February 24 postgame quotes: Detroit

Justin Abdelkader, on the loss:
It felt like it took us five, eight minutes to get our legs. Once we got our legs going… they got a power play goal kind of right away there. Once we settled down, got playing I thought we did a lot of good things. Obviously they’re a good team, winning seven, eight in a row, whatever it is. Their defense are big. They like to be physical, take the body. There wasn’t a lot of room out there. I thought our power play, our entries weren’t … we didn’t go a good job executing there. In turn, we didn’t have very much momentum off our power play.

Abdelkader, on whether it is a rare occurrence to have an off night on the power play:
Yeah. Our entries, were weren’t together. We didn’t make our adjustments right away like we should have. We kept pucks on the walls which LA, they’re a big team, that’s where the want the pucks is on the walls. We need to communicate better and in turn, our power play has won us a lot of games this year. I thought our penalty kill was good, obviously we gave up that one power play goal. Our power play has got to come through with at least one there with all the chances we had. They’re a good team. Five-on-five, there wasn’t a whole lot. Quick is a good goalie, made good saves when he had to. I thought [Jonas Gustavson] did a good job for us.

Brendan Smith, on whether it was a physical game:
I think that’s how they want to play all the time. It makes for a fun game and it’s exciting in that sense. I thought we did some good things. The puck didn’t go in the net, but Quickie played well. We didn’t find a way.

Jonas Gustavsson, on whether it was frustrating to give up an early power play goal:
It’s always frustrating to give up a goal, but you’ve just got to go on. It was a good shot, good deflection and even if it’s a bad goal, good goal you look forward to the next puck, the next save. So that’s what I did. I think we battled real hard today. Then it makes it easier for you as a goalie to battle as well to see all the guys playing so hard.

Gustavsson, on the game:
I think it was a good game from both teams. It was kind of like a playoff game, I felt like. It was tight and a low-scoring game. We did a good job keeping them on the outside and they had a few three-on-twos maybe in the second period and maybe a couple of chances, but other than that I think we, like I said, kept them on the outside and we spent a lot of time in their end. It’s too bad tonight that we couldn’t get a goal, but I have to give all the guys credit on how hard they battled.

Mike Babcock, on the game:
I just thought it was a good hockey game. We talk lots about trying to start quick when you play back-to-backs, sometimes it takes a little bit. They got the two-on-one there early and then they scored on the power play. … I thought we were going to get good opportunities. I thought we got better as the game went on and I didn’t like the five-on-three at the end just because of the fact that it wasted a couple minutes there with us killing in our own zone. But Gus gave us an opportunity and our guys battled hard. They’re a good team and we’re a good team. There wasn’t much room out there.

Babcock, on the delay of game call that led to a five-on-three penalty kill:
What my people that watched the video told me and what was true was different. So we should have got it out. I shouldn’t be saying anything. It was our fault, no one else’s fault. I got some misdirection and so I’ll have to talk to those officials. We work together all the time, so you have to treat them better than that.