January 7 postgame quotes: Minnesota

Bruce Boudreau, on the Wild battling back late to get a point:
Yeah we fought back and every point is a good point, there’s no doubt. I just don’t like the trends that are happening in the last six games. If we want to be a legitimate good team, we’ve got to correct these things.

Boudreau, on whether the problem was defense or offense:
Well we stopped playing after they took the timeout. I mean they got a little better but we just said hey let’s defend the league and for the next 32 minutes we were in our zone. It only seemed like when they tied it up in the second period, the last couple minutes we were good and when they got the league the last five or six minutes when it was a desperate time we went after them again but it’s not consistent and that’s what we have to do.

Boudreau, on switching up his lines:
I wasn’t happy with what was going on. Even on Charlie, I know these guys only practice only once on their off-side and when I thought things weren’t going good I just said let’s get everybody back in their positions that at least they’re used to.

Boudreau, on Suter playing 29 minutes against LA and managing his minutes:
His minutes have been limited. I mean he only played 6 minutes in the first period and there was an overtime. I think he played two minutes in overtime but he plays an average of just 27 or just under 27 and we have to manage the minutes of everybody and he’s one guy we have to manage minutes on.

Boudreau, on the most recent trends and how the Wild can get out of those bad habits:
Well I mean you go through these things but I mean we need one really good game where we’re back to checking everybody and not giving up a lot of good scoring chances. When we give 10 or under we’re a good team. When we give more than that, it’s more difficult. Maybe we’ve got to keep scoring, you know, to get back in the defensive mode.

Boudreau, on the Wild’s best first half of a season in franchise history and coaching in the All-star game:
Really? I’d rather have the other point to be quite honest. [Reporter: Is it a good team accomplishment?] You know what, I guess it is. Those are good accomplishments for one minute or one day and then everybody forgets about them but there’s only one accomplishment that you want to get that people remember and that’s the final one so that’s the one that counts.

Boudreau, on “any emotions he’s feeling” on returning to Anaheim tomorrow for the first time with the Wild:
No. I hope they have a good media room tomorrow. You know, for food and that. That’s about it. It’ll be fun.

Zach Parise, on his third period power play goal to tie the game:
Yeah we didn’t get much going on those ones before. I feel like the puck was always on the wall a lot and we just couldn’t get it off and we finally got a little set up there with the extra attacker and pretty fortunate bounce off their D-man with an open net. Silver lining I guess it’s good we got that point but it was a tough game.

Parise, on the Wild having trouble generating chances after their first two goals:
Yeah we did. It felt like, I don’t know if it was the ice or what but the puck was bouncing a lot. On the wall a lot and that’s where they’re probably one of the better teams in the league is on the wall and if you’re not getting those pucks against these guys it makes for a long night and after they got that first one it just felt like we had a lot of trouble getting anything clean. They were forechecking hard and they were in our face a lot so we couldn’t get much going.

Parise, on the Kings timeout in the first period and whether their play changed at all:
I felt like it was more so after the first goal. I guess yeah after that timeout too but I felt like after that first goal you really noticed a difference. They probably started feeling pretty good and they came at us and made it really hard for us. Again, they’re a big physical team and they just had the puck a lot on the wall and they wear you down after a while.

Parise, on the Wild’s best first half in franchise history and Boudreau coaching the all-star game:
Well it’s a good team accomplishment. That’s a good reward for our coach to get there and again, like I said the other day, I think it really says a lot about how we’ve been playing in our first half of the season. We’ve played what, 38? So we’ve got a long ways to go but we’re doing a pretty good job so far.

Parise, on the puck that went off Suter’s face and in on Gaborik’s goal:
Yeah, I mean, what do you do? You can’t do much about that. They made a nice play to get a breakaway but our guys got back and backchecked and boxed out pretty well and one of those unfortunate bounces that 95 times out of 100 that doesn’t happen. Unfortunately it does against us.

Parise, on the quality of the ice:
It was bad. It was slow, again they’re playing on it too but it was very slow. I mean, it was tough to keep the puck flat. It felt like you took three strides and just one of those no glide but again, we’re both playing on the same sheet.

Darcy Kuemper, on whether he felt the momentum shift after the Kings’ timeout in the first period:
I don’t know. I think we just got off to a good start and obviously they weren’t happy about it and they just had a tough game the game before at home so they wanted to respond and they did and I thought we defended hard we just, maybe we were back a little bit too much with the lead and that’s the way it goes.

Kuemper, on the Kings’ putting 16 shots on goal in the second period:
From my point of view they were really tight in the neutral zone. We didn’t have a lot of room and they were turning over a lot of pucks. We couldn’t get a lot deep and that allowed them to have so much zone time. If we did break it out, or they were making it hard to even do that, they were turning over a lot of pucks and getting it deep and spending a lot of time in our zone.

Kuemper, on getting the one point:
Yeah all points are big and that was a great response. The six guys on the ice did a great job, got the puck to the net and then Zach was able to put it home. I mean, that’s huge for the team, one point’s a lot better than none.

Charlie Coyle, on giving up a two-goal lead:
I think we just got away from our game. I mean, you saw our first goal we were just throwing pucks on net and going to the net, goals go in and then we kind of got away from that for some reason. I think two goals off the bat, we’ve got to stay on the pedal there and just through everything and maybe it’s a different story if we do that but I think we got away from it.

Coyle, on whether he felt the momentum shift after the Kings’ timeout in the first period:
Yeah, it’s unfortunate, too. It shouldn’t happen like that and we’ve got to stay on our game no matter what. No matter what situation, no matter what happens and like I said, we got away from that so it’s a good timeout on their part.

Coyle, on whether it was a good point for battling back or a bad point for losing a lead:
I mean you want to hang on to the lead and like I said, you want to play your game. We got away from it and that happens but we battled right back and yeah you love to see that. You don’t want to get to that point but you love to see that no-quit attitude and get that tying goal late and get a point and hopefully get the two but we can definitely learn from it.

Coyle, on the Wild’s best first half in franchise history and Boudreau coaching the all-star game:
That’s huge. It says a lot about our team, it says a lot about him, the whole coaching staff as a whole. We’re headed in the right direction here. We want to get as many points as we can right now to set ourselves up playoff time but yeah – hats off to him and we just want to keep getting better. I think we can still keep getting better as a team and that’s a learning experience for us and we’ll take that and go from there.