Murray postgame quotes

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts…

(on whether the Game 3 loss made the difference in the series…)
MURRAY: “No, I don’t think so. No, the difference was our own play with managing the puck. That was again here tonight. It goes back to the losses that we had in the series. Three overtime losses, three games at home that are lost. That’s why I called a timeout. I called a timeout midway through the first period. It’s because we probably had 15 turnovers to that. That second period (in Game 3), when they scored five goals, had no effect on us emotionally, mentally. We went back up there and we played a real hard game and came away with a win. That’s not related.”

(on not scoring on the five-minute power play…)
MURRAY: “That’s the critical moment in the game, right there. We had a chance to put it away. I thought we did with about 17 seconds left in the game. There was celebration going on. People were throwing their arms in the air. i thought it was over. But again, that’s a missed opportunity.”

(on evaluating this season…)
MURRAY: “Well, going back over the year, it was a great start. Actually, a tremendous start to the year. You have a tough time in a homestand in January, and you bring it back together again. Talking about a critical time, post All-Star break, you really get the job done. Guys dug in, the leadership and players. Every player played outstanding and we got ourselves into the playoffs. Heck, we could have finished as high as…we were talking about winning our division at one time near the end of the year. So I look at it as a very good year, a very successful year. We’ve grown a lot. We’ve matured. The culture is really pushing along the right way. Losing in six games, to me, it’s disappointing for sure. You’d like to go further. I think if we just managed the puck a little bit better — and that’s probably coming with experience that’s lacking in critical times — we could have pushed that team further. So I’m very pleased with the growth of the individuals, the growth of the team, and what we talked about when we first got here, to start this thing off, just to change the culture. I like the direction it’s heading.”

(on the lack of power-play success…)
MURRAY: “You’ve got to welcome frustration at times. There are a lot of young players playing on the power play, and they’re going to be better, at the end of the day, because of the experience that they went through this year. Things did not work out the way we want. They were put in positions where they have an opportunity to excel, and it doesn’t happen right now. There is some lag time, and it will happen next year. Players will be better and they will have better execution on that power play.”

(on the game…)
MURRAY: `The San Jose Sharks, that might have been the best game they played all season. Granted, I haven’t seen them every game. But just their pace, their attitude, their intensity, the `let’s get after it, we don’t want to go into a Game 7,’ they played a real intense tempo game to start the game off. We responded. Quick was good. We killed off a power play and we were real big on the penalty killing again. We got things settled out and we came back and we played better in the second and better in the third and we end up getting to an overtime. We battled back, getting a couple goals at important times to tie the game up, and that’s what you’re looking for. Guys dug in. Every player in that (locker) room cares about this organization, cares about this team, cares about their teammates. And that’s what I really love about this group of guys. There’s a very big emotional attachment to what’s been going on here with the L.A. Kings, with ownership, who have been tremendous, right on down through our training staff. The guys worked hard for each other.”