Craig MacTavish Quotes

"It's a huge cop-out to talk about a goalie when you only score two goals. Playing goal for our team, the way we're putting the puck in the net lately, is very difficult."

"You hate to have the whole season riding on something like that. But welcome to the new NHL. That's got to be a record for the amount of shooters."

"It was a great opportunity for us. We knew what this one meant. If we won it would effectively be a five team race."

"Hockey moulds and reveals character. The root of it is really built into the character of the person."

"(The loss is) hard to slough off. It's going to linger for a while. Given any other circumstances, this would be a game we could quickly get over and start focusing on San Jose Friday. It was one of those games where we deserved better."

"It's a different standard with those two. It seems like you get credited for having the courage to call everything."

"We haven't had too many trips this year below .500. Three points out of four games isn't a total disaster."

"Even a guy with as much experience as Dwayne, it takes a while to get comfortable. You get out of your routine. Having been traded at about the same age as he is now, I know it's a little unsettling."

"He gives us experience. He can play center, he can play the wing and he's a penalty killer."

"It's another example that you have to take care of every aspect of our game. Otherwise it ends up being a loss."

"You have to give them credit for their ability to check and they knocked us off the puck and they turned over a lot of pucks. But at the same time we were turning the pucks over and it just seems like we never settled into our game even from the outset we didn't settle into out game. But I think you give them credit for giving us a little bit of a lesson."

"I like an even-keel team, a team that doesn't get seduced by any success you have or disabled by any of your disappointments along the way."

"(Chris) Chelios got a couple penalties in the second period, but there's no question that they willed the influence over the officials. Part of that is the inexperience. I'm not saying we didn't deserve a number of those penalties, but there were a number that I thought were poor calls."

"We have to play a much more intelligent game then what we played the last three games. We've been sloppy for three straight games now and you can't hope to win at this level making those types of mistakes."

"We had lots of opportunities to win the game ourselves."

"We've got to answer back and it's in a much tougher building now. It's well documented how important these games are for both teams. We've got to bounce back."

"There are a lot of teams looking for one more save a night. We're one of them."

"The guys are starting to play well in front of him, and we're getting the consistent performance we were looking for from the position."

"I think it lends a sense of perspective for both guys because they've been all over the place to get here."

"That just confirms my philosophy that the less you want something, the more likelihood of it occurring. This was a game that we really didn't care all that much about, so automatic win."