January 21 postgame quotes: LoVerde, Brodzinski, Herr

Vincent LoVerde, on what happened on the collision with Blackwell and if he felt he was pushed:
Yeah. I’m good now. I haven’t seen the replay or anything. Apparently none of the refs saw it either. But yeah, that’s hockey, that’s how it goes. Just went into the boards a little bit funny but no lingering issues. [Reporter: You were leading but to was there a response from the team that you were able to return for the third?] I don’t know if it was me coming back, I just think the guys wanted to respond from our previous games we’ve had. We haven’t played great and up to that point we were playing OK hockey so I think Stuttsy challenged us between periods and I thought we responded great in the third.

LoVerde, on the four-goal third period:
Any time you score a goal early in the period it’s a huge momentum swing. I thought, like I said, our second period wasn’t great, we came out good in the third and we started to pile some good shifts, one after another. We were able to get a few goals and build from there.

Jonny Brodzinski, on scoring two goals with his mom in attendance:
Mom came down. Me and my brother [Michael, who was scratched for San Jose] surprised her with a little trip. She got to come down and see both of us so that’s all that really matters.

Brodzinski, on if the team’s response in the third was related to LoVerde being able to return:
He came back in after the second period, said he was fine, ready to go. I think the spirits got up after that. It’s a dangerous hit. He kind of pushed down on his breezers. That’s the kind of stuff (trails off) — refs didn’t see it, so what can you do? But, yeah, I just think everybody was pumped up after he came back. It was pretty dangerous.

Brodzinski, on the explosion of goals in the third period:
Stuttsy came in after the second period and he said that Tucson lost and this was our chance to take back over first place. We’ve had a few games here where we’ll be up going into the third period or we’ll be close going into the third and slip away a little bit. So I think we just tried to lock down our zone and just put pucks to the net and were fortunate to have a few of them go in.

Sam Herr, on the last time he had a Gordie Howe hat trick:
Definitely [first one] in the pros. I couldn’t tell you in juniors though.

Herr, on the win overall after if there was a response seeing that LoVerde was OK:
Definitely got off to a hot start there in the first for a good twenty but I think in the beginning of the second we got away from our game a little bit. We were real sloppy in the neutral zone. There was definitely an emphasis coming back after the second and we just cleaned up the neutral zone a little bit, got pucks deep. We were kicking them wide with speed and so we were able to enter the zone and from there we’re a pretty good offensive team, so we were able to make plays and score some big goals. [Reporter: Any thought about trying to save some goals for tomorrow?] (Laughs) Oh, yeah, that’s definitely the plan. San Diego, a little rivalry, so we got to save some.