'I Honestly Didn't Know What I Was Watching': Jordan Staal, Andrei Svechnikov, Rod Brind'Amour On Season Opener Loss

ryan henkel

Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 10:41 p.m.·6 min read

The Carolina Hurricanes lost 4-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning Friday night at Lenovo Center in their season opener.

After Jordan Staal scored the opening goal, the Lightning proceeded to grab the next four as their special teams dominated the Canes.

After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Staal and Andrei Svechnikov spoke with the media. Here's what they had to say:

Rod Brind'Amour

On the Lightning: Well, we've seen that for years. We got Kucherov'd tonight, but it was more than that. We were not good and I thought they played a great game. They shut us down, didn't give us a lot of room and we weren't willing to work hard enough to get our opportunities. It was a game going into the third and we hadn't given up an even strength goal, but we had given up a lot of almosts. Way more than we should've and we created nothing. It was a tough night.

On Jordan Staal's line: His line was good. Let's be clear. His line was good. You can read into the rest then.

On the team playing too fancy: There was turnovers all over the place. They're a good team. They know how to win. They were tight on us and you can't be fancy in certain areas. I honestly didn't know what I was watching for most of that game because that was just uncharacteristic. We'll learn from this.

On having to sit on this loss until Tuesday due to the postponed game: There's nothing you can do about that. That's bigger life stuff. Probably lucky that we're not playing them right now because we'd probably get the same thing being honest with you. So maybe we need a couple more days.

On Frederik Andersen: He played good. I thought he was good. We did have the plan going in that we were going to play each a game and obviously that got derailed a little, but that didn't change how we were going to do that part of it.

On the power play struggles: It was no good either. You can go in with a game plan... and again, I give them credit. They did a nice job. We had a couple looks and didn't execute very well. That's really what the game came down to was special teams. Obviously they executed and did exactly what they wanted to do. We didn't execute on the penalty kill either. Let's be clear. That was two gaffes that we just blew and you can't do that with a team like that.

On Will Carrier: He was good, obviously. Impactful. That line, they were all good. That was really, I thought, the one line that was doing things the right way. Not unsurprising. We'll turn the page. I know this group will get to the game we want to play, just sometimes you take it on the chin and you realize that you can't do it that way.

On Andrei Svechnikov: He had a couple of nice rushes, that's for sure and that's what he can do, but we need more than flash. It's gotta be more consistent play out of all those guys.

On Jackson Blake: I don't know. He only got 10 minutes of ice time which is not terrible, but I would have liked to have gotten them out there a little more. Probably should have. But I thought he did fine.

Jordan Staal

On the start of the game: We were okay. We had a couple of good shifts. It was pretty sporadic though. I think in all, the whole game wasn't great. You could look at special teams, but even our 5v5 play was pretty gross really. A lot of turnovers, a lot of trying to mosey on through the neutral zone when there's nothing there. We weren't really ready to embrace the grind and go much it up down low in their end.

On coming out better in the next game: I hope so. I hope to a man, including myself, we'll be better. That's the game, right? It's always about the next day, the next moment, but obviously we have to learn from how flat we were today and the mistakes we made. We'll have to get better and carry it to the next one.

On special teams: They have a great power play and we weren't ready as a PK unit. Mistakes and they make you pay pretty quick. In a game like that, it just takes one mistake and our PK could have been a lot better and that's from me all the way through. I'm sure the power play would like to get going too. It could have been a better ending.

On the team finding their game: We're going to have to. I mean, the new guys were great, it was really all the guys that have been here forever. It just seemed like they weren't really willing to just go play in their end and just grind it out. Get some hits and just muck it up a little bit. They were really, really fancy. With that ice and everything, it just wasn't that kind of game. They did a great job of being on top of us, but we really didn't give ourselves a good chance to really grind them down.

Andrei Svechnikov

On the game: Definitely not the result we wanted. It was kind of a pretty good start, I thought, but after we just kind of didn't play our way and didn't play the system we wanted to. We're going to bounce back. Looking forward to the next game.

On the team needing to finish their chances: Yeah, I mean, we had a few chances, for sure, and definitely myself as well. I had a good couple of chances just didn't score. It happens sometimes, but like I said, we're going to bounce back.

On the power play struggles: We've been practicing for a month, it just wasn't there I guess tonight. We have to watch the video and check out what's going on there and just, I guess, we have to have the shooting mentality.

On facing off against Andrei Vasilevskiy in net: No pressure from that, to be honest, but obviously he's the best goalie out there. It's always hard to play against him but we had our chances, we just have to score them.

On what it will take for the team to find their game: To be honest, just staying focused. We know what we have to do. To be honest, the old guys and me as well, kind of didn't do the system our way. We have to follow it and just go out there and do our best.

On having to sit on the loss: It's kind of hard to play back-to-back first games, but obviously after that kind of game, we kind of want to play as fast as we can and forget about this game.

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