Wrapping up the stuff from last night, here are some quotes from Jonathan Quick, Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar and Terry Murray about the way the Kings played with poise last night. The Kings took three minor penalties in the first eight minutes of the third period, but cleaned it up after that. Kyle Quincey’s penalty — as part of the Niedermayer/Quick incident — was the Kings’ only penalty in the final 12 minutes, and the Kings did an outstanding job in the final 2-3 minutes of keeping the puck out of their zone. Here’s what was said after the game about the Kings’ poise under pressure…
QUICK: “It’s a road win. The team has been playing great on the road. We’ve played great at home. We just ran into a couple of hot goalies there that stole a couple of games. We are battling here. We’re battling for that (playoff spot).”
QUICK: “I think we handled (the pressure) pretty well. We came out with the win. We were up by a goal there with a couple of minutes left and I don’t think they got into our zone. We played great team defense and played great all game. It was a big win, a huge win.”
BROWN: “Obviously getting those two points was huge at this time of the year. It’s definitely a boost in morale. Having to battle back in those (last two) games and come up just short, it kind of took the wind out of our sails, but we were able to finish up strong here tonight, and it was a big win for this team.”
KOPITAR: “Before, I don’t know if we were really comfortable going into the third period with a one-goal lead. But we kept our composure. We got scored on, but we didn’t back off and we kept on going. We drew some penalties and we were able to capitalize on the power play.”
MURRAY: “It was poised at the start and I thought very poised in the last four minutes of the game. That was important for us to show that kind of start. The last three games have not gone the way we’d like in the beginning and there is desperation on both sides. We know that we have three games in hand and this puts us two points behind them with the win. We wanted to have a good start, making sure we were doing the right thing managing the puck. It was a heck of a game, it was hard, it was heavy, there were big hits, there was a lot of physical involvement. It was a fun game to be a part of.”
