They Said It…
Rod Brind’Amour on things clicking for the Canes on Friday…
“[At first,] I thought ‘holy moly,’ we were having a real nice game and their goalie was playing out of his mind, really. Three or four breakaways, I think he stopped. But what I liked was that we didn’t change our game. Even when they tied it up, it was like ‘Really?’ And then, nope, we just kept playing. Maybe it’s been a long time coming against this team; we just never seem to break through with goals, and tonight, we finally did.”
Nikolaj Ehlers on what it means to break through against the Panthers…
“I mean, the last two games against them were… We actually played really well for 40 minutes, and weren’t able to finish it off. Tonight, it was 1-1 for too long. We had the chances, and the way that we played, I thought we played unreal. But the goals came because we kept on doing the right things. Of course, to be able to win this game tonight after— for me, the last two games, but maybe for the team, maybe a little bit longer — felt great, and you could feel that in this room.”
Rod Brind’Amour on Sean Walker’s big hit in the second period and the importance of scoring on the power play afterward…
“That part might have been the turning point of the game because it was a good, hard, clean hit, and (the Panthers) come in and do what they’re going to do. We’ve got to capitalize on that power play when that happens, and we did. I think that’s kind of where the game might have turned in our favor.”
Nikolaj Ehlers on the success of the power play…
“We played direct. We wanted to get the puck to the net, and were able to get the rebounds again and capitalize off that. I think, when you just pass it around, pass it around and then maybe shoot it, and then you do another pass, you don’t really get the [penalty-killers’] box running around too much. When you’re able to get pucks to the net and get the rebound back, that’s when the box starts running, and that’s when the little things, the little holes open up to make the plays that we were able to do tonight.”
Nikolaj Ehlers on carrying the momentum into New Jersey tomorrow…
“Whether you win 2-1 or 9-1, it’s still just two points. We’ve given up too many points in the last little bit. We want to get back to playing the right way, which we did tonight, and not just doing it for one game at a time. We want to keep doing it… Now we know how we need to play to beat these good teams.”
