They Said It: Brind’Amour, Aho, Staal on another road loss

The Carolina Hurricanes lost in Game 4 at MSG to the New York Rangers to see the series tied up 2-2. The Canes have won every game at home this postseason and lost every game on the road.

They will have to hope that at least half of that trend will continue as they prepare for Game 5 on Thursday night at PNC Arena.

After the game, head coach Rod Brind’Amour along with Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal spoke with the media. Here’s what they had to say:

*The media questions couldn’t be made out over the Zoom call, so here is just the responses that the coach and players gave.

Rod Brind’Amour

It was a tough first period for sure. We gave them the power play there and that got them going right away. They zipped it around pretty good there. We gave up a power play goal on the second one, but the first one was zipping it around too and had it in our zone the whole time. We had it two or three times, should have gotten it out. We kind of did it to ourselves a little bit in the first. We got kind of playing again, but by then it was too late. You give them two, it’s tough to come back.

What are you going to say. I honestly didn’t look at it that closely. I know our guy comes in after the hit and I think they’re trying to do their job on that. That if there’s a good get hit, you shouldn’t come in and create something. I know he got cross-checked in the face pretty good when he came in, but whatever. It’s over.

Don’t want to take a penalty. I don’t think he was going in there to fight. He’s never fought anybody before. It’s just sticking up for his teammates which we like, you just can’t take a penalty there.

We had a lot of chances. What are you going to do. You have to keep getting the chances. I’m happy we’re at least creating some offense there. He’s playing well, you have to give him tons of credit. But to me, the start is what did it to us.

It is tough. I think it feels exactly like last year against Tampa to be honest with you. Very similar. Where you’re just going and then you get a good chance and then, nope. Nothing. Good teams at this time of year, it’s what they have. And then the power play. It’s very eerily similar. We just have to find a way to fight through it, not take the unnecessary penalties. After the first, we played okay, but it was too late because we spotted them a couple. Then you’re just chasing the game.

He’s been good. He’s been great. But a 20-year old can’t be your best player. That’s kind of what’s happening here. That’s not going to work.

We hit the post right away and then Aho had a nice chance, but it’s clearly not good enough. We have to score. We’ve hit some posts over a stretch here, but we have to get them in the net. Have to be better for sure.

I always play two units. I usually start one because they have a better faceoff guy on one than the other. But if you really break it down, we pretty much try to get two groups going.

Sebastian Aho

I’m confident that they’re eventually going to find their way into the back of the net. Maybe as a forward group we can do a little bit better to be in his eyes. You can still lose pucks out there and get to those second and thirds for dirty goals. If you get one of those, you get confidence and all of a sudden you’ve got all kinds of goals. I’m confident that this group can score enough goals to win hockey games.

No. To be honest, I really don’t pay attention when I’m preparing for the game on who’s in the net. It’s more how to create those chances and sometimes the best ones are rebounds and quick one-tees. It’s not going to be always puck bardown on the rush. We just have to find ways to score.

I mean we didn’t score, so. We have to score on the power play. But I think especially in the third period, on the second power play, we had some looks. I had one grade-A and I just have to be a little bit sharper there and put it in.

We know we have a big game ahead of us at home and it’s all we think about. We want to win that hockey game and move on.

Jordan Staal

We obviously wanted to come here and wins some games. I honestly thought our last game was a little bit better than tonight. We go back home and regroup.

Disappointing effort, especially today. But we have to regroup tomorrow and figure out what we’re doing wrong and have a better effort and go and win at home.

They scored on the power play. If they didn’t it wouldn’t be as big of an impact, but the PK has to kill them. [Lorentz] did a good job sticking up for his teammate there, but it’s an unfortunate start to the game. We gave them a couple and we were chasing it from there.

There was a few looks tonight, but with good goalies, just more traffic and more shots and more second chances around the net. Give them credit. They did a great job of staying in lanes and getting pucks out front. But we have to be grittier and harder around the net and get to those tough areas if we are going to find a way to beat them.

I didn’t mind the hit. Obviously, [Lorentz] went after him.

The way it unfolded was obviously worse than it could have been, but [Lorentz] did a great job of sticking up for his teammate, but as a group and especially on the road, we have to do a better job of keeping our emotions in check and really just get into our game. I thought we started to do that in the second and third, but giving teams like that, with a goalie like that, a couple of goals to start is never a good recipe for success.