October 16 postgame quotes: Minnesota

Head coach Mike Yeo, on playing a back-to-back:
I’m encouraged by the play of Kuemps, first of all. But back-to-back games, we knew what we were going to face tonight, a winless team and it’s not like they’re a team that you would expect to be winless at this point. We knew we were coming into a hornets’ nest and we definitely weren’t on top of it but I’m very proud and very pleased with the way we responded in the third period.

Yeo, on Kuemper’s effort:
That’s the kind of stuff you need from your goaltender especially these back-to-back games coming into a tough building on the road. We knew that they were going to throw everything they could at the net from every angle and crash the net hard and I thought he was great all night long.

Yeo, on battling through fatigue:
I think the guys were feeling it and to me that’s the mental toughness that I appreciate right there. We didn’t accept being tired in that situation. We dug in and we got to our game in the third period and earned a huge point.

Darcy Kuemper, on his first start of the season:
I wasn’t necessarily clean at the start but the guys did job in front of me on those second opportunities and allowed me to clean it up a little bit and start controlling some of those rebounds and they battled hard in front of me all night. I felt better as the game went along. I felt more settled in there and that’s to be expected and what you’re hoping for in the first game of the year.

Kuemper, on Wild’s play in the third:
Just a lot of character. Like I said, it’s a tough spot, first back-to-back of the year. It’s tough and the guys, they stuck with it all game and although they probably took it to us for large parts of the first two periods, we were able to battle defensively and keep it a one-goal game and give ourselves a chance and came out with that kind of effort in the third and were able to tie it up.

Mikko Koivu, on the third period:
I thought we came strong and obviously we were one goal behind so we did recognize that and we didn’t play bad but we knew we can play a little bit better and get more offensively and thought we did better in the third.

Koivu, on Kuemper’s play:
Not an easy situation being a while since he had a game so he did very good and we are happy for him and that’s what you need. You need good goaltending and we’ve been getting that each and every game this year.

Koivu, on pace of 3-on-3 overtime:
I thought it was up and down. It’s gonna be like that. I don’t know, I haven’t seen any others this year but I’m sure it’s gonna be like that. It’s six players on the ice and whenever you get the puck usually at least one guy’s beat already so I’m sure it’s fun for the fans.”

Zach Parise, on the Kings’ pressure:
I thought they did a really good job against us. They didn’t really give us a lot of room in the offensive zone and they kind of beat us to the puck all over the ice. I thought they played a really good game. We weren’t at our best.

Parise, on the loss after battling back:
They’re always tough, we played one good period and had a chance to win the game. We didn’t play very well in the first or second. Our power play was able to get one and then we started to play better after that.

Parise, on Kuemper’s play:
He was really good for us when we weren’t playing so well he made some huge saves and was able to keep the game either 0-0 or 1-0. He really did his job.

Parise, on pace of 3-on-3 overtime:
It was great. How fun is that to watch? It’s awesome. Scoring chances, odd-man rush after odd-man rush. It’s so much better than going into a shootout. It’s so much better, it was fun.