October 18 postgame quotes: John Stevens

On Adrian Kempe’s performance:
Obviously it’s exciting to see any player get a hat trick in the game. We’ve liked his skill, his speed, and he looks like a guy that should be able to score. To see him have success at this level, we thought it was terrific, especially when the team needed him in that situation, so I thought the line with Cammalleri, Adrian and Lewie on it, once they got together I thought they really produced. They seemed like they had good chemistry. Obviously to see any player get a hat trick, but to see a young player get a hat trick like that, it’s pretty exciting. [Reporter: Were you thinking of putting him out there again to try to get the fourth?] No, no. They’ve done a good job and I thought they’d been real responsible. I think you keep that in mind when a guy’s got two, but that’s certainly not the case. Kopi and Brownie had played big minutes prior to that, so once we got the comfortable lead and then the penalties at the end, those are situations they’d probably play in – not ‘probably,’ they do – but it was a good opportunity to get some young guys in those spots.

On Michael Cammalleri returning to the lineup with a four-point game:
He had four points tonight. That’s Cammy. I thought he was a real competitive guy tonight. The goal he scored, the first one he bats out of the air and there’s probably not a lot of guys who score that goal. But I think he’s a determined guy, and then the other one, he was real tenacious. He competed hard to score, in my opinion, and then obviously on Adrian’s third goal, he had a lot to do with it on the forecheck. He just did a lot of good things, and he’s got a skill set that can capitalize on those things, so I thought it was a great response from a veteran player.

On the 5-0-1 record to open the season:
We’re happy with the points, obviously, and the wins, but there’s things we need to continue to get better at. I don’t think we can sit idle here knowing that there were times we were on our heels tonight. Montreal’s one of the better forechecking teams. They really get hard pressure to the goal line, turn plays over, so that’s something we’re probably going to see a lot of on the road trip. Columbus plays that way, Toronto comes after you. I mean, Ottawa, you can go down the line there, and then we’ve got Montreal again in a week. We’re really happy. We wanted to get the next segment off on a good start. We wanted to finish on a good note at home knowing that the road’s going to be tough, so I was really excited not only to win the game, but I thought we got better through the second period and really poured it on in the third. It was a great end of the home stand heading out on the road.

-One quote on Jeff Carter’s injury was withheld for a story upcoming this evening.
-Lead photo via Harry How/Getty Images

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