December 7 postgame quotes: Stothers, Campbell, Purcell

Head coach Mike Stothers, on the first period and overall thoughts on the win:
Got a goal from Dermy, good quick release from the point. We had some traffic in front. I think Purcell was right in front screening the goalie. Augs cuts in on his off wing and lets go with a wrist shot that beats their goalie high over the glove and it’s a two-nothing lead. It should have been enough. We talk about details all the time and being able to close out games and you get a power play and you get scored on. That’s a major error and we [gave] up an odd-man rush. Dive in, you don’t keep a good F3 in the offensive zone, next thing you know it’s tied two-two. So we gave a point back to them on a night where we should have walked in here, walked out of here with two points. This team’s ahead of us in the standings. We can’t just keep giving points to teams. It’s not the way it works. I guess on one hand we’ll look at is as we’re glad we got the win but still lots to be learned from this scenario and this hockey club, we’ve got some growing to do, and we’ll just keep going back at it. That’s why we’ll practice tomorrow.

Stothers, on his first impressions of Teddy Purcell:
That was an NHL goal. First of all, he pulled away while carrying the puck, which is pretty impressive and then to make the play he did to score the goal was great. He kind of needed to because we got a little caught up a little bit earlier than that and Jack had to make a huge save for us. I think Jack was our best player tonight. He made some big saves for us. That’s what a goalie’s supposed to do.

Stothers, on Jack Campbell’s performance and timely saves:
It’s crucial. You need that. The timing of the situation is the most important. You can give up a leaker and the timing of it’s not great. But when come out of your boots and you make a save like he did and then do it again, you’ve got to ask yourself as a coach, ‘why do we have to rely on Jack making those 10-bill saves?’ There’s some errors along the way. Still looking for that clean game. Still looking for that perfect game. So, tomorrow’s another day to keep whittling away at it and just try and play the perfect game, the perfect road game. Hopefully we’ll do that Friday night.

Jack Campbell, on the win and his game:
I’m feeling good right now. The team keeps playing really good in front of me. Guys are blocking shots like always. We have real selfless group. Everybody’s putting the team ahead of themselves, which is awesome. It was a tough-fought game. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Tucson for coming back into the game and then obviously we showed some resilience scoring in overtime so I thought it was a good win for us.

Campbell, on Tucson’s comeback:
That’s just hockey. They’re a good hockey team. We knew coming into this weekend that they weren’t going to be happy with us taking the last one at home. We knew that they were going to play 60 minutes hard and they did. They were able to get a point out of it but the fact that we got two points is huge and that’s the bottom line.

Campbell, on the team’s three-game winning streak:
I don’t think anybody would say we’ve played our best hockey, including myself from my own game. The positive thing is we are getting results right now even though we may not be playing the best we can. Our practice details have been good and we’re working really hard so we’ll only continue to go up. It was a good win tonight to start the weekend but we came here to get four points and we’ve got some work to do.

Teddy Purcell, on scoring the game-winner and the game overall:
It’s nice. I haven’t been playing in a while. I felt a little rusty in the first period but Stutts was giving me a lot of ice time and it’s something I haven’t been used to lately so I was trying to catch my breath and get a little more polish in my game. … We gave up a late one there and gave them an extra point but it felt good, as the new guy, to come in and get one for the boys.

Purcell, on how he’s adjusting to being in the AHL:
As an older guy I’ve been through it a few times. Most of them are a lot younger than me now so it’s something I’m not as used to as I was back in the day. They’re all welcoming. They’re all a bunch of good guys. It’s a good team so it’s fun to come in and contribute.

Purcell, on what the outlook looks like for him:
Just being consistent. I couldn’t really find my game up there in L.A. Just get my confidence back. I’ve been playing the game a long time now. Find that consistency. With that consistency you’ll get chances, you’ll feel good about yourself, and good things will come from there.

Purcell, on getting plenty of ice time:
I think any time a player can get more ice time it’s good. I was just a little nervous because I haven’t played in about three weeks, just been practicing. And everyone knows practice is a lot different than games. Those TV timeouts were my friend tonight. I don’t usually like them as much but I was just catching my breath and hoping for the best and it worked out.