February 27 postgame quotes: Anze Kopitar

On his game-winning goal:
“It was a little bit of a scrum on the half wall there. I just wanted to make sure I got loose just in case those guys got the puck. Coming our way, I wanted to make sure I was in a decent position to come back. Then, once I saw Kinger get the puck, I just kind of opened up. I knew I was by myself in front of the goalie, and I was able to put it in.”

On whether he was surprised to have that much space:
“It doesn’t happen too often, but I’ll definitely take it. I saw my guy going into the pile, and again, I just wanted to stay out of it and it worked out for me.”

On the team’s performance:
“There’s no secret to it that we didn’t have a very good start. Bernie came up huge for us right off the get go. In the second half of the game, I think, we picked it up a little bit. Maybe it was a little bit of a case of the game in Detroit where we outplayed them and didn’t get the result. Maybe that was the case tonight. But it doesn’t matter how they come, as long as the points at the end of the night are in our bank, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

On the importance of a win over Detroit, considering the last game between these teams:
“I think every win’s important, really. You don’t look back. You’ve got to look ahead. Going in, we felt confident because we knew we could…outplay them like we did in Detroit. Like I said, we didn’t have the best start, and Bernier was able to hang in there and keep us in the game. After that, it was kind of a wakeup call after the first. We’ve got to pick it up. We did, and we managed to pull through.”

On Jonathan Bernier’s performance:
“I don’t know if there’s much to say. You guys saw it out there. He kept us in [it] in the first. He was making some big saves. That goal was a little bit of a fluke, but he was making the saves he was supposed to, and that’s all you really want from your goaltender.”