Richards postgame quotes (Dec. 22)

Mike Richards’ postgame thoughts…

(on how he felt tonight…)
RICHARDS: “I felt good. A little tired at the end of the game there, but I think that’s just two weeks of not taking a hit or giving a hit or battling much. It was a good game for me. I felt good coming back, and obviously it was nice to help out there. It’s a stepping stone, but we know that we have to be better. We don’t want to give up that third-period lead, but it was nice to see us pull it off at the end.’’

(on the overtime penalty kill…)
RICHARDS: “That was big. Quickie made big saves. The defense, there was, at one point, I think three guys going down to block a shot. That’s the type of desperation that we need (in order) to have success. We’re a team that, it’s been well-noted that we haven’t scored a ton of goals. We don’t need to score a lot. We just have to keep them off the board, and when you have guys sacrificing to block shots and digging down in tough situations, like it was there, obviously that’s a big thing for us.’’

(on what changed for the Kings since the last time he played…)
RICHARDS: “Not much. We were doing the same systems. We were doing everything the same. I think we were a little bit more tenacious on the puck, which I think will continue. We turned a lot of pucks over, when they were trying to come up the ice, and we had good backcheckers. It was obviously something that we have to get better at, to shut them down in the third (period).’’