March 1 postgame quotes: Carolina

Eric Staal, on the game:
It was a mans game. It was a physical, competitive game. I liked the way we played. We didn’t get the result we wanted – needed and that’s difficult, but we competed. It was a 1-1 game, they scored on the power play. Quick made a lot of good saves. Didn’t win one, we have to rebound and play again tomorrow.

Staal, on the Hurricanes’ lack of scoring:
Well, tonight’s a tough game. It was a tough point and LA doesn’t give up a lot. They’re strong, they’re big, and we knew that. We accepted that. We were okay with that. I thought we competed head-to-head fine, and then a bounce there, get one by Quick and we’re up by two and I think it stays just the same. Just tonight, we weren’t able to get one by him.

Staal, on taking penalties:
Against any team, you don’t want to be in the penalty box as much as we were. We continued to fight and compete and I thought we did a good job, for the most part, battling and keeping pucks to the outside. And then they get one bounce up the middle and they get a break, but sometimes that’s the way it’s called.

Riley Nash, on competing on the penalty kill:
I thought ours were penalties, but I thought we could’ve got a couple more calls going our way – not like that was the reason that we lost the game. But it’s never easy to kill a bunch of penalties and have a ton of energy left.

Kirk Muller, on Alexander Semin’s injury:
It’s a lower body, so he was a question mark tonight. So we’ll kind of just discuss it tomorrow, see if we can get him in the lineup at tomorrow’s game.

Muller, on the amount of penalties his club took:
That’s pretty much the difference in the game. I thought our guys played hard, but you’re going to give six or seven power plays to the other team – eventually it’s going to hurt you. That was a big goal that they scored finally. Two things, we didn’t stay out of the box and it cost us, and we didn’t capitalize when we had some good scoring chances. We didn’t have a lot, but the ones we did – we’re just not capitalizing.

Muller, on the game:
They’re a good hockey team. They’re one of the elite teams and I thought we played head-to-head with them. Like I said, we haven’t played with a lead since we started this after the Olympics break. But the way we’re playing, if we can get that one win I think it would be mentally a big lift for the guys. I think we can get on a roll again. It’s not going to be easy. We have to go right back at it again tomorrow and play another strong game.

Muller, on getting bodies in front of the goaltender:
We’re harping on it. Give LA credit, that’s what they do well. They’ve got a big defense. We didn’t get any real second, third rebounds. You look at the goals being scored now, it’s this part of the season and you have to really get in that area and generate and score. We have to keep harping on it. We have to find ways to get some ugly goals because it costs us when we don’t.

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