It was a relief to get that one point and clinch a playoff spot. Even though this last stretch was a bad one, the biggest stretch of the year is coming up in three weeks. |
It was hard for a while because a lot of people spent money, invested money and felt like they got cheated a bit. Now they felt like they should give those guys (in ownership) a chance, and it has paid off. The more people that are there, the more exciting it is, the harder the team wants to work, the more the front office wants to create a good situation for the city, for the fans. So it's like a big wheel, and it makes a big difference. |
It was rock bottom. It couldn't get any worse than that. |
Our main objective as a group was to respond to any adversity that we faced all year. That's where I think our major accomplishment was, we battled injuries, we battled people putting us down, we battled a dry spell a few weeks ago. So it may have surprised other people but we knew in our dressing room that we had character, leadership - a lot more maturity than we had two, three seasons ago. |
Sanderson's got a quick release, a quick shot. When he came in, he went to his forehand. I exploded over there. He shot it about an inch over my pad, a good move. He's got quick hands, a lot of speed. |
That's never happened, to be honest with you. When that happens, you work twice as hard because you want to keep it up and give them more to cheer at. |
There's not a whole lot of coaches that can say they've got 300 wins. That's definitely a big honor, especially in a season like this year where it's a 100-point season. It's big. That's big all around. |
They created the chances and created more opportunities and they got the goals. |
This is my job, and I'm going to camp to kick some butt, to stand on my head so that there's no confusion, ... I don't want anybody to look at this and wonder. |
We can't use that as an excuse. We're a much better team than what we showed. That's not the reason why the game went the way it did. We all know that and that's all that's got to be said for that. |
We didn't really use that as bulletin board material. We mentioned it once at the start of the year but we knew what we had. We wanted to use the new rule interpretations to our advantage and we did that. |
We played a very good road game for two periods. We were all over them. Marty made some big saves that kept them in the game. If we play like that on the road, defensively and crashing the net, we'll be OK. |
We really got going in the second half of the second period and in the third period, ... We got good scoring chances, we got the puck to the net, we got our speed going. I think more and more throughout the preseason you're going to see the new NHL, where they will pick up speed and not have those dull moments. |
We rotate a lot of players in those positions. The guys go out there 20, 25 seconds. The first time it's out of the zone we get a change, get some fresh legs. That allows us to get a lot of pressure, and it's a controlled pressure. When one guys goes, the other three know how to respond. It's not a free-for-all, running around. |
You do have to play better. In the playoffs it's going to be a different game; you're only going to score two or three a game because teams are going to shut it down. Discipline will be at a different level, so you won't get as many power-play opportunities, so we have to be better. |