January 26 postgame quotes: Budaj, Martinez

Peter Budaj, on his 5th shutout of the season:
…Carolina, and you know I was able to make some saves, a couple posts, a couple good sticks by our guys, a couple good blocks. We got a lot of penalty killing which is very dangerous especially in this building against this team. They have a lot of skill. They can move the puck pretty well so good shooters so it was a big thing for us that I think the last three penalty kills I think we allowed only like 1 or 2 shots and that was from the point so that always makes it much easier. Guys were doing a great job in front of me blocking shots and taking the lanes away with their sticks so it was great.

Budaj, on whether he’s comfortable with having played 42 games so far this season:
You know it’s great. It’s a lot of work but you ask any goalie, every goalie wants to play every game obviously. It’s pretty much impossible to play every game but you know, every goalie wants to play. I’m very thankful and very excited to be here, just enjoying this moment. It’s great for me. I think it’s, you know you never want to get in the net when somebody gets hurt. You know, obviously Jonathan Quick is the heart and soul of this team and it was a big loss for them but you don’t want to get in the net when somebody gets hurt but on the other hand it’s an opportunity for me to show that I can still play, that I still love the game, I still have passion for it and I still can compete and hopefully I can still help the team win some games.

Budaj, on serving Carolina their first shutout this season:
Oh really? Oh, that’s great. We knew that they play a very team game. They play very together and their D is supportive and we knew that we had to be sharp. They have a lot of young skilled players in front and they can make you pay so it was a great win for us especially at the end of our long road trip. It’s a big win for us coming in to the All-star break to get the win and we had a tough first two games on the road trip and then we bounced back with a win against Jersey and tonight so it’s a big win for us. It was a very good game. I think both teams played well. We were able to score more times so that’s great.

Budaj, on the save he made against Aho on a 2-on-1:
Yeah it was actually a triple deflection. I think it was Lindholm had the puck, right? It was Lindholm and he made a great move. I think Marty was our D and he gave him the shot, that’s how you play it, 2-on-1 you give the shooter the shot and take away the pass and he made an unbelievable pass, Lindholm, so he pretty much froze me and froze our D and put it across and then it hit Marty’s stick it hit me and then it hit the crossbar so thank God it didn’t go in. One of those that you need to be like, ‘Wow’, you know, you should be thankful for that because that doesn’t happen often.

Alec Martinez, on whether there’s a different mentality when playing the last game of a road trip:
Well yeah you just, with the break coming up you don’t want to change your mind thinking ahead. It was obviously a really big two points for us and an opportunity to go .500 on a road trip so anytime you go in to a break you obviously want to go in playing well and I think we did that tonight. We had everyone going, we had great goaltending, we had special teams going, everyone was buzzing so it was a good 60 minutes but yeah I think you take a little bit of an extra focus.

Martinez, on what it takes to keep Carolina off the scoreboard:
Well I think a lot of that was Buds. Buds came up big for us, making big saves. I think quick to contact down low. A team like that, they have a lot of guys up front that can make plays and if you give them time and space they’re going to do just that so you’ve got to eliminate their time and space as much as you possibly can and rely on your system and just try to shut them down.

Martinez, on turning a 4-game losing streak around in to a 2-game winning streak:
Yeah I mean I think, like I said before, we took a good mental focus coming in to this one. It was a big two points and I’m proud of the guys. I think everyone really answered the bell and it was a really big win for us.