Murray postgame quotes

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts…

(on the loss…)
MURRAY: “They’re a better team than we are. They beat us. They take advantage of their special teams, scoring power-play goals. They kill off power-play opportunities that we have. We could have a chance to come back on a four-on-three, and they kill it off, and they’re better than us. I think they’ve lost two in regulation in their last 17 games. They’re just playing better than we are, and they’re probably playing the best hockey in the NHL.”

(on the first period…)
MURRAY: “They got their first power play about five minutes in. I think, up until that point, things were not bad. We had some good things happening, making good decisions, but the power-play goal, and the next one that they score, with Boyle coming down the middle of the ice uncontested, those are just individual plays that, right now, are just costing us big time.”

(on the lack of power-play goals…)
MURRAY: “The power play can win you games, and penalty killing will lose you games. I think this game tonight against San Jose is a perfect example of that.”

(on the message to play strong five-on-five, and whether it didn’t get through…)
MURRAY: “That could be. We’ve lost four games out of the six here at home, and there’s something we got to be better at, whether it’s the first five minutes, the first period, doing the right things with the puck or individually, we have to be better. We’ve got to address it, talk about it, because we have this one game left here at home now against Buffalo and back on the road for four or five, so this is a critical point in the year.  We have to get on board. We need somebody to step up and lead the way here. Some of the players, some of the lines, some of the D-men, we need that take-charge attitude right now and we’re kind of feeling our way again.”

(on trying to get back in the game in the second period…)
MURRAY: “Several shifts that we had at the start of the second period is what we need right away, every night. You need a good start to get your game established and go after that first goal. The breakaway, if we score on that, that gives you extra momentum. You keep going. Now they come right back down the other end of the ice and score. I don’t want to get too far away, though, from that first period, because that’s now 3-0 in the first period. To know that we have an opportunity, with a win here, to move up in the standings, we have to grab a hold of these opportunities. You start to let them slip away, and you want to turn the table, and the next thing you know, it’s too late to turn the table. We’ve got to jump on those games in front of us right now.”

(on whether the team lacks a strong enough work ethic…)
MURRAY: “I don’t think it’s the work ethic. To me, it’s an attitude that we have to buy into on a consistent basis. You can get away — sometimes, in the early part of the year — with an `OK, we’ll start a little bit slow and we’ll feel our way and then we can start to play better’ (attitude), but at this time of the year, your attitude has to be with total understanding of the importance of each game. That’s the area that I keep trying to push with our team. It’s the area that I addressed here postgame. It’s the attitude that has to get better.”

(on what changes he can make on the power play…)
MURRAY: “There’s not a lot. We can move some guys around. There’s not a lot of people that we have on the sideline that we can move into that situation. Teddy Purcell has been out of the lineup for several games here now, and he’s the one guy that brings skill and power-play ability that maybe we could add to the lineup. We’ve got to take a look at it.”