May 8 morning skate quotes: Anaheim

Bruce Boudreau, on his team’s effort:
I’m not saying effort is an adjustment to me. I think we played pretty hard. [Reporter: Around the goal?] We have to get around there but they’re not making it easy. That’s why they’re a great team. That’s why they win the Jennings. That’s why they won a Stanley Cup two years ago, because they’re very good defensively. It’s not an easy house to crack. We’re trying what we can do. Hopefully if we have any adjustments they’ll work, but I think they know how to protect it and they know we’re trying to get in there as every team does against them. We’ll see how it works out.

Boudreau, on how the game changes if they have a lead:
Any time you get a lead, the other team has to open up a little bit. It’s one thing to say stay the course, stay the course, stay the course. But until the last five minutes of the first game, they were still doing what they do then they started activating their D a little bit more and consequently they got the goal. [Reporter: They’re very good at protecting leads. When you get out first against them, how does the dynamic of the game change?] It will, if we’re ahead in the third period. I don’t think they change too much in the first two periods… If we’re down in the third, we change the way we activate our D. I think it’s just a natural thing.

Boudreau, on what Kyle Palmieri brings to the lineup:
His best things are he’s a great scorer, led the American League in scoring when he was 19. He’s got a great shot. His shot is as good as anybody’s. He’s an offensive guy, he can skate. And he’s got a little bit of physicality to him. He’s 200 ponds for a guy who’s not six-foot-two. That’s he brings. There are deficiencies in everyone’s game no matter who you are, whether it’s Kopitar or Gezlaf or anybody. Kyle Palmieri has his deficiencies, but there are strengths that other guys have had that we thought we needed before him. It’s a decision on what we need the most.

Boudreau, on Anaheim’s defensive game:
I thought we’ve been good defensively. You give up one goal in 59 minutes in the first game, then two goals in 59 minutes in the second game. It’s a lot better than what we did against Dallas. But we knew that all our games against them have been like that, so we have to buckle down because they’re certainly not giving a lot away. The first three games of the San Jose series with them was a total anomaly, which is why everybody was shocked because they couldn’t believe that that was the Los Angeles Kings. What you’re seeing now is the Los Angeles Kings.

Boudreau, on Sami Vatanen being an option:
He’s an option. [Reporter: If he does play, a puck moving defenseman and so on?] Puck moving. I don’t know the exact number of games he played, but he got six goals for us. He’s always been an offensive defenseman. I think he was one of the higher scoring defensemen in the Olympics.

Boudreau, on calling up Sami Vatanen:
I think at some point we need that different look. They were in St. John’s, Newfoundland which is a long trip. If we were going to bring him up, we couldn’t bring him up today because they play tonight in St. John’s. We thought bringing him up yesterday and having that option with Norfolk up 1-0 would be the best time. Again, we know if we’re going to use him but we’re just not going to tell you. It was something that we had to figure out.

Boudreau, on Los Angeles’ defense:
Nobody wants to give up goals. Coaches think that they’re judged on how good they played as a team defensively and how hard the team works. They’ve just got really good personnel that have really bought in to what Darryl says and they’re really good at it. There is no doubt that they’re good at it. We’d all love to allow no goals. We’d look like geniuses.

Cam Fowler, on what they expect in Game 3:
We expect a lot of the same things that they’ve shown in the first couple games. They’re a great team at home and they know how to win. We know what we’re up against, but we have a lot of belief and confidence in our group. So hopefully we can come out and have a good start and then hopefully things fall into place for us.

Fowler, on being successful on the road:
I think we simplified our game a lot. I think the main thing is we want to come out within the first five or 10 minutes and we want to kind of weather the storm, because we know how hard teams come out in their home buildings. If we can get out of those first five or 10 minutes with a tie or the lead, then we put ourselves in a good position. That’s what we’re looking to do again here tonight.

Fowler, on their regular season experience at Staples Center:
It gives us some confidence for sure. It’s always been difficult for the Ducks to come in here and get wins. I’m not saying that it’s easy now that we’ve done it once or twice, but we’ve proved to ourselves that we can do it and it’s going to be a much different atmosphere here tonight and for playoff hockey. I think that gives us a little bit of confidence and just how we’ve played on the road all year has given us some confidence. Hopefully we can use that and put it to full use tonight.

Fowler, on finding a balance between being loose and being desperate:
It’s a tough thing to do, but the main thing for us is we’re down 2-0. We have to be the more desperate team. We can’t come in here and expect them to take it easy on us because that’s not the type of team that they are. Our will and our desire has to be much more than theirs. We have to go out there and earn everything because they’re not just going to hand it over to us. That’s what we’re focused on.

Fowler, on Los Angeles’ defense and Jonathan Quick:
That’s why they’ve been so successful. That’s the recipe for playoff hockey. When you have one of the best goaltenders in the world, you can rely on him a lot to make the key saves for you and then they score when they have the opportunity. Before you know it, it’s 2-1 and the game is over. That’s the type of style that they play. We know that. The more we press, the more it kind of falls into the game they want to play. So we need to be patient and go out there and kind of grind things down. That’s what we’re looking to do and hopefully we can find a way to get a few past him tonight.

Fowler, on whether Los Angeles is better built for the playoffs than Anaheim:
No. They’ve proved that they can win and they’ve won a Stanley Cup. So they deserve a lot of credit, but I don’t think you can say they’re more built for playoff hockey. They came into our rink and got two wins and that’s the position we’re in right now. We need to do the same to them.

Fowler, on what adjustments need to be made for Game 3:
It’s tough to say. We felt like we did a lot of good things in those first couple games and we obviously didn’t get the result that we wanted. The main thing is we just need to stay positive and stick with the things that got us here. We know what those are and we know the type of style that we need to play to be successful. If we do that, we know that hopefully the bounces will start going our way and we’ll be able to kind of turn this thing around.

Fowler, on the defensive focus for Game 3:
You always want to try to make it hard on their key players if you can. Those guys, Gaborik and Kopitar, have been able to make a big impact on this series. If we can make life tough on them and try to take their space away and their time as much as possible, I think that would be really good for us.