On whether it was a good feeling watching Tyler Toffoli score his first goal:
“I’m sure it is for him. He scored his first goal.”
On his thoughts on Toffoli’s first goal:
“I put him on the ice on the power play. He should come and thank me.”
On his assessment of Toffoli’s first two games:
“I did it to try and get Richie and Jeff going again., It’s good to see Jeff skating better tonight, and Richie’s good at the detail part of it. The way Phoenix moved their lines around, quite honest, I thought about moving ours around too, and if that’d been the case, then he probably wouldn’t have played.”
On whether the team played a complete 60 minutes:
“Our power play and our goalie was the difference in the game. I’m not sure how well we played.”
On whether that goalie will start tomorrow.
“One of them will, yeah. You’ve got to have a goalie.”
On what he liked in the final 20 minutes after two fairly even periods:
“You have to be able to play with the lead in this league. I don’t think anything other than ‘protecting the lead.’”
On the team continuing to build on its impressive home record:
“We have to because we haven’t been very good on the road.”
On the challenges presented by the schedule:
“It’s hard not to answer it without saying ‘It’s the schedule,’ and all that, but the schedule is friggin’ hard. You look at it, it doesn’t matter – home or road, I don’t care. Basically the schedule is costing teams games based on how much you play your top guys, guys that are banged up. You don’t have enough guys. All that stuff has so much impact on everything…I bring captains in after the games and see what they want to do tomorrow, and that’s game day. Ask them what they want to do tomorrow. Like, it’s hard.
On how the schedule presents particular challenges:
“Hopefully we never have to do it again. But the schedule is extremely difficult on players, and you see it with guys that are well-conditioned and guys that aren’t. Older guys, young guys. You see it. You see it with your goalies. You just have to be able to know your players, and then try and get the most out of them and then trust them that they’ll get the most out of themselves…Just do it. When we went to Phoenix last time, I thought we played as well as we could. We lost five-two. And then they come in here, and we win four-nothing. There’s not much difference. It’s just hard for the players.”
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