January 14 postgame quotes: Winnipeg

Paul Maurice, on his team’s response after giving up the first goal:
Yeah. We got off to playing a little late here you know sometimes on back-to-backs it takes a little while then after that we played a hell of a game. I really liked a lot of what we did and look to build and get stronger and stronger. You know we needed the third one to go to put a team like that out but it was probably right, that close at the end.

Maurice, on what he liked about the Jets’ powerplay against LA:
I’ve liked it for a while. It hasn’t gotten that two but it’s been pretty consistent. Lots of composure, both units a little bit different but I like Buff getting one from the top, too. He’s been darn close so it’s good that he did that but real good composure on the puck.

Maurice, on Hutchinson’s game:
Well a solid game. Really, really good. Battled in the net, lot of scrums at the net and strong so a good confidence booster for him and for our team in front of him.

Maurice, on whether the team will be able to mentally slow down with a day off tomorrow:
You have to like the way you played, you feel good about your game. You don’t like the end result but we liked our game. Compete was right, the battle was right, it’s not perfect, there’s always mistakes made but they made as least as many I think so you can have some, you know again, this is all about confidence. It’s not just about your hands, it’s about how your team plays and how you feel you’re playing. Played right tonight.

Drew Stafford, on whether the team was happy with their performance against LA:
Yeah it definitely helps. I mean, even without the point. We wanted two but I think the way that we played tonight, the effort that we put in throughout our lineup. Hutch played great for us and gave us a chance to win and I think the way that we played defensively at least, you know, we had enough offense to win as well. They hit some posts too but we had some great chances as well. The way that we played tonight is going to get us a lot more wins than losses usually so unfortunately we didn’t get the two points but we’re going to try and bubble this up a little bit and continue on to San Jose.

Stafford, on what was clicking on the powerplay that led to two goals for Winnipeg:
Good movement. We’ve got enough skill that we can make plays out there. It’s about being quick when the PK is going to be aggressive. You know, the way that they are they have a good PK so moving it around, getting shots through. Buff’s shot was just a seeing-eye shot and mine was just kind of a quick release so it’s one of those things like I said, we’ve got to be quick and we have enough skill so it was good we were able to capitalize.

Michael Hutchinson, on the team’s performance against LA:
I thought we played pretty well. Our effort level was there, we battled hard. LA’s a tough team to play in their home rink. They have a lot of big bodies out there and our team we battled hard and we played really close to a full 60 minutes and you know, even when they had the puck in our zone a bit guys were sacrificing, blocking shots and playing the way that we need to play and if we play that way with that effort we’re going to be really successful down the stretch.

Hutchinson, on whether the last few games have been more positive for the Jets:
Yeah. Tonight was all about effort and coming out and, you know, we gave up an early goal but we didn’t let that get to us which is huge for us. We just kind of kept battling and kept battling and we were able to get a couple goals and it’s unfortunate that they were able to tie it up late in the game there. At the same time the way we rebounded after an early goal was really a huge positive for us.

Hutchinson, on whether luck was on his side with the Kings hitting several posts:
Not really. I think four of them actually went off my shoulders before they hit the post so if you go any lower they hit me so I think there was only just that one that Clifford had but I played junior with him and he doesn’t put those in the net too often. Besides that one every single one hit my stick went off the post, hit my shoulder went off the post, where if it was on the net it would’ve hit me so they got a lot of iron tonight but if they hit the net they probably hit me.