December 3 postgame quotes: Mike Stothers

On the game overall:
There was a little calm confidence. Not great, but I felt pretty good about the way we were playing. I didn’t think it was quite as good a game as last night but I thought it was good. There was more positives than negatives. It’s funny, just gathered here not too long ago after two losses on a weekend and again, I refer to the fact that the sky’s falling, now everybody’s heads are up, they’re patting the coach on the shoulder on the way by. That’s what winning does for ya. It’s a great feeling. It’s good for them. They worked hard. They deserved it. After being that low after a couple losses they dug in, they worked hard. They rectified the situation and now we get ready to go on the road again.

On Jonny Brodzinski’s individual effort on his breakaway goal:
Brodz is an opportunist. It was a good read by him. It was either a really good read by him or a real poor decision by that defenseman. [Reporter: He said he saw them talking about going D to D before the faceoff]. A lot of teams, D-to-D, one-timer maybe, or whatever. But still, to get out there. Then he had to not only … intercept the puck but now he’s got to skate with the puck which is harder to do than skating without out it. Then he made an unbelievable move. That’s a goal scorer. There’s some guys who would have overskated it, there’s some guys who probably would have been caught from behind. And then maybe because you’ve got so much pressure from behind you just drill it into the goalie. That’s a goal scorer right there.

On his assessment of Adrian Kempe thus far:
We need to see a lot more. There’s 16 games, you can say it’s only 16 games, but there’s only five points. So, you’re supposed to be creating offense, you’re supposed to be a dynamic player, and we can say what we want but everybody’s judged by results. So, there’s a lot more expected out of Kempe and there’s a lot more that he can bring. [Reporter: Are you seeing any improvement over this time last year?] He’s got five points, so, no. He needs to be a factor every shift and every game. You don’t go to Baskin Robbins and order vanilla ice cream, do ya? [Reporter: Once in a while.] Geez. [Reporter: Depends on what I’m in the mood for.] Well then you’re not playing for me. Put some bloody sprinkles on it or something, will ya? [Reporter: How about the defensive side of the puck?] There’s a lot of room for improvement there. If you’re not scoring then you better be really good defensively. It’s a challenge for that young man but he’s only 20 years old, again it’s part of the process. With all those expectations, you want some results. Sixteen becomes 20, 20 becomes 25.

On Mersch playing a factor besides goal-less drought:
He scored last night. [Reporter: Well, they didn’t give it to him]. I don’t care. He scored last night. We’re getting that changed. He scored. Now, does that remove the drought? No. But that’s something to build on for him. It was a typical Mersch-like scenario in the fact that he was in the blue paint, banging away, banging away, banging away until it goes in. [Reporter: But even tonight, he basically started the play that resulted in the game-winner.] Well, see, there’s some production. If you’re not scoring, you better be producing in other ways. That’s what Merschy does.

On back-to-back wins being able to salvage the homestand:
There’s an awful lot of parity in this league. Every team’s good. You look at it, and wow, every team’s capable of winning and I don’t think anybody’s running away with the division or anybody’s running away with the conference. Every game’s a battle. They had a tough one last night in Bakersfield, came in here and played us very well. They’ve got some good speed, we knew that going in. They played us well last year. That’s what we expect. I don’t know what we were on this homestand, three and two? So that’s pretty good. About five hundred. Been pretty good on the road. Don’t really care where we’re playing, just want to win.