On the Carolina Hurricanes:
We’ve played Carolina once already. It was a close game. We scored a power play goal in the first period, a four-on-our goal – a faceoff goal in the third – and then scored late. It was a game where we got outshot, but we felt we played a good home game, so we expect them to play a good home game. They play a game very similar to the team we played last night. We’re pretty familiar with it.
On what he liked about Friday’s game:
We played a good game, just [have to] finish opportunities. As I said it after the game, we took a couple penalties you don’t have to take. Those are NHL penalties. You can’t take ‘em. If you don’t move your feet, it doesn’t matter where you are on the ice. Those are penalties, and it cost us. Other than that, I thought we played a good game. We had good chances on the power play. Should’ve scored a couple goals with the opportunities that we got. I thought that Shoresy’s line was really quiet last night. They weren’t nearly as effective as they were the game before that. The fourth line, we need them on the nice in situations, they got scored on twice. It’s going to cost you games.
On Jeff Carter’s consistency:
He’s been an important player for us because he plays lots of situations. We’ve certainly put him in more of a faceoff situation than we have. If there’s any area at all that he hasn’t been consistent in, it would be faceoffs. Other than that, he’s been close to a dominant player. I think the line last night, he carried ‘em on his back. He’s such an important part of our special teams now. The shorthanded goal, we had our two centermen out there. Kopi’s really tired. We did that three or four times last night. He had to take those draws, and got rewarded for making a great play to Carter.
On whether he breaks the season into quarters:
I think everybody does, so I’ll just do it also. It’s easy to say ‘times four, plus two,’ so after 20 times four, what are you going to do in the last two? I’m into making the playoffs, so what is it going to take to make the playoffs? What’s 20 times four?
Rules for Blog Commenting
Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.
Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.