Postgame Media vs. PIT | Hagel, Raddysh, Cooper 🎥

Postgame Media vs. PIT | Hagel, Raddysh, Cooper 🎥

All right, Brandon, let’s start with that call there at the end. Did you get an explanation on the hand pass call? Yeah, I don’t know. Those are close. Uh try to protect myself when a rim comes around the boards. Um I guess maybe it nicked my glove. I don’t I don’t I don’t know what you consider a hand pass, but uh that’s besides the point. How about the third period though to be able to erase a three-goal deficit? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, um, listen, I think, uh, it’s bound to happen when you kind of change your game, and I take full responsibility of, uh, the turnover. Um, that leads to a goal in the second period. I think, uh, at the end of the day, if you’re going to give up give up that, the game could be completely different. Um, and that’s just kind of how it went. we had to fight back, give credit to the guys for fighting back, but at the end of the day, if you’re going to turn the puck over and give up easy goals, and um probably not bound to win. So, um I obviously take accountability for that uh I think throughout the year and um since we’ve been very consistent at uh doing the right things and um not getting frustrated when things don’t go go in early and um obviously that’s not the recipe to win. Um, I know that and I have to be better. So, how how proud are you the way that you responded to that? Yeah, I may be up here for the good things, but at the end of the day, I probably costed our team a a win. Um, like I said, the game could go. Um, completely different. If that doesn’t happen, you never know. Obviously, I can sit there and look back at it. I’m going to move forward and wake up in the morning, the sun’s going to come out. Um, but at the end of the day, um, that’s what win and loses your games. Um coming back from a three nothing lead is not not easy and you don’t want to be doing that every night. Good for us for doing it. Um obviously fell up short at the at the end but uh um yeah. So how do you take what happened tonight and channel it into Saturday? Yeah, I think it’s just a good lesson. Um I think it’s a good lesson for myself. I think it’s a good lesson for the entire group that uh obviously listen to first period you zillion chances it’s not going your way. And um obviously I was trying to force something there that I probably didn’t need to force. So um I think it was a good lesson for the entire group. Um sucks it was me, but uh at the end of the day um everyone’s going to learn from it. We’re going to move forward and we’re going to get better from it. Darren, I know you can’t blame winner or loss on just one call, but did you guys receive any sort of explanation on that hand pass call there at the end? Uh no. You know, that’s that’s a call that was made and live with that. you know, we still had some time to score and we had our looks just in Glen. You guys were down three goals. What do you think of the way you came back from that? Yeah, you know, I liked our third period. We we were battling. We were, you know, playing in their end, making making it hard on them and, you know, we got rewarded and we battled back to to 3-3 and then, you know, they got one at the end, but uh yeah, I liked our third period. First period, you had so many chances and like really good quality chances on top of that. I mean, how hard is it not to get frustrated to be down one- nothing after that period? Uh yeah, you know, that’s it’s a little frustrating, but you know, that’s it’s the way hockey is sometimes. You’re not going to get those breaks, you’re not going to get the bounces, and you just got to stick with it and know stuff you’re doing is good and it’s the the right way you’re playing and, you know, hopefully uh it’ll go in and we saw that in third period. What was the conversation like after two periods in here? Uh just got to get back to the way they were playing. You know, we kind of got away from that in the second and they took advantage and like like I said, the third period was really fun. How do you take some of the lessons from this game and carry that into Saturday? Uh yeah, you know, you can watch the video and you can work on the things you got to do, but uh at the end of the day, it’s it’s all on all on us here and uh you just got to uh be ready for Saturday. Can you take us through the end there with the hand pass? It seemed like it was a little bit of confusion. What was your explanation there at the end? Cuz uh Well, again, so you have to I mean, I guess it there’s a couple things. Okay. Did he mean to do it or was it deflected? Um, did was there an advantage gained or not? And you could really debate whether an advantage was gained. Did Brandon Hegel direct that puck knowing exactly where it was going? No. Would you sit here today and say Brandon Hegel was maybe protecting his face from a puck hitting it or protecting some part of his body? If I threw this microphone at you right now, would you put your hand up to stop it? Hell yeah, you would. All right. So there’s a spirit of the rule. Was that the spirit of the rule from him taking it in the face? If that okay, let’s let me do that. And I think that’s where we get that wrong and that’s not what happened and he didn’t direct any pucks. Uh that was a bang bang play. There were tons of guys around. It turned out we got it first. A lot of play a lot of the game developed after that and then the puck went in the net. So is that a really frustrating one for me? It is. Uh, I think you read the real the rule book, which we did, and then you try and dissect what happened in the play and then you take it all into consideration, it’s laughable that that got overturned and uh but in the end it did. So, can’t cry over that. Bottom line is we shouldn’t put it in that situation anyway. So, that’s our bad that we got to that situation. Uh, but I I I think in the spirit of the rule, come on. That’s the goal all day. Is it more frustrating because it wasn’t called on the ice there? Well, there again, it’s like I don’t know. Things happen on the ice. The game is fast. Refs get most of it right. Um, none of them thought it was a hand pass. There’s four of them. So, um, you know, it’s it’s the evils of of video replay. You know, now there’s eyes on everything and camera angles and now it’s judgment calls. And in the judgment of everybody playing the game, that was not a hand pass. In the judgment of somebody judging in another city that it was deemed to be video, somebody that’s not even in Florida is making that call. That can be a little bit frustrating. John, you don’t like to bench guys too often, but you did with Brandon. How did you like the way he responded to it in the third? Well, come on. That’s what you want to see. I I think Haggs, I don’t have no idea if he spoke to the media or not, but I’m pretty sure he would accepted some a lot of responsibility for what where the game started. And he should get all the credit in the world for how the game nearly ended. And um it’s as a coach, I mean, you don’t want to do that to your guys. him been here a long time and I’ve coached him in multiple different teams and he’s a gamer and then you that’s a challenge to a player and it was accepted and he would be the first one to tell you was there a couple plays in that game he’d like to have back there’s no question um but I mean I would have if I could have 20 Brandon Hegels on my team I would take them but sometimes your Kids have to be disciplined. Doesn’t mean they don’t love you.

Brandon Hagel, Darren Raddysh & Jon Cooper speak to the media following a 4-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on December 4, 2025.

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