Murray postgame quotes (Oct. 18)

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts…

(on the win…)
MURRAY: “Very good effort, very good outcome. We talked about this being our first game at home after a long road trip and the fact that St. Louis had given us a lot of trouble in the past couple years. Certainly last year we weren’t able to win a game against them. So everybody had awareness to it, and it was a solid team effort with all four lines, the defensemen and Quicker. I thought they really paid attention to the detail. We did a great job of moving the puck, getting it up and getting it out of our end as quick as possible to get some pressure.’’

(on having nine different players get points…)
MURRAY: “It’s good to spread the scoring around. It’s good to see some guys score. There was a little bit better shot mentality in the game, although the number wasn’t that high, at the end of the day, for shots on goal. But the opportunities that were there, we were not looking for other options. We were starting to get pucks to the net and that, to me, is a real positive.’’

(on Voynov’s game…)
MURRAY: “Voynov, hey, for a kid who plays his first game, pretty collected, pretty poised. I thought he made some good decisions with the puck. He’s got a little bit of stuff we have to work with, on the play without the puck, but with it, he’s got a special gift.’’

(on Quick’s strong play early…)
MURRAY: “Absolutely. I think both goaltenders, early in the game, were doing a pretty good job. That’s what is required in the NHL. You’ve got to be able to hold the fort. You’ve got to be able to kill the momentum, maybe, that’s coming at you. The bottom line is, your goaltender has got to be good for you early, especially. I think, as we got going, we started doing the right stuff through the middle of the ice, got pucks in and started to get the forecheck going.’’

(on the complete effort…)
MURRAY: “We’re starting to get some chemistry. We’ve got a lot of new players in our lineup. There’s a lot of different line combinations. Players have not played together. There’s personal, individual confidence. There’s line confidence. There’s team confidence, and it takes time to get all that sorted out. It’s only one game, where we play like this. We’ve got four of the next five that are division games in front of us right now, so we’ve just got to build off that. There’s still a lot of work for us to do in the overall scheme of things. Tonight there was good things happening because of hard work, because of doing things right, and that’s the most important thing, that when you do things right, that you can get some results. That’s something that we have to understand and, emotionally, bring into the next game.’’

(on the strong power play with Kopitar and Richards, etc….)
MURRAY: “The power play is always good when you get the puck in the hands of your better players. If they have it most of the time, usually good things will happen.’’

(on if he’s surprised by the early first-line chemistry…)
MURRAY: “I don’t want to say I’m surprised. I was expecting it. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer than what you would like, and other times it happens right away. I think with Kopitar, Gagne and Williams, you know, Gagne and Williams have been together on a team, so they have a pretty good feel. When you have good players, smart players, they usually make the adjustment very quickly, and I think that’s what we’re seeing.’’