On the loss to Minnesota:
“First period, first even two periods we were not a good hockey team. You’re not going to win games when you’re not ready to start the game or play the game. We had some guys pulling a lot of weight, but we need everyone. We need everyone going, and tonight we just weren’t prepared to do that.”
On the improvement in the third period:
“We got the goal at the end of the [second] period. I think that’s just like any team. We built momentum off that. We had a first good shift, and you kind of build on that. Bernie made a couple saves in the third that he had to to give us a chance to win, and we had some opportunities at the end. I don’t know if Backstrom – it looked like he made a great on Slava there with 10 seconds left. But we didn’t play three periods and we didn’t deserve to win the game.”
On whether he expected a desperate Minnesota performance:
“Yeah, I mean we knew that coming in. They’re fighting for a playoff spot. They’re right there. There’s…three or four teams fighting for two spots, and they want to keep pushing forward. They played with the determination to win the game tonight.”
On his second period hit on Jason Pominville:
“I haven’t seen it yet, but I had the puck on my stick. He’s coming to hit me. I’m just bracing myself. Almost the reverse. I don’t know. Like I said, I haven’t seen it.”
On whether he expects to “hear from the league”:
“Like I said, I haven’t seen it.”
On whether the game was a case of “a little too late”:
“The first two periods we didn’t play. I mean, they played a good game. They were desperate. They were hungry. We just didn’t have any of that. We can’t win a game – we’ve done it in the past where we’ve played one good period and won a game, but this time of the year it’s not going to happen, especially against a team like that. We need some points.”
On players moving up and down on lines in the third period:
“At that point, we weren’t even playing the right way, so maybe just moving guys around gives some guys some more ice time that were playing. Hey, that’s sometimes how it goes.”
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