Yahoo Sports 'To A Man, It's Not Good Enough': Jaccob Slavin, Rod Brind'Amour On Loss In Buffalo
The Carolina Hurricanes mustered about 15 minutes of good hockey Wednesday night and it showed in the teams 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
The Canes trailed 3-0 before scoring two third-period goals to make it look a bit closer, but the end result was yet another bad loss for the team.
After the game, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour along with Jaccob Slavin spoke with the media (Walt Ruff) in Buffalo. Here's what they had to say:
Rod Brind'Amour
On the game: It wasn't good. We essentially just gave goals away, again. The first one can't go in, but we were loose on our gap then a turnover with no pressure on us, we just turn it over, and then with six seconds left we don't line up right on a faceoff win and it's in our net. We just made poor decisions tonight and you can't do that in this league.
On if he felt his team generated enough offensively in the first two periods: There were plenty of good opportunities. Their goalie played really well and made a lot of really nice saves. It should have been a tight game going into the third, not down three. Now it's essentially game over and they're just hanging back and they don't need to put any pressure on us. It's tough. That's not how we need to play, that's for sure.
On if he felt the team played better in the third period: Yeah, but it's irrelevant because, like I said, they're just in cruise control. The urgency needs to be there right from the get-go and it wasn't.
On where he feels the inconsistencies with the team have primarily been: Unfortunately, it's been different things. Tonight, I thought our D weren't very good. Usually that's our strength, but that wasn't good enough. The way they were handling the puck. It seems to be one thing one night and another the next. We do need to be better and that's just it. At the end of the day, the urgency needs to be more dialed in from the start of the game.
Jaccob Slavin
On what the team could have done differently: We could have just played good hockey. It wasn't a good start and those first 40 minutes were just ugly hockey. It's just not good enough.
On what specifically: Just harder plays. Us as a D corp, we weren't great at breaking pucks out. Too many soft plays. On that second goal, I had one that led to it, a soft play. It's just being harder with the puck, making better puck decisions and breaking the puck out with ease.
On if he felt tonight was an uncharacteristic performance from the group: Typically I would say yes, but it's kind of been leaking in for the past month and a half. So it's not good enough and we have to be better.
On if the last month and half have been surprising for him: Yeah, it's definitely surprising. We're known as a team that competes every night and consistently we have a chance to win every night, but lately, I feel like we haven't had chances to win every night. We're not helping ourselves when we play like that and again, it's not good enough as a group. To a man, it's not good enough and so we can all be better.
On his goal: Just getting pucks to the net. Lucky bounce.
