February 16 postgame quotes: Tampa Bay

Brian Boyle, on whether it is tough to play against Los Angeles:
Real tough, they come in waves and they’ve got a lot of depth. … They play a hard, physical game and they’ve got more skill than you think from a team that plays hard and fast. They’ve got big bodies and they can make plays. We did a lot of good things for the first 30 minutes, and then they had a little bit of momentum and then towards the end we had a surge but… You can play pretty well and you’re going to lose if you don’t clean up some of the details or bounces here and there. I was saying earlier, it’s good to play the right way and we do a lot of good things early in the year and we’re getting points, but this time of year it doesn’t really matter. We need to play the right way, but we need to figure out a way to get as many points as we can. It’s the result that matters most.

Boyle, on whether Los Angeles capitalized on their mistakes:
They’re opportunistic. But again, that’s the way it’s going to be from here on out. If you want to win in the playoffs, if you want to win down March and April, those teams are going to be opportunistic. So little separates everybody, it’s a lesson learned hopefully and we’ll figure out what we can do.

Tyler Johnson, on whether they made too many mistakes:
Yeah, I think that’s LA though. They kind of wait for you to make those mistakes and then capitalize on them, that’s what they did. I thought we played a pretty good game. I thought we were fighting the puck quite a bit though, just bouncing pucks all over the place, but I thought for the most part we played pretty good. It was just unfortunate that the mistakes we did make, they capitalized on.

Johnson, on whether Los Angeles’ defense locked down in the third period or they couldn’t find space:
A little bit of both. I thought they played extremely well. They’re a tough team to play against. They’re very structured, they don’t give you very much. You beat one guy, you always have another one there. So I don’t think we played well enough in the third period. I don’t think we stuck to our structure enough. We weren’t forcing plays. We weren’t moving our feet as much. But credit to them, they played a solid third period as well.

Johnson, on whether this is an easy loss to move on from:
Well I don’t know if anyone in this locker room can say that losing is easy. I think we pride ourselves on the fact that it’s not that we like to win, but we hate to lose. It’s something we’ve said ever since I’ve been here. It’s what we’re built around. Losing a game is never easy, it doesn’t matter how you play. A loss is a loss. You don’t get any points at the end of it.

Jon Cooper, on whether Los Angeles locked them down defensively in the third period:
Well, they didn’t have a lead in the third period. It was tied going into the third period. They didn’t lock it down. We scored one, they scored two. So I’d say we didn’t lock it down.

Cooper, on whether his team didn’t do enough to create offensive chances in the third period:
Neither did they. How many shots did they have in the third? Both goals were… one was an even man rush and the other one we actually had more guys back than they did. So I wouldn’t sit here and say… They made some strong plays, they’re a big, strong team. I think we got a little bit tired at the end, which is understandable. But I wouldn’t sit here and say… [Reporter: You only had two shots in the first 19 and a half minutes of the third period.] I understand that. [Reporter: Is that them or is that you?] It’s probably a little bit of both. Would I say we passed up shots? No question. But they were playing like that all night. We’re playing our sixth period of hockey in less than 24 hours against some good, strong, heavy western teams. We hung in there. I thought it was a game that we could get points out of. I don’t know how the result was going to turn out, but it was tough. You give up the second one, which we eventually made up, but the third one was a back breaker.