They Said It: Brind’Amour, Pesce, Trocheck, Raanta on Game 4 loss

The Carolina Hurricanes dropped game four to the Boston Bruins by a final score of 5-2 at TD Garden in Boston on Sunday.

It was a disheartening loss that evened the first-round series at two games apiece.

Rod Brind’Amour, Brett Pesce, Vincent Trocheck, and Antti Raanta spoke to the media after the game. Here’s what they had to say.

*Note: The in-person questions can’t be heard on the Zoom feed, so we’ll include just the answers for these games in Boston.

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Rod Brind’Amour

I would've bet my life on that. It’s tough. It’s in between his pads loose. The guy came from the side, pushes his pad, squirts the puck out, and taps it in. It’s a little different if the guy comes from the front and plays the puck. You can’t play the puck when it’s in between his legs from the side and knock the goalie sideways. If you can, then I don’t know how Niederreiter’s goal isn’t a goal in the first game when they said it’s 100% not a goal. It’s frustrating because it almost feels like we're living this again from four years ago when we had an issue. I’m not going to go into it, but it’s tough. They’re too good a team to just give them goals. We have no chance if that’s going to happen.

The rest of the penalties are real penalties. We took too many. It felt like the whole game we were shorthanded. Those top guys, they’re as elite as they come. You just can’t give them those looks.

We had a good game going. We’re up 1-0, and then unfortunately we had a slip-up with one of their best players. On the first goal, it’s loose coverage for no reason. Now the game’s different, Then, what happened in the second happened. It starts over now. We just regroup. We should have a little emotion right now. It should hurt. It should bother you. Tomorrow, you start fresh and you’re excited that you have another game to play.

They’re the type of player that, if you give them that little bit of room, they make you pay. You’re kind of with your guy, but you have to be right with them. Otherwise, they can put it in the back of your net. You gotta tip your hat to those guys. Other stuff, we have to be better at.

We really had two power plays tonight. I know they’re going to say we had five, no we didn’t. We had two power plays. We had one for two seconds and one for six seconds. Another was for 40 coming off a kill. That doesn’t count. We had two power plays. We have to be better, but I thought we generated a couple of looks. We’ll keep going at it, but that’s really all we had tonight.

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Brett Pesce

I don’t know. Everyone has their own opinions. The refs looked it over and made a call. It is what it is. We’ll move on.

Yup. It’s frustrating, for sure. But like I said, the refs reviewed it. They do a good job. They’re in the NHL for a reason. They made the call, and it is what it is. We’ll move on.

Myself included, our penalty kill needs to do a little better job. We could be a little more disciplined, but it is what it is.

Yeah, we like our 5-on-5 game right now. We know we need to stay out of the box. We’ll learn from it, and on to the next one.

It felt good. Not as good as I’d like to after the game.

Jordan [Staal], what a pass. It fell right on to my stick, actually. I just tried to get it to the net, and thankfully it went in.

I don’t know. It’s playoffs. Emotions are running high. Some of them we obviously don’t mean to. It’s some high sticks. It’s something unfortunate that happens. It just so happens we took a few like that in the game. Look at game one, they took all the penalties, right? I think it all evens out at the end. It’s ultimately going to come down to our 5-on-5 play, which I’ve liked. So, we need to stick to that.

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Vincent Trocheck

They’re a good team, right. We’re both fighting for a Stanley Cup. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We didn’t come in here thinking that they were going to roll over and let us win the next two games. Obviously we’d like to stay out of the box, but it is what it is. It’s a tough game. They’re a good team. Luckily it’s a seven-game series. It’s 0-0 now, so best of three. We’ve got a good chance to go home and make it 1-0.

We know we’ve got to be better on special teams, both the power play and the penalty kill. But at the end of the day it’s game four. We lost two in a row. And like I said, we’ve got a chance to go home and make it 1-0 in a three-game series at home.

Be more disciplined. Stay out of the box. And our power play has to better. We’ve been saying it all along that it’s time that we start scoring on the power play. Their power play gets chances and they put it in the net. That’s kind of been the difference these last two games.

Equipment.

I don’t know if their energy was any lower in games one and two, I think we just played better in games one and two. I think the penalty kill and power play have had a ton to do with it. We obviously took too many penalties these last two games. When we were at home they took a few too many and our power play was able to capitalize. It’s a matter of us being more disciplined, I guess. But those guys are really good hockey players. They’ve been doing it a long time. They are veteran guys who have won Stanley Cups. They know what it takes. Obviously we’ve got to make sure that we are limiting them, but they’re going to get their chances and score their goals. We’ve just got to be a little more disciplined.

I don’t know. Maybe a little bit, but once you are out on the ice you aren’t thinking about the crowd at all.

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Antti Raanta

Like you saw, it was a good goal. I didn’t have it covered. I just felt like if you can take the goalie out of his balance and then score, it should be a goalie interference. But I had a good conversation with the ref, and it is what it is. It’s just one of those where you have to regroup and get back to work. It’s obviously frustrating, and I could have probably played it a little bit differently. It happens, and that’s hockey.

I’ve just been trying to get back on the ice and feeling good on the ice and get all the stuff that’s been working working. I had a good skate Friday and yesterday. I felt good to go today. That’s kind of what it’s been the last couple of days.

It’s tough. It happens so quickly. When the goalie goes to play the puck, there might be a chance to get a little contact with players. I was just trying to get the puck out of our zone. It was a little hidden. That’s what it is. It’s also hockey. I wouldn’t think that Pastrnak is one of those guys who tries to go at goalies or go at them on purpose. I think it’s just a hockey play, and sometimes collisions happen.

I think we just have to stay out of the box. If we take that many penalties like the last couple games, that’s been pretty much the game. We lost the special team game. I think 5-on-5 we’ve been playing good. We’ve got to stay out of the box. I think if we can get a little more action at their net and get shots in and go for rebounds. Obviously I can be better than today. There were a couple goals where you could do something differently and maybe stop the puck. I think overall we can just be better all over the place.

No, I don’t feel like that. Like I said, I feel like the special teams has been the biggest thing in the last couple games. Two 5-on-3s today. We killed the first one. Then going to the third period you have a minute left and a four-minute period there also. It just takes a lot out of guys who are killing penalties. Even if you can kill the penalties, you will struggle to get back to the 5-on-5 game and getting pucks deep. You’re going to be a little bit tired. I think if we can just stay out of the box. It’s what everybody is saying, but it’s playoffs. That’s how the games are decided. Even if you can kill the penalties, it takes something out of you. That’s going to be the biggest thing. We know how we need to play. Now it’s a little bit of regroup and recovery and getting back home and ready for Tuesday.