March 7 postgame quotes: Pittsburgh

Sidney Crosby, on whether they played an especially disciplined game:
Yeah, I think that they let both teams play, I think for the most part. There was some extra stuff going on and they just seemed to let it go, kind of let the score settle things. I think that was kind of a playoff style game, some chances on both sides. But yeah, definitely big to keep their power play off the ice.

Crosby, on how he feels the team played:
We played pretty good. I think, here especially, they come out pretty hard and knowing that we played last night we expected them to try to be physical and they were. But I thought we weathered the storm. Flower was great for us. At different points where they had momentum, especially in the third there where you could tell we started to wear down a bit, he had to make some big saves. We just had to stick with it, but I thought we were pretty solid all the way through.

Patric Hornqvist, on what it feels like to score the game-winning goal in overtime:
It feels good. First OT goal for me, so it feels great but I think [Paul Martin] did a hell of a job stepping up with that guy in the slot, for being a D-man, four-on-four, that’s a great job. The puck just came to me, I just shot it and it’s nice to see that it went in.

Rob Scuderi, on the team’s defensive effort:
I thought it was good. I’d rather earn a win in another type of fashion based on the way we play, but every once in a while you’re going to have to try to grind one out. I thought it was a difficult position for us in back-to-back games against two really tough teams. We had a lot of energy last night and tonight we just didn’t have it, but I thought we did a good job of bending but not breaking. Even though they did have a lot of shots, we swept away most of the second opportunities and tried to not give them too many good looks.

Scuderi, on whether it was special to earn a win at Staples Center:
No, a win’s a win. Anytime you get half your road points, it’s a good road trip. So we’ve got half of them and now we’re going to make it a great road trip in San Jose.

Marc-Andre Fleury, on whether he felt the ice was tilted in his direction:
I don’t know. It’s something we expected. They played hard, having played last night against a good team too, I kind of expected them to come out hard at us and they did. But it was good everybody stayed patient and nobody panicked in the game and I thought we had a few good chances and definitely nice to get that goal at the end.

Mike Johnston, on whether this was a big win for his team:
Yeah, it’s a tough back-to-back. When you’re coming on a swing into LA, you know that playing these two teams, one is you get a physical game so it’s going to be a strong, physical game. We’re playing against two of the top teams and I know LA has been playing well lately and they’re scraping and clawing to get into the playoffs. That type of game tonight, I thought the biggest thing for me was we stuck with it. We stuck with the game. We were getting some chances, we weren’t getting the volume of shots but I just thought our ability to hang in there and just play the right way throughout the game.

Johnston, on whether it was important for his team to match Los Angeles’ physical play:
I looked at the hits at the end of the game, it looked like we were close to hit-for-hit. But it’s not our intent to play that way, it’s our intent to fight through checks. That’s the most important thing we talk to. They’re a physical team, they do finish their checks. That’s their game, but we have to fight through, we have to wall-off checks. That’s more of our mindset going in to the game tonight, that we had to have that second battle after the hit.

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