February 1 postgame quotes: Budaj, Brown

Peter Budaj, on his sixth shutout of the season:
I mean, just playing up here this year I think is more than I could imagine. I’m just very thankful to be here. The team’s playing great in front of me and we have a great group of guys. We work tremendously hard to keep going and try to give us a chance every night and the team is doing great in front of me. We’re blocking shots, we’re doing the little things right. Obviously when you score 5 goals it’s less pressure on you, so it’s great. I’m just very excited and very thankful that I can help the team to win some games.

Budaj, on the importance of the win before leaving on a road trip:
Oh, definitely, it’s huge. I think to leave with a victory going on the road is huge. I think we have a bye week after this trip so we’re trying to do whatever it takes to get as many points as possible. It’s very important for us, you know, as you can see in the standings it’s a tight, tight race. Everybody keeps winning, it seems like nobody’s losing points so we’re doing the best we can to try to win and it’s a big win for us so we can start off the trip hopefully on the right foot.

Budaj, on whether during this time of year everything has to be “a little bit better”:
Yeah, definitely. I think you know that. You don’t have to think about it. The more you think about it the worse it is. You’re just progressively getting better and better, you know, with the season going on. It’s the second half of the season, it’s crunch time. It’s starting to be crunch time so every game is huge. But I’m not saying that at the beginning of the season it’s not huge but so much more right now because- [Reporter: Because of where you are.] The way we play and the way we are in the standings so we just want to keep going the best we can.

Dustin Brown, on the outlook of the game after scoring early:
We just focused on our start, and when you get a goal on the first shift it goes a long way. Considering the team we’re playing and the situation they’re in, get a jump on them early and not let them hang around so we did that in the 1st and just kind of carried it through.

Brown, on any commonality between the team’s four straight wins:
I don’t know. I think the two on the road before the break were really big grind wins. Kind of gets you out of that funk of win one, lose on, that type of thing. Had to play really hard. Sometimes it takes a game like that where you’ve got to grind for it and then it’s just trying to keep the ball rolling from game to game.

Brown, on wherever they’ve built momentum before leaving on a road trip:
Going into break was key and coming out of break was key and now we go on the road for 4 before we have another break, so you look at it really and kind of focus on these four games coming up, and I think it was important to get this win. One quick home game just to go on the road playing well.

Brown, on Peter Budaj’s sixth shutout of the season:
I mean, he’s been good for us all year. The team was good again tonight. He had an opportunity to come in and he’s kind of seized that opportunity and taken control of it and he’s played really well for us. It’s just one of those things you like to see. You can talk about guys getting hurt and it’s hard to see a guy like Quickie get hurt for us but he’s come in and been key for us.

Brown, on whether the players noticed the “Get Well Bob” chants during the game:
I didn’t personally because there’s a lot going on out there. Yeah, it’s always good to hear. Considering, I think, any Kings fan knows who he is and he’s been calling games for 40 years or whatever it’s been, so it’s one of those things where you just wish him the best.