Any time you go through two games as we have and against two very good opponents, and we get goaltending like we did, it's huge. It's always a confidence builder, and even more so when you have a young team. |
Everyone, from our goaltender on out, played hard tonight. It was a big difference from the other night. Tonight, we played like we had been playing prior to Tuesday, when we dropped off a bit. |
He's a heart and soul guy and when you have a team that is perhaps lacking some experience at the national level, which obviously we are, you need a real strong character and real strong person mentally that's totally committed to the way we want to play. He's probably a huge reflection of myself. |
He's fine. He's Steve Downie. |
He's played on two world junior teams already, ... I certainly would expect if Sidney Crosby was here at Christmas we would be bringing him on our hockey team. |
I am doing what I am doing for this year and I will worry about whatever happens later on. I don't want to get caught up in that. |
I am not going to get into comparing one team to the other. I said from Day 1 this team will form its own identity and it will be good within itself. I think the kids have stuck on the program. |
I have to disagree with the Russian coach. We would not have changed our game plan if the Russians had scored one goal. |
I haven't seen anything that's surprised me, ... I saw him a lot before we drafted him. He's an impressive young man and an impressive young player. He's got a long way to go, but he's going to play in the NHL for a long time one day. |
I just like his mindset, his attitude. Nothing seems to bother him and he's a got a little strut that goes with it. |
I knew that our level of play would get up to where it needed to be. I felt comfortable with it. |
I look at it as the most disappointing year in 23 years [of] being paid, ... To not make the playoffs is disgusting and embarrassing to me, and obviously [changing that] is my goal. |
I might be a stuck record on that, but our only focus right now, is to get ourselves ready for [today]. We'll worry about the second game when it comes. |
I never questioned that he'd do it. I'd seen him so many times this year do it and Justin was the guy everybody fed off. |
I never questioned whether we could score enough goals or not. My biggest thing from the get-go was: Can we be a solid enough team defensively to shut down our opposition? |