing the whole year together. Usually when they’re on the ice the puck is on the other end. They are really good at coming back on defense. You don’t really see any odd-man rushes when they are on the ice. Obviously it’s big when you can put them against them. But still, it’s playoffs. Everybody has to take that one step and play whoever comes against you. Obviously now we go to Boston and they will have the last change, so that’s going to be big for our guys to match that. We’ll see how that goes.