May 29 conference call quotes: Dustin Penner

On the feeling of reaching the halfway point of the team’s postseason goal:
“It felt great. A sense of accomplishment. We’re half way there, and we have a lot more work left to do.”

On whether Jonathan Quick continues to amaze him with his level of play:
“Obviously, we’ve become fans like the rest of the people in the building and people watching on TV. We get kind of spoiled and get used to it. He does it in practice too. He never gives up on a puck. We also expect those saves during the game because we see them so often during practice.”

On potential third round match-ups:
“You know, we’ll scout. We’ll probably be scouting both games, but we’re not looking to play one or the other. Whoever comes out is going to pose a unique challenge of itself and we’ll have our hands full either way. They’re both there for a reason, both teams. You don’t get to the final four by luck. It’s not going to be easy and we have no preference in the matter.”

On the ability of the team to prevail in close games:
“I think it’s always great for a team’s overall confidence when we pull out close game, but we lost a few close games too, obviously. I think three loses in San Jose were 2-1s. We learn from those experiences, but what we’re able to do after each loss – even though we had two in St. Louis back-to-back – we were able to learn from it and adjust our game and play at a higher level the next time around and win an important game. We keep winning the right games at the right time and that’s a testament to the coaching staff, the players and our leadership group.”

On his evolving role with the team:
“You know, as you get older, depending on what type of player you are, you have to adjust different areas of your game. Obviously I’d like to be playing more minutes, but you could ask pretty much everybody except maybe Doughty and they would tell you they want to play more. But I’m way more happy winning than getting more minutes. Whatever facet on the team that I’m playing that night, I’m going to do the best to my ability and try and have a positive impact on the game. It doesn’t matter. I think that’s the best thing about our team – you saw Brownie on the third line – the quote-unquote third line – for a game or two. We fill the spot that we’re put it. It doesn’t matter, you put your own selfish pride away because it’s about a team goal and I think that’s why we’ve won six series in the last 18 months, just because we worry about the end result more than anything else, and that’s winning.”

On finding ways to win games in the playoffs:
“The mark of a good team and good players is finding a way to win. You know, obviously it’s a lot different than going up three-nothing last year starting as the road team. I think we would have been fooling ourselves to think that we would have gone through the first two series this year in the manner we did last year. It would have been nice, but every playoff poses certain challenges, and it’s up to the team and players as a whole to rise to the challenge and we’ve been able to do that so far. It’s been a lot more wear and tear I think on us mentally and physically this year, but we’ve been able to overcome it this far and we’re only half way done.”