October 16 postgame quotes: Kopitar, Carter, Quick

Anze Kopitar, on whether he likes three-on-three overtime.
Well, minus that hit, I liked it a lot. Obviously that’s a lot of ice out there, and there are a few different strategies that you can go about, and Quickie playing the puck, that was kind of new. We haven’t done that before. But I guess a big key is to win the faceoffs, which we didn’t do twice in that overtime, but it turned out well for us. Right now we’re liking it.

Kopitar, on his game-winning goal:
To be quite honest with you, I was pretty tired, so I was trying to get it on net and sit there around somewhere so I could go for a change because I was pretty tired, and then I saw a bit of an opening and took the shot that I thought had a good chance to go in, and obviously it did. It turned out pretty well.

Kopitar, on the difference between the last two games:
I thought our effort was a lot better. I think we played a good game, obviously. It looked a lot more like Kings hockey, which is grinding teams into the ground and obviously not scoring too many goals, which we’re not very proud of, but I’ll take the W tonight.

Jeff Carter, on having a narrow lead much of the game despite dominating territorially:
We’ve played Minny enough times that we know what we’re up against. They’re usually one-nothing going into the third period. It’s just the way it is against them. It seems like goals are hard to come by. They play a strong defensive game and their goalies are solid. It was a good job by us to stick with it.

Carter, on three-on-three overtime:
It was fun. We had a few chances in preseason. That’s a little different. It was definitely exciting. It’s end-to-end. If you make a mistake or you lose your guy, you’re pretty much screwed. There’s probably a little more strategy than you think that goes into it with hanging guys back and whatnot. It’s going to be exciting for the fans.

Carter, on relying on late penalty kills:
It’s not the position we want to put ourselves in, but everybody did a great job tonight of bearing down. They got the one goal, but for the most part, D, goalies, forwards, everybody, we were all on the same page and did a good job. They’ve got a great power play. They move it around, they’ve got shooters and it was a good job all around.

Carter, on the psychological importance of the win:
It’s huge. The first three games were pretty off for us. Just to get that one under your belt, everybody can take a big sigh of relief here and move forward and keep [inaudible]. I thought we did a lot of good things tonight. It wasn’t easy. We had to work for what we got, but it’s a huge two points.

Carter, on whether the team worked towards the result through lengthy practices:
You guys keep talking about it. They were hour practices and a lot of standing around. I wouldn’t say they were longer than normal. It was more teaching and whatnot that dragged them on, but it was basically what we needed. We needed to get down to the fundamentals and what we were doing and get everyone on the same page. It was a big plus for us.

Jonathan Quick, on the importance of getting two points:
It’s two points, no more important than any other game. We’ve got Colorado coming in a couple days, so we’ll turn our focus towards them.

Quick, on the difference between tonight’s game and previous games:
We scored more than they did today. That’s what it comes down to. We found a way to keep pucks out of the net and put a few more in. That gets you two points.

Quick, on three-on-three overtime from a goalie’s perspective:
It’s a little chaotic, in a way. Because you’ve only got three out there, everything’s kind of threatening. Whenever they’re in your zone, you’ve got to be prepared, be on your toes and kind of expect anything. Obviously we scored tonight. For the day, I think we’re all liking it.

Quick, on controlling the run of play:
We’ve got a great group. Our back end’s great. Something we pride ourselves on is trying to keep their shot total as low as possible. It’s something we do well.