November 8 postgame quotes: Carter, Budaj

Jeff Carter, on his overall performance against Toronto:
Well I think it’s been coming around the last few games, especially as a line. I think the start of the year we were kind of just one rush and done, where as the last few games we’ve been actually getting in and getting chances on the rush but then retrieving pucks and hanging on to pucks a little and making plays and things like that. The first goal Kinger made a great play, Greener great pass and Kinger great strong play to get it over to me. Just seems to all be coming together now.

Carter, on the team’s high volume of scoring chances the last two games:
Well it’s been nice, goals have been hard to come by a little bit here lately, so nice to get a little confidence going. I think we’re getting some chemistry with our lines now they’ve been together a few games which is always nice. A few lucky bounces here and there but all and all it’s starting to come together for us so we just got to keep going at it.

Carter, on what the team’s core and their experience brings:
I mean I guess it’s always good, right? You win, you learn a lot. You lose, you learn a lot, too. We’ve got a lot of guys that have played a lot of games and have been around for a while, good times and bad, and you take something from all of that. Just makes you a better player at the end.

Carter, on Peter Budaj:
Yeah you know, it’s awesome. He’s battled for a lot of years to get his starts and what not, you know he’s come in and he had some big shoes to fill. I don’t know if anybody is gonna fill Quickie’s shoes but he’s done an amazing job for us and the best thing is that he’s such a good guy in the room too, so you feel so happy for him when he plays well. He puts up big games and it’s a lot of fun, fun seeing that.

Carter, on neutralizing Toronto’s speed and skill:
We played our game. I mean, you watch Western Conference teams, there’s not a lot of room out there. We joke around that watching Eastern Conference games before ours and it’s a track meet so we did nothing different tonight than what we normally do. We played from our end out, and that usually works out for us. [Reporter: Is it more difficult to do that on the road?] No.

Peter Budaj, on whether this shutout is comparable to the shutout against Calgary:
I mean, yes and no but I think the guys don’t want to take anything away from Toronto. I think we came really, really strong and we skated really hard and turned the puck over. They didn’t have any odd-man rushes, and that’s huge. I think that if you eliminate the turnovers or no odd-man rushes against that’s going to help your team and I think we played a solid game tonight. Guys did a great job in front of me, they really eliminated the shots through, almost minimum, and credit to them. They’re blocking shots, they’re playing well, and when I make the save they clear the rebound so great credit to the guys, they’re playing really good.

Budaj, on whether it’s tough to stay focused when facing fewer shots:
Yeah, it’s tough especially when it was like 10 to 2 shots and I know we hadn’t scored a goal yet so you just want to stay sharp because you know your team is playing really good ‘cause you never know. Toronto has a really skilled team; very young, very fast and they can turn on a dime and you know that one shot can go in so you just want to stay focused, don’t think too much ahead, don’t try to think like how many shots you have against. Just try to stay in the game and help the team to win a game and stop the next shot. So that was my mindset and thank god it worked out pretty well.

Budaj, on Jeff Carter’s defensive play throughout the game:
You know what, there’s an old saying, good offense starts in the defensive zone. So I think you can just tell, you know, play well defensively and the guys worked really hard. They back-checked hard, they blocked shots and we played as a unit, as five, and then it’s going to create offensive chances. You’re going to force turnovers and that’s exactly what happened so it’s great to see such a leader as Carts to back-check and show us that everyone is back-checking. It’s really great to see, and again, great credit to the guys and they played well. I was able to see the puck well tonight and it’s a good result for us.

Budaj, on what he noticed about the Maple Leafs:
They’re very skilled. Very skilled, very fast…