February 8 postgame quotes: Mike Stothers

On the first period:
Actually, you know what, I really liked that first period. I thought we played an excellent period of hockey. We still haven’t played that continually through a 60-minute [game] but but man, there was many positive things, and that’s what we needed to have. Two-nothing lead, it’s a good way to start. [Reporter: Besides the goals, what were some of the positives?] I liked our forecheck. I liked our reloads and our neutral zone forecheck. Kind of made it difficult for them to even get to center. We had the puck a lot and then the second it kind of changed. I think that was [because] we didn’t win as many faceoffs and then we spent time in our end. Kind of got away from it in that end but overall we got back to winning ways so that’s good.

On whether he thought Bakersfield made adjustments in the second period:
No, I just think we didn’t win faceoffs. If you don’t win D-zone faceoffs, their O-zone faceoffs, you’re going to chase the puck and we were guilty of doing that. And then we’d get a stoppage, Jack would make a save and we’d throw another line out there and they didn’t win the faceoff, then you start chasing. Bakersfield, you give them credit too. They played us well, played us hard. I think every game’s been decided by one goal.

On secondary scoring and getting an early goal from Amadio and a goal from the fourth line:
We needed contributions from everybody. It was great. Amadio had a goal and an assist, which is good for him. I still don’t know how he didn’t score in the third there in the slot. Bjorkstrand got a great goal. I thought our line that went out fourth played an extremely good game. It’s tough. [Bjorkstrand’s] out of position, Shore comes in plays his first game of his regular season, does a great job. You know what, I think Champ, I don’t think he gets enough credit for what he does. He’s left side, right side. He makes some things happen. He’s got some skill, so I was real happy with those guys. And then Soupy was there when we needed him. There was a lot of positives to build off on that one.

On Quentin Shore’s play in his debut:
I thought he did well. I thought they were good together. They seemed to be, obviously some chemistry there with Champ there. I thought [Bjorkstrand] played kind of more like we see in practice. He was a force with his speed. That’s what he can bring and maybe he just felt a little bit more comfortable, so it was good. I liked that lineup until Shoresy’s drop pass in the third. I told him about it. I told him I was going to text his brother too and let him know how I felt about that drop pass.

On the Reign’s resiliency and ability to dodge losing streaks:
Please don’t say that. I’m not the most superstitious guy in the world but I am pretty superstitious. [Reporter: But what is it about the team that allows them to refocus and battle back right away?] We do get discouraged. Discouraged, that’s not the right word. I get pissed off when we lose and I try to share that with my players. [Reporter: As nicely as possible.] No, no, not really, no. No. But in order to be considered a good team you can’t allow those things to happen. You’ve got to nip it in the bud. It’s part of your mentality of, again, if we win three games in a row we don’t get all pumped up like we’re going to win the Calder Cup. And if we happen to drop one or two it’s like, OK, that’s enough. We need to get back to basics, we need to start doing the things we need to do. And that’s the focus. I think you have to as a collective group just get irritated enough to say that’s it. We’re not losing another one. So if you can print the word pissed off or whatever, I don’t know. I get pissed off when we lose.

On Andrew Crescenzi’s two D-zone faceoff wins late in the game to seal the victory:
We count on big Cres for faceoffs and he was a horse out there for us, especially when we needed him. We asked him to step it up, too. He went two games during the course of losing one in overtime and losing one outright that he didn’t even register a shot. So, he’s got to bring a lot of things to table but when push comes to shove, you need a faceoff, you need a guy to bear down and get a win for ya, he’s a pretty good go-to guy to have. And then you can put Sutts out there. Those two guys, you talk about not wanting to lose or don’t like to lose, they hate losing a faceoff. So, those are the right guys to have out in those situations.