March 14 postgame quotes: Nashville

Pekka Rinne, on the win:
It feels good. Obviously one of the top teams and we played a great game. I thought defensively that was one of the better games in a long time. Obviously everybody knows that we’ve struggled a little bit here and that was huge win for us against a really good team.

Rinne, on whether Viktor Stalberg got a lucky bounce on his goal:
Yeah, for sure. I thought that, again their first goal, obviously you have to work hard [to] create some luck and create some bounces, but they got their first goal off a bounce. We tried to block a shot and it goes straight to Carter and he buries it. Then we got lucky with Stalberg’s goal. You need those, you need those lucky bounces and that’s what we got tonight. That’s a really big two points for us. We played a hard game. I thought that we played really well.

Craig Smith, on scoring a power play goal in the third period:
Just shooting the puck, I think we did a good job of getting in front of the goalie tonight. It makes it tough on him and it makes it tough for the people around him to kind of clear pucks and we were able to get a bounce and some of those bounces that we weren’t getting in the last couple games.

Smith, on whether this was an important win for them:
It’s big. This is a team we look forward to playing. This is kind of our style of game, we like getting in there and playing aggressive. It’s a big win, it’s a really good team and that’s kind of a playoff type game right now.

Peter Laviolette, on whether the game was their style of hockey:
We knew it was going to be a tight game. They’re a heavy team and there is not a lot of room out there. You’ve got to be sharp defensively. You’ve got to be opportunistic offensively. We knew what we were getting into here and it was a good game, tight game.

Laviolette, on whether he felt a sense of relief when they scored a power play goal:
Yeah, I mean we’re sitting in that game, at that point we’re down 1-0. We loved the way we’re playing and we’re behind again. So give a lot of credit for everybody just staying focused, really, and continuing to press. That was a solid win for us.