March 8 practice quotes: Dustin Penner

On his recent play with Mike Richards and Jeff Carter:
“As a line we’ve played well lately. Obviously when you throw Carts on there, who has 15 goals, usually the other two guys are going to feel good about the [play]. We’ve been great on draws, especially in the last game, so that leads to puck possession. We haven’t been throwing away pucks. As I say, one-and-done. You get down there, try to make a quick play off a stick and out of the zone. We’ve been putting pucks in the right spots, getting down there, creating a forecheck, and then cycling the puck and waiting for the right time to make a play on them.”

On whether that line’s cycle and possession play is getting closer to the level of last spring:
“If you asked us, we’d probably say no. Maybe it looks like it from the outside looking in, but we can’t get complacent, and our coaching staff hasn’t allowed us to. We think we can play better.”

On moving on from the defensive breakdowns of Thursday night’s game:
“I think you can attribute…at least two of their goals to puck luck. That’s what happens. Sometimes we get it in a situation like last night, where the puck is bouncing for them and we were taking it to them, I thought, in parts of the game. You have to work a lot harder to beat a bouncing puck that’s bouncing in their direction. Jagr’s first goal where Benn throws it on net, it comes right back to his stick, backdoor. Of the faceoff, off a body, off a skate, backdoor. Things like that – when that’s happening to you, you have to recognize that and realize that tonight you’re going to have to work a lot harder to earn a victory.”