We're going back to a building that's obviously going to be electric. I haven't played in Canada in the playoffs. It's going to be a lot of fun. |
We're professionals and we have to come to work and play the game. They had to sit through the same thing except they had to sit on the bench. |
What happened probably was wrong and we have to address it so it doesn't happen in the future but we can't go back and change time. |
When you don't win, obviously people are going to look and point fingers. Looking at the teams we had and looking at the teams Detroit had, there's a reason they were winning those Stanley Cups and we were losing to them. |
When you play six games in eight days, there's not a lot of time to practice and get that cohesiveness. If you look around at a lot of the countries, they are so familiar with each other and the ice. It's tough to make that adjustment in eight days. |
When you're taking control of a game, you lose a lot of momentum killing penalties. Granted, you can kill them off and you're good. |
Yeah, it does get old. And I'm sure it gets real old for the goalies. It just creates that much more for them, but that's the nature of the beast. Until you've proven yourself there are going to be those question marks, and hopefully this year is the year that they answer them. |
You can look at a number of things with Al. Obviously the accolades -- the Conn Smythe, the Norris Trophy, the Stanley Cup, renowned as the hardest shot in the league. But the leadership in the room. The way he approached the game. The way he carried himself. That was the biggest thing. |
You could kind of see after that first game how important he was. Taking the focus off of us and putting it on him, he awakened the team and let us go about our job. It'll be great having him there from a leadership perspective. |
You've got to face some adversity, hopefully, we've learned a lot from today's game. We've got to find our own identity and not look back to '02. |