October 29 postgame quotes: Stothers and Kempe

Stothers, on his overall takeaways from the game:
This is the best game we’ve played. That’s the way we need to play. That’s the way the Reign play hockey. That was hard, that was good. Guys were blocking shots, guys were chipping teeth. That’s the way we have to play. I thought it was great from start to finish. The end result doesn’t matter to me. When you can improve as much as we did from last night, which I didn’t think we were very good at all, to tonight, we showed what character we have and the way we can play and what we’re capable of doing. That’s the entertainment that we want. That’s the way we need play. Hopefully we’ve got enough left to do it one more time tomorrow afternoon.

Stothers, on specials teams for Ontario:
We should have had more power plays. Last night I was very kind to the officiating and I realize it’s a development league for those guys, too, but I thought they did a brutal job tonight.

Stothers, on Jonah Imoo’s injury and the goaltending situation:
It’s a tough situation for Flinner to come off the bench. Late in the game, it’s a tie game, it’s a power play/penalty kill that we’re trying to kill and he’s got to come in. Jonah’s got a lower-body injury and the nightmare continues here with the Kings organization. We really don’t have that much time to deal with it or address it. We play tomorrow at 3 o’clock. Flinner’s healthy as far as I know, unless he eats something tainted on the bus on the way to San Antonio. We have Dusty here, he’s brought his stuff again. And way, way down that depth chart is a young guy named Joey Z who’s just looking for an opportunity.

Stothers, on if Dusty Imoo will be the back-up Sunday vs. San Antonio:
It’s too early to tell yet but we brought Dusty’s equipment. I can’t imagine with the injury Jonah’s feeling right now it’s going to get any better, they usually get worse. There’s a good possibility. We’ll just try and enjoy the hour bus ride from here to San Antonio and get rehydrated, get the guys fed and get ready for tomorrow and deal with it tomorrow morning.

Stothers, on facing San Antonio on Sunday:
I’d like to see how they play against the team that played tonight for us. If we play like that I’m convinced that we’ll have some success this year. It’s, again, by far the best game we’ve played from start to finish, from all four lines, all six D. I’m excited about it. We know what we’re capable of doing and now it’s a matter of applying it and doing it consistently, night in and night out. That in itself could be a bit of a process. You’ve got some guys that are learning. They’re learning how to be pros. They’re learning how to play the game and what it takes. It’s a good night. Even though we didn’t win we got a valuable point, proud of the guys, and we’ll be better going forward.

Adrian Kempe, on his first goal of the season:
The first goal is always important. … I had a couple chances so far and I think I played pretty well. It came on the power play today and I think it was good for my confidence and it was an important goal, too, so that was good.

Kempe, on the Reign playing a complete game:
We came to play the whole game today. I think we’ve had some good periods in other games but I think we haven’t played a really good 60 minutes. Today we came out from the start we were pushing ourselves and had a really good first period and we just kept going. We had a goal against in the first period but we bounced back and I think we played a great game. It was a tough loss in OT but I think it was a great game from everybody.

Kempe, on the success of the special teams:
Sometimes you have a good power play. We always had a good penalty kill. Last year the power play wasn’t as good as we are now. I don’t know. We’ve got a good chemistry out there and we just try to put some more pucks to the net. … Sometimes you get lucky, too.

Kempe, on the importance of getting back to Reign hockey:
I think that’s really important to have a really good game now. We’ve had a lot of new guys this season and it’s not always like how you played before you come here. … Sometimes it’s hard. I remember when I came over it was hard for me to get into the game. It was a really important game for the whole team and this is how we’re going to play the rest of the season so I think it was good for everybody.