Drew Doughty rejoined his teammates for practice on Tuesday afternoon in Denver and answered questions about winning gold at his second consecutive Olympics.
On comparing his 2014 gold medal to his 2010 gold medal:
They’re different. One was in Vancouver, in front of our home fans, in front of our home country, so it was a different feeling, a different atmosphere. It was still fun. It was an amazing experience.
On comparing winning a gold medal to a Stanley Cup:
When you win a Stanley Cup, it’s with a bunch of guys that you’ve played with the entire season, the guys that you’ve created relationships over years and years with. It’s more of like a family kind of thing. When you win a tournament, like a gold medal, it’s not the same feeling. It’s still a great feeling, but it’s just not the same.
On his comment that his goal against Norway was the first time he had scored on his backhand:
Yeah, I thought it was. But then…someone told me that I had another one on my backhand a couple years back that I forgot about, so I lied.
On his own performance:
I thought I played well. I thought I played really well defensively, and that’s what they wanted me to do, and every chance I had to jump up in the rush or get shots through on the power play, that’s what I did. Me and Shea Weber did a great job together on the power play. It was a lot of fun, and I was happy with the way I played.
On how Canada found such success defensively:
It came from all ends. The coaching staff really was adamant on the defensive game, starting with obviously great goaltending, great defense, but the forwards backchecking as hard as they possibly could, and tracking back and lifting sticks and creating turnovers that way, and right away when we made that turnover, we wouldn’t let them get on the attack. When you’re on the attack, and when you’re holding onto the puck, the other team doesn’t have opportunities to create chances. There was never a time where I wasn’t confident we weren’t going to win. There were so many games where we could’ve won by way more goals than we did.
On whether he chatted with Dustin Brown or Jonathan Quick during the U.S. game:
No. Well, we talked since – like, today – about it a little bit. I remember there were a few chances I had on Quickie, and he made the save, and we kind of just had a big smile back to each other. I was chirping him a little bit. But it was just all in fun. I really wanted to score on him, and I’m disappointed I didn’t.
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