Crawford on Ottawa, Kings

Here's Marc Crawford on Ottawa, which is second in the Northeast Division but has gone 3-5-2 in its last 10 games. Of course, the Kings are in a similar slide with a 2-6-2 record over the last 10 games and five consecutive losses. His comments on Ottawa were brief, as he quickly turned his focus toward the Kings and how much they need a win.

``In their mind, they’re the team most people picked to win the East at the start of the year. They struggled a little bit and at Christmas, made the coaching change. I think they’re a team that’s sorting through some issues right now. That’s of little concern to us. We’ve got to find a way to sort through our own issues. We played decent hockey as of late, but we haven’t gotten any victories. This game is about finding a way, at the end of the day, to get your team a victory. We’ll have to be at our best tonight to beat a very determined Ottawa team. They’ve come out West and lost to Anaheim, lost in overtime to San Jose, so you know they’ll be quite an ornery bunch. For our guys, (it’s about) recognizing they’re playing against the top Canadian team and recognition that comes from playing against top teams, that’s some of the motivation. We talked yesterday about the amount of chances we give teams off the rush, that’s going to be one of the things we concentrate on for tonight.’’