February 17 postgame quotes: Mike Stothers

On this win being one of the better ones in recent memory:
Man, I thought it was a great win. Great effort by everybody. Man, oh, man. You look at who we’re missing and we always try to stress the fact that’s not about who’s not here, it’s who is here. I think tonight was a perfect example of our guys stepping up their play and making contributions. And it was everybody, from Soupy on out. It was good. Our guys from Manchester did a good job for us tonight. Fourth line kind of got lost a little bit in the shuffle for ice time and minutes with the penalties. But even when they did get out there they did a good job for us. Hey, it was unbelievable. It was good.

On Jack Campbell’s performance:
He was good. He was very good. He has been for most of the year for us. A situation like we’re in, we need some consistent, solid goaltending, and he provided it for us. It was good. The D kept it real simple. The forwards did a real good job of getting back and supporting us in our end. We were creating some speed. That looked like a fast game from ice level. I don’t know where you guys watch from. Man, that was fast. [Reporter: Was that more what was going on with Tucson, it just seemed like there were turnovers and things kept going back and forth. Were you expecting that kind of play going in?] Uh, it’s hard to predict what you’re gonna get. That’s a good team that’s played us extremely well in their rink. You look at their lineup, there’s a lot of good hockey players on it. Duclair’s on that team. He’s an NHL player. They’ve got a lot of guys who are NHL players. You certainly don’t want to take it for granted or take them lightly. We proved if you compete and you retreat and battle tooth and nail, you’ve got a chance. And we did.

On whether the compete level was what went well on the penalty kill:
Well sometimes that happens. Sometimes as good as a power play as Tucson has and we’ve got a good power play, there’s nights where you can be outworked and the penalty killers I thought did a real good job tonight. Now, the next time we play them, who knows? They’re that dynamic on their power play. I’m not going to get too jacked up about it but it’s like anything else. It’s part of your game. You need to be good. We took too many penalties. We took six minors. Against a team like that, you don’t want to be doing that. We’re very, very fortunate we came out of it the way we did.

On whether there was a wow factor with Brodzinski’s goal:
I don’t know. Nothing wows me with that kid, I get to see him shoot a puck every day or deke. It’s fun to watch. He’s fun to watch. When he’s got a puck, he’s around the net, it’s pretty exciting.

On Alexx Privitera’s game and what he liked about it:
I actually thought he made the play last game. Great defensive zone stick on a low pass-out, allows Henner and Brodz and Seto to break out of the zone. He didn’t factor in on the scoresheet on that, but that’s a great play. Stick on the ice, guys looking for far post, just had his stick on the ice, tipped it, Henner goes down, Seto good middle drive and pass over to Brodz. You can talk about those three all you want, the play was made by Privy. And I thought he was good again tonight. Got a lot of composure for a little guy. Skates well and he’s not afraid to get in there. So, yeah, he did a great job.

On Brett Sutter’s shorthanded goal:
Turned out to be the game-winner. Who would have thought that would have held on to be the game-winning goal? Shorthanded chance? Sutts is just, man, oh, man. If you could cut a guy out of [trails off] … He’s a good person, he works hard, he’s got great work ethic. He’s a great veteran guy. There’s not enough accolades for him. He’s a great person. He plays as hard as he can every single game. Some games, even when it’s not going his way, it’s not through lack of effort or work. He raises everybody else.

On whether Vincent LoVerde may return Saturday after just taking warmups tonight:
I talked to Vinny about being out there for warmup and being in the room with his teammates. He’s the captain. It’s important that he’s around the guys. Is he going to play tomorrow? Not likely. But I did put his name on the sheet, so we’re getting closer.

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.