February 15 postgame quotes: Setoguchi, Crescenzi, Sutter

Devin Setoguchi, on his first game with Ontario:
I thought everyone on our team played good. I think I looked up in the second period, they had 10 shots or something like that. As far as myself, I’m not going to lie it was tough the first two periods. Five days off is tough and to come back in this game I felt like once I got to the third period I got my legs a little bit more, I got to move a little bit more and create some chances and stuff. That’s just to be expected. Any time you take that long of a hiatus it’s tough to just jump right back in. [Reporter: And the travel.] It was a long day yesterday and then I got a little skate in this morning, but you can’t prepare for a game. Even if you practice all week, when you get into a game it’s different. By not skating or doing anything for that matter, hanging out at home, I thought my first game wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.

Setoguchi, on whether he knows any of the players on the team:
Yeah. I know some of the guys. I’ve played against some of the guys. Hennser I played against when he was in Colorado. I know Sutts, I see all the guys in camp and stuff. This is a really good group of guys. We’re kind of plagued by injuries right now. We had a forward playing D tonight who played great. If you put me back there, I wouldn’t be able to do that. Props to [Crescenzi] and a good game by him.

Setoguchi, on his goals while he is in Ontario:
Just to get back to playing. Everyone thinks it’s about points and scoring goals but for me, I expect to score, I expect to get points, but I expect to come down and get my game back. And to be able to be effective offensively and defensively. I thought tonight I made a couple plays defensively that led to goals and that’s kind of what it’s all about. If you score, you score, but if you win the game, that’s the ultimate goal.

Andrew Crescenzi, on the last time he remembered playing defense:
Since minor hockey, I’d say. It’s been a long time. [Reporter: How’d it go, seemed like it went well.] Yeah, I got more comfortable as the game went on but just trying to keep it simple and help the team out and Les did a good job of talking to me and making the easy play. Feel like we did pretty well.

Crescenzi, on if he got to enjoy himself playing defense and having a different job:
I wouldn’t say enjoy myself. It went smoothly I’d say. But like I said it was a first for me and just kind of help out the team. Teammates made it really easy on me. It went pretty smooth.

Crescenzi, on if he learned anything he can take with him going forward:
Well, I think being a centerman I play with the D most of the time in the D zone, so that kind of helped and I knew where the guys would have been. Linemates, teammates helped, talked to me down there. It went all right.

Crescenzi, on things going the Reign’s way tonight:
Yeah, we were [on a] couple game slide there so it was nice to get a win and I think everyone did a good job tonight. We’ll take it and move on.

Crescenzi, on what was working for the Reign:
I wouldn’t say there was just one thing. I feel like as a team we played well, a lot better than we have. We kept the shots down, which we really wanted to focus [on]. Soupy played really good for us and it was just a good game all around.

Brett Sutter, on the win and his goal, assist effort:
Yeah, it was good. I think it was a good team effort by everyone. Obviously a little bit short-staffed but we had a lot of guys step up, especially on the back end. Good team win.

Sutter, on whether he takes pride in stepping up as a veteran and when the team has had trouble scoring:
Yeah. When you’re an older guy and you’re relied on for that leadership and that stablility in the room, you want to step up and when time’s needed and I think as a whole everyone played really well tonight. Cres is part of that leadership group, played really well on the back end for us. Backs played a great game. Just overall, I thought everyone stepped up tonight.

Sutter, on what it was like seeing Crescenzi back on defense:
I told him all night he looked like Nick Lidstrom out there. He was doing the double head-fakes, escaping guys. I honestly thought he played great. He was calm with the puck. He was talking out there. He was Steady Eddy. Just what you’d expect from Cres. He was good all night.