Right now, every game's a big game. It doesn't matter who you're playing. When you're in a playoff race, it doesn't matter if you're playing the best team or the worst team. Every point counts. |
Say what you want about (goals) three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine, but the first two killed us. Once again, you look up and it's 14 minutes to go in the first period and we've dug a hole. Nothing went right for us and everything went right for them, but at the same time they created nine goals. They played hard. We have to stand up to that better. |
Terry called me, and I thought it was a great gesture on his part. We're rivals, but this is bigger than that. This is good for the league, and I think that's the big picture tonight. |
That tells you how good of a goalie he is. It's going to give him some confidence. Whether he just practices for a few days, it's good. |
That's the toughest loss I've ever had. I'm kind of dumbfounded considering they're the team that played last night. You get a goal a minute into the third and … they're doing it their way and they're losing. It's not everybody, but when we play our game plan, we're successful. We're making mistakes on little things that are turning around for goals for them. |
The last four or five weeks have been our most consistent, and they should have been. |
The way I look at it right now is, these two kids get to compete. Both of these goalies can play in the league. I've been impressed with both of them. |
These next nine or 10 days, we're going to find out what we're made of. |
These two games were probably a lot bigger than even the guys realize. These were pretty big games. I don't think we played as well as we can play, but we did what we had to do to win. I thought our goaltending was very sharp when it had to be, and our specialty teams won (Saturday's) game for us. |
They played well, but all three lines did. We cut down our mistakes line after line. Tonight was the result of good teamwork. Last night it was Phillips' line. It doesn't matter what line scores the goals. When you play like that, it's going to be different players every night. |
Tonight, I think that was as important a learning lesson as well as a win to show the guys here that if they stick with it, what they can accomplish. |
We finished our checks and we played well and we stuck with it, through good shifts and bad shifts. |
We haven't accomplished anything yet. (Today's) an even bigger game because it's a game in hand we have with Austin. We have to go out with the same intensity, the same mindset. |
We're happy to be back in. A year ago, a lot of people probably didn't know if we could be here. Look at what these players have done. We went from 19 wins to 33, and I think we regained a lot of respect that we lost last year, too. These 18 guys that are here right now have done a hell of a job. |
We're in a playoff race. There's no time to put your head down and pout. We've got to get ready to get back at it (today). |