On Stoll’s injury:
Once he starts practicing with the team then we will know how close he is. The other two guys are not skating.
On the Canucks being a division opponent:
I think that the division is tough. Every team is good and is trying to hang in there. That’s what everybody is trying to do.
On the Pacific Division:
The toughest part is, is the fact that it’s not a balanced schedule. You are playing twos and threes and threes and twos and twos and twos. So there is no way of coming up with that number. You used to always to say, ‘well we play them six. We were four-and-two against Vancouver and we go three-and-three against Anaheim.’ We could come up with the numbers and now you can’t. And the division is tough, it is what it is. We are not even a playoff squad today and our record is ahead of anytime since I have been here. It is what it is. There is good teams not going to make the playoffs and there is good teams that are going to be bubble teams that can win the Stanley Cup.
On Brad Richardson’s early success in Vancouver:
He’s a good player, Brad. He’s a good player and he was a big part of us winning the Stanley Cup. That is thing no one will talk about, he was a good player for us. It’s not very often you can have a guy that is your hardest working guy every day in practice and is detailed as he was and be able to play all three forward positions for you. He is a big reason why this team is successful. Brad Richardson, I used to tell him all the time ‘the hardest thing for me to do is not play Brad Richardson.’ Quite honestly, Brad Richardson’s natural position is center ice. It was his position when he came here and with the addition of Carter that pushed Brad out to the wing position and those were interchangeable. It was nothing to do with Brad. Even last year you look at it, he played a lot of big games for us. The reason that this organization did well the last two years was role players. Not just the stars and all that, but role players played a big part in it. Quite honest… if you go talk to Dean about what the salary cap was, we couldn’t keep Brad and Brad wanted to play. [Reporter: Not surprising he has thrived under Tortorella] Perfect fit. Think about it.
On the special teams play:
Our power play is a very good power play. It’s not something that has dropped off… you don’t score every game on the power play, otherwise you would have 82 goals… It’s not about percentages, the power play is about scoring big goals. That’s what the power play is about. So last night the power play scored two big goals which doesn’t happen very often in a game and it’s the difference in the game. Penalty killing has become a point of focus the last few days around here. But they didn’t talk about the first 10 games or whatever, where it was almost 100-percent. They want to criticize the penalty killers because the last six games. So last night we were 0-for-4 so you should be saying ‘well jeez, we have a great penalty kill.’
On the power play:
It’s always good. Our power play has no problem. We can put two or three different groups out there and they shoot the puck and they go to the net and once in a while it goes in. What’s wrong with that?
On Linden Vey’s performance:
He played seven and a half minutes even strength. He had some trouble in his own zone just about every shift. He was good when he had the puck.
On having coached against John Tortorella:
We’ve coached in different conferences. So the only time where we really did it was Tampa, Calgary quite honestly.
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