I feel better about where we're going because of the all-around effort and the game we played. It's the last game before the regular season but we wanted to respond with some good efforts and some good play. And I thought we did. |
I give our guys a lot of credit. They battled back to tie it up and took it to overtime to get a point there. |
I guess I thought that there might be more human element allowed. You know, where it (the penalty) occurred, whether it was near the puck, whether it had any effect on the play. But no, they're doing it the same way. That surprised me a little. |
I just said to the guys, 'When certain things end you've got to get back on the horse and start all over again. That's over with, that's a nice chapter. Let's do something now through the next 73 games. The next 73 games are as important as the first nine. |
I learned a lot about our character. We didn't back off. We didn't get off to the start we wanted. In the first period ... we took some undisciplined penalties and we didn't skate. But in the second and third periods we did skate and we played the way we have been playing and it showed in the final result. |
I never thought of taking Tomas out of the game. He needed to work through this in terms of conditioning. Tomas didn't see three of the goals they scored because our defensemen were screening him. We created the traffic in front of Tomas. |
I think everyone got out healthy. |
I think he could be a breakout player. |
I think he's going to be a tremendous asset for us. He plays with an edge and I think that the other guys see that, see how effective that is. It's positive reinforcement for a young guy. |
I think it was a combination of things. The Blues were deeper than we were and maybe a little tougher, and their power play was unbelievable. But in the last 18 months, the climate's changed a little bit. |
I think people probably sell him a little short on that end of the ice. He's got good skills, and he likes to jump up in the play. I could certainly see him on a second power-play unit. |
I think Scott has caught up with the train. When you miss a lot of games due to injuries, it forces you to catch up. He is a little old school. He has a good work ethic. He is all about the team. |
I think there's a lot more calmness in our group for two reasons. Making the playoffs for the first time two years ago and then playing a team like Detroit, who are sort of the New York Yankees of this decade, they are always in the mix. |
I thought both teams did a great job of respecting the rules. |
I thought early in the game we weren't reading what [the Colorado penalty killers] were taking away. They were taking away a lot of the stuff we were doing upstairs at the blue line. They were really nullifying us. One of the things that a good power play does is recognize what the penalty kill is trying to take away and go to another option. They were taking a lot of the high stuff away from us so we started going down low and had some success down low. That got us back in the game. The power play was huge. |