Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour speaks to the media following the team’s 5-2 loss to the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.
Questions for Rod left side front row. Rod, you got the, the goal late in the 1st to kind of reset things a little bit. Did you feel like, I don’t know if composure is the right word, but after they score that third goal, uh, things kind of unwound a little bit. I didn’t really see it like that. I mean, I thought, um. You only got the two power play goals. I think that’s really the difference in the game. I think the, you know, you gotta kill those you gotta give them credit. I mean they get a chance. It’s in the net, you know, like that’s really what happened there. That was a great shot on the first one and then the second one was off the post and then I mean they’re. They’re, I mean they play a heavy hard game and but they can score and that’s what we have to, can’t give them like it was kind of two bad penalties we took really that we don’t need to take that they end up scoring on so we gotta eliminate that and then I, you know, take a couple off the board there maybe and then the games maybe a little different, but I didn’t hate our game tonight, um. It’s gonna be hard like it’s gonna go back and forth and. I think we had opportunities, uh, early in the game too. We had a couple good opportunities didn’t capitalize and. And then, you know, went and went a different direction. Do you feel like at all that maybe playoff intensity has been getting a little bit to Jackson Blake? I mean, it seems like a 5 on 5 he’s had some kind of struggles getting into those open areas. Well, it’s everyone has tough in this series. He’s battling score a nice goal. I mean, he right to the end, um. You know, that’s that’s a learning experience for him for sure. Right. Rod a couple of redirects, one for Stankov and one for Jarvis. They don’t go, uh, tips that, that don’t go, uh, I want a break away. You talk about slim margins is, you know, does this team, you just have to finish more games. You gotta finish. They’re too good a team to, they’re gonna get theirs. I don’t, it’s just, like I said, they got, they, they got some real good high-end scorers, and, um, so when you get your opportunities, they may not be many. I didn’t look at the scoring chances yet. I mean, I know we had a few. We, we gotta, we gotta find a way to put it by him. I mean, that’s, it’s not really a secret here. Um, that’s, that’s what we gotta do. Left side up front Rod, it seemed like it was kind of a tough night for Scott. and that’s that’s obviously you talked about Nake and it’s tough to throw him in this is another one that’s tough to throw a rookie. I mean it was tough spot to throw him in. I mean, that’s, you know, injuries, like I said, I’ve said it for over and over and you lose key players. It’s, it’s hard to win, especially at this time of year because there’s always, you know, uh, you’re throwing in someone that hasn’t had that experience or you don’t count on as much and you’re putting them in a tough spot, um. You know that’s that’s part of the game. Second row medal on that note, Rod, based on what you saw today with Chatfield, did you expect him to go back in for game two? I don’t know. I can’t even tell you, you know, he, I know he wants to play, but if he’s not healthy enough, he can’t do it. Dan, in the, in the first half of this game, at least it looked like they were getting a little bit more clean exits through the middle of the ice at times, not every time, but certainly at times. Was that them just doing a good job of relieving the pressure that you were trying to played a great game, yeah, tip your hat, but we, we created a bunch of turnovers and had a couple almost. I mean, it’s. That’s the game. They’re doing it too. They’re trying to for check us. They probably put more pucks in than we did tonight and they put more stress on us than we did on them. And that’s, um, that’s how they play it. That’s why they’re, you know, they’re the best and we’re, we’re trying to beat it. Take a couple more for coach right side 3rd round coach, did you get an explanation on the uh penalty and obviously in the first period didn’t look very happy, at least I mean that’s gonna happen. It’s, you know, it’s the wrong call. I mean at least should have been 50/50 there. You can’t take a cross check to the face and then not call that and call and that leads to a first goal, right? So that that’s gonna happen. They’re gonna miss stuff, um. You know, it’s unfortunate because that ends up being in the net puts us kind of behind the eight ball. You talked about missing Chatfield. I don’t think that the pairings have been bad necessarily, but how much does that throw you out of sync having to put guys to you kept three pairings top 4D, man. It logs a lot of minutes that we don’t have the replacement for. So that’s, you know, that’s gonna, it’s gonna hurt and we’re a lot like you said, other guys are having to do a little more than they, you know, would, we wouldn’t normally like them to do.