March 3 practice quotes: Drew Doughty

On what worked against the team in Vancouver last night:
“I think a lot of times we were getting the puck in our own zone when we were going back and they were coming in on the forecheck, and we would get there first, and then we weren’t making that first play and they were creating those turnovers. Or we would create a turnover in our own zone, and then we would turn it back over to them again. That’s when they were pouncing on their opportunities and burying the puck. In our own zone we have to clean it up with and without the puck.”

On the sudden momentum change that allowed Vancouver to take the lead for good:
“We got that goal to tie it back up, and then I think they scored pretty much right after that. And then they got another one right after that as well. Right after that, you could feel the crowd was back on Vancouver’s side there, kind of giving them momentum. We’ve got to learn from things like that. Even though teams are going to get that goal right back on us and take the lead, we’ve just got to learn to battle through that and get it back. Momentum is huge in hockey. It’s one of the most key things. But even though other teams may have it, at some point we need to get it back.”

On the team’s ability to bounce back from adversity:
“I think we’re pretty good at it. We’ve dealt with a lot of adversity this whole year. We have every year. A lot of our leader have learned from it, and I think going into these next few games, we know what we did wrong and we know what our coaches would be expecting from us and what everyone’s going to be expecting from us, and that’s a couple wins, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

On whether Jonathan Quick is too hard on himself:
“I don’t think he’s too hard on himself. I think everyone’s pretty hard on themselves. That’s why we’re professional hockey players, because we realize the things we can do, and when we’re not doing them, we’re not happy with ourselves and we beat ourselves up about it. But no, Quickie can’t take the blame for that. Some of those goals were two-on-ones. They were shots that were going high. They were backdoor passes. Definitely don’t blame the game on Quickie. A lot of us defensemen need to help him out more and take away those opportunities and the forwards need to do a better job of not creating those turnovers and keeping the puck in their zone more than in ours.”

On players being ‘their own worst critic’ and Quick never calling out his teammates:
“You don’t want anyone on your team throwing teammates under the bus. If we’re watching TV or whatever here, and we see another guy on another team throw his team under the bus, immediately we just think that guy’s a bad guy. You don’t ever see anyone on this team do that. That’s because we’re such a close team. We’re a good group of guys. We all love each other, and we all play for the man beside us.”

On ways to solve a defensive-minded Nashville team:
“They’re a defensive-minded team there. They work hard. They don’t really have any of those crazy skilled forwards that are superstars or anything like that. They just have a bunch of great players who work hard, and they’re good at defense. Their goalie’s good. If we don’t get guys in front of him and let him see all the pucks, goals aren’t going to go in. We definitely have got to get more traffic in front and throw as many pucks as we can to the net. They’ve definitely [got] some good skaters on the back end, but they’ve got some slow guys, too, so we need to take advantage of the slow guys.”