December 31 postgame quotes: Sutter and Backman

Brett Sutter, on the vibe on the bench on the late four-minute power play:
I think it started right from intermission. I think there’s always just some belief in that room knowing that we’re a good third period team, knowing we’re not going to quit, and keep pushing. And fortunately enough we got to take advantage of probably not a good penalty by them and guys kept pushing and got rewarded for it.

Sutter, on the penalty-packed second period and if it was tough to get through:
It was a strange game all night I thought. Not a lot of flow. Yeah, second period was real tough. I can’t remember playing more than a couple shifts with your linemates out there. Like I said, we had a good feel in the locker room that second intermission. Like I said, the belief in there that we were going to push through and especially against these guys. There’s a little bit of a rivalry starting and a little bit of hatred going so it feels good.

Sutter, on his game-winner:
Backs had a ton of speed. He was yelling at me through the neutral zone that he wanted it. He was skating good all night so obviously I gave it to him. He make a heck of a play, a little fake shot and slid it through the guy’s triangle. I just had to have my stick on the ice and he did most of the work, I just got to reap the rewards of it.

Sutter, on closing out 2016 with a dramatic win after a bumpy start to the season:
Yeah, finding ways to win I think. I think you look at our last 12, 14 games we’ve got a lot of points. Not always on our best night but most importantly finding a way to win. And I think that’s the most important thing, seeing where we can improve and seeing the things we were successful on and just building off those. There’s a few little things that we can fix but we got a full week of practice here to start the new year and we’ll get right on it.

Sutter, on how it felt to score the game-winner:
We were pumped. We were pumped. Always a good feeling and like I said Backs did most of the work. The guys fought hard all third to get us back in the game so it felt good to get rewarded and to end the year on the right note.

Sean Backman, on if the team started just seeing blood after the double-minor call:
Well yeah I think so a little bit. You take us back to the last time we played these guys in this building, we had a, not quite as deep of a hole but we managed to score three there and came up short. So we knew that we were capable of coming back and then having that power play for four minutes definitely helped.

Backman, on what it was like on the bench during the comeback:
It was fun. Yeah, any time your team starts a comeback like that you can kind of sense it on the ice and guys feed off that energy with the goals and the crowd. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Backman, on his play to set up Sutter for the game-winner:
Sutts gave me a good pass there in the neutral zone and my first instinct was to take it down the wall for a shot and I took a look over and he had his guy completely beat so there’s no reason not to slide it over to him.

Backman, on the bumpy start to the season if it’s ironic that 2016 ends this way:
Not the start we were looking for but as you said, the year’s closing out and we got a heck of a run going on right now and we just want to keep that momentum going into next week. Guys are having a good time and everyone’s excited so it’s a good time to be playing for the Reign.