They Said It: Brind’Amour, Slavin on game three loss

The Carolina Hurricanes lost their first game of the postseason Friday night in Boston, falling to the Bruins 4-2 as their series lead shrunk from 2-0 to 2-1.

Special teams bit the Canes, as Boston scored two goals on the power play and one shorthanded while the Hurricanes went 0 for 5 with a man advantage.

Vincent Trocheck and Jaccob Slavin had the two goals for the Canes, who couldn’t get the win in Pyotr Kochetkov’s first NHL playoff start.

Following the loss, head coach Rod Brind’Amour and Slavin spoke with members of the media.

Here is what they had to say:

Note: It was nearly impossible to hear the in-person questions on the Zoom feed, so I’m not going to try and guess. Most of them you can figure out within the context of the answer.

Rod Brind’Amour

It was tough for us tonight, for sure. That was the difference in the game, obviously.

He was fine. You can’t blame him on any of the goals. Backdoor tap-ins and their big players ripping shots from pretty good areas. He was fine.

[Jordan] Martinook, I think that one is going to be questionable. He looked pretty rough in there. [Brendan Smith] will be fine.

They’re a good team, but we’re not executing very well. The second unit has been fine. They’re getting their chances and looks. But the top guys have to be better. It’s simple.

The 5-on-5 game has been good all year. It was solid. Tonight that was not the issue. Clearly we know what the issue was. We had a decent first period and then the power play gave up a shorty and they got some life out of it. Obviously we took some penalties. We did a heck of a job killing the 5-on-3, but if you give too many looks to these top guys, they are going to make you pay eventually. That’s what happened.

That’s tough, for sure. We did a nice job. We worked really hard. He ripped one home there right at the end. You can’t take a penalty when we have a penalty. You just can’t do that.

We’re going to have to change it because if he’s out, that’s for sure. Other than that, I don’t know. Our D was solid. They played great. Smith was great tonight. We’ll see. We’ll reassess and see.

Jaccob Slavin

No, we knew they were going to be desperate. In the playoffs you have to be. The first game at home down 2-0, they’re going to come out strong. We knew that. We got away from our game a little bit. And obviously the special teams battle is what cost us the game.

You give a team so many power plays, they have one extra guy out there. Something is bound to happen. Obviously they have a good power play, too. We’ve got to make sure that we are staying disciplined and not taking certain penalties. At the same time, our power play has got to be better. We’ve got to make sure that is firing on all cylinders if we want to win the series. From both sides we can get more out of there and be better.

Yeah, he played great. He was solid back there. He plays the puck well. He’s super calm and collected. We could have given him a better effort in front of him.

Yeah, there’s some guys who don’t play the power play or penalty kill. For those guys, it’s really tough. Some guys play one but not the other. It is tough to get in a rhythm. We’re a team that likes to play 5-on-5, and our 5-on-5 game is really strong. We’ve just got to stay out of the box and let all four of our lines go. That’s where we have the most success.

I think our 5-on-5 game was good. We had chances, some of them just didn’t bounce our way. Our 5-on-5 game is strong. We’ve just got to stick with that.

Obviously that’s a huge goal for them. Our power play should be giving us momentum not taking it away and giving them momentum. Any time you get a big kill you get momentum, but especially if you get a goal on the kill you’re going to get a little bit more. It is what it is, but we’ve just got to be better there.

Any time you kill off a 5-on-3 you’re going to have a lot of momentum. It’s a huge kill. There were some big blocks. We battled hard on it. We did everything right. It’s just one of those things where you give a team so many opportunities to score with an extra man or two extra men, one is bound to go in.

No, I had no idea. I didn’t know if he had a heart attack or not at first. Once we saw them carry the glass off, we kind of put two and two together there. I hope he’s ok.

Obviously that’s the biggest one. Our 5-on-5 game is strong. We’re getting opportunities. We know how to play and play solid that way. We’ve just got to make sure we’re staying out of the box. When we do get a power play we’ve got to make sure that is better and execute on it.