“I thought the difference in the game tonight was their third line was great and ours wasnt. It wasnt Nash or Vyborny or Fedorov or any of their highly skilled players that was the difference tonight. Their grinding line of Malhotra, Chimera and Fritsche was better than the lines we had playinig against them, and that quite simply was the difference in the game.”
“They got a great goaltending performance tonight. We know what that’s about. Jason’s played some games where he’s given us some outstanding performances and their guy gave them one tonight. We had six chances on the 5-on-3 and he was just a big guy in the net. Every once in a while you get a performance like that against you and all you can do is tip your hat.”
“We had lots of great opportunities. We scored the powerplay goal and the 5-on-3 we had a number of chances, then another flurry of chances in third period, and their goaltender stood tall. I’m not disappointed with our performance tonight. We looked at this as an opportunity. We didnt pass with flying colors by any stretch of the imagination but we worked and it wasnt to be tonight. We know we can be better, especially in the neutral zone, and we need to be better from our peop who have the responsibility of grinding it out as well.”
“Well, I think the point was we got to come out together and make sure we take care of our own zone. If you take care of your own zone, you’re going to have the puck in neutral zone and the ability to come up together. It’s always better when you can attack in numbers. You show your maturity when you recongize thats the way its got to be. You’re not going to score on every shift. You got to realize some shifts you got to play well on your own end, some shifts you got to dump it in and some shifts it will open up and the ice will be there for you. We’re still in the facet of our team where our guys are learning that. I Thought we were better in third period when we didnt turn the puck over.”
“I thought from the midway point of the game on we actually started getting a lot more forechecking pressure and had a lot more continuity in our play, but we spotted them three goals and in this league sometimes thats too much to overcome. It certainly was tonight.”
On LaBarbera: “I thought he was fine tonight. It was a situation where their goalie ended up being the best guy in the game, but Jason has been best guy in game for, what, four or five games for us. He didnt play poorly tonight. He played actually I thought quite well. They have some very good offensive players that tax your team. That grinding line was a taxing handful all night.”
“I know our guys are frustrated with the game tonight because they lost their streak, but now we got the opportunity to start a new one again on Friday and thats where we need focus our energies. We’ll take the good things from tonight and start anew.”
