They're a quick team, but I told him that the puck moves faster than they can skate. He's a very, very good passer and sees the ice very well. |
This game had a lot of similarities to our whole year. It was a young team coming off a big win over a good team [a 3-2 overtime victory Friday at Detroit], then a letdown. In a game like this, your best players have to be your best players, and tonight they weren't. |
This is a player who missed a lot of hockey the last couple of years. To think that he can come back like Superman and save the day, we're not thinking like that at all. We want him consistently healthy, where he can come to the rink without feeling any pain. |
This isn't a development league. I spent five years developing players. The NHL is to perform. It's not about holding hands and skipping rope. Now, we can give [our young players] experience, but time to develop? No. They've had their development time. |
This might have been the best display of goaltending on both sides that I've seen this season. It was a little like a playoff game with the saves they were making. |
Throughout training camp, they've been our most consistent defensemen. Barker, he's coming out of junior. I'd like to see him elevate his assertiveness. He does everything at one speed, and I think he's finding, as more and more of the regulars are playing, he's caught in between sometimes. |
Until they scored their third and fourth goals, we had the majority of the chances. We just didn't finish off our chances, and they did finish theirs. |
Waivers make it more difficult. No manager wants to lose a player for nothing. To lose a player after you've invested all this time and money in him is like cutting your nose off to spite your face. |
We abandoned what was working in the first period, and that was shooting the puck. We wanted to pass the puck into the net. In the first period we shot the puck and went to the net. |
We abandoned what we did in the first period. That's when we shot and went to the net. After that, we started looking for the pretty play, and the pretty play wasn't there. |
We abandoned what worked in the first period. We wanted to pass the puck into the net, not shoot it. It goes back to very simple hockey. Pucks to the net create excitement for everybody. |
We deserved our share [of penalties], no question. We put the game in the hands of the officials. When you do that you'll probably wind up on the short end -- especially when you're a team that's not playoff-bound. |
We don't want him too fatigued, so I'll monitor it with him. |
We generated some momentum. It was much better progress than the other night. |
We had our chances. Their goalie played very well. If he had just an average night, it's probably a different game. |