Murray postgame quotes

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts…

(on the game…)
MURRAY: “The opportunity was there early in the game. We had a couple of power plays, we had some pretty good momentum there. We’re not scoring on the power play, but at least some things are starting to go on the offensive zone, and we take a too many men on the ice, and that was a tough one. Kills the momentum, I thought, and now they end up with a 5-on-3 coming out of that. It’s a tough situation to start off at home. That was just a disappointing part of it at the start.”

(on not being able to consistently put passes together at times…)
MURRAY: “Especially in the power-play situations. We’re just overlooking, trying to make one play too many. And when we’re shooting the puck, we’re trying to score from the outsides, from the tips. I think, in those situations, it’s more important that you get the puck on the net, and just make the goaltender make a stop. Usually there is going to be a rebound. You have people in place and now you’re generating something off those second and third opportunities. But as a result of pounding the puck, we’re missing the net. Several great looks, to me, that missed the net. A couple of open nets that we’re putting it over the top. We don’t have to be that fine. You just want to make the goaltender stop the puck and look for something else.”

(on the wide margin in shots on goal…)
MURRAY: “Territorially, in the second period we put up 20 shots. We had a great opportunity there to build off that momentum and I thought we followed through in the third period. It was good. Right now, we have to find a way to put the puck in the net. When you have that many opportunities and you’re not scoring, you start gripping the stick a little too hard.”

(on whether he prefers either San Jose or Vancouver in the first round…)
MURRAY: “No. I’m not watching the scoreboard right now. It’s just disappointing that we didn’t have the handle to take control of our own destiny here in the last couple games.”

(on how to improve the power play…)
MURRAY: “You’ve got to keep working at it. We’ve got a young group of guys, in general, as a group on both of those power-play looks. I think the process, especially up top, of doing the things we’re talking about is something you learn as you go through it. You’ve got to hit the net. You’ve got to shoot the puck faster. You’ve got to do a bunch of things there that are going to create some opportunities, and that comes with maturity. Whenever you start breaking down the penalty killing, you can look for those other options, through seam passes. Again, that’s experience. You see it with Anaheim. The goal they scored, those are veteran guys that make those plays. They’re showing the way. We’ve got to watch that closely and try to learn something from it.”