March 2 postgame quotes: Toronto

Mike Babcock, on getting a point in the shootout:
Yeah you know I thought we did good. I thought we played good. We made a mistake there on the second goal and the one they shot off his head, obviously, disappointed. We had lots of chances. Quick was good, Andy was good. Haven’t had much luck this year in the shootout for whatever reason so that part’s disappointing but I thought we played well. I thought we gave them lots of trouble and they gave us trouble, too, and it was a good hockey game.

Babcock, on the Maple Leafs’ defense:
Well i thought Reiz and Gardiner were very, very good tonight. Zaits had a good game as well and I thought Hunwick had a real strong in the back end really. But we had lots of good players here tonight and you have to when you’re playing a real good team and I thought we played well.

Babcock, on Connor Brown’s game:
I thought he was flying, really got to another level. We had lots of guys — Nylander, Matthews, Hyman, they were all really skating. And I thought Boyle brings good leadership and settles us down and tells us wear to stand, what to do and I think that’s real important for our team.

Babcock, on Andersen “stringing together” some solid starts:
Well obviously the team played good, Freddie played good. It’s important. We’ve got to find ways to get points. We only got one and if I’m not mistaken we’re on the outside right now in the playoff race so we’ve got to keep grinding and find ways to get in.

Frederik Andersen, on the game:
I thought we played really good. Especially the two first periods. I thought we were doing a really good job, bounces seemed to go the wrong way here. A shot that went pretty far wide and hit Zaits in the head, it’s one of those games. It’s tough, we’ve got to work through it though.

Andersen, on the Leafs struggling to get the win in shootouts:
No, I think today I had a different approach and I felt perfect on all three of them. He fanned on the shot and it’s one of those, like I said, bad bounces but I changed my approach a little bit and I felt great today.

Andersen, on whether the ice quality effected the gameplay:
Yeah the puck is a little bit all over the place and we’ve just got to fight through. You’ve got to find it and try to do my best in the third and yeah, trying to cover up every puck I could. The players have to deal with it a little more than me but it gets a little sluggish out there.

Tyler Bozak, on the Leafs struggling in the shootout this season:
Yeah I mean it’s tough. I think, you know, I don’t really know how to explain it. We just haven’t had good luck in it. I mean, it’s one of those things you can’t get too high when you win ’em and you can’t get too low when you lose ’em. We want to make the playoffs and when we get there we’re not going to have to deal with them so we had our chances to finish it in overtime, especially me and unfortunately we weren’t able to get it done.

Bozak, on whether he liked the Leafs first two periods:
Yeah. I thought we had a pretty good road game. I mean, I thought we got a good forecheck going on them. I thought we played well the first two periods and then they got a bounce in the third and another one but we were able to keep our composure and take the momentum I think near the end of the game again and get some more chances and then obviously overtime both teams had their chances. The goalies made some big saves and here we are.

Brian Boyle, on the disappointment of not being able to pick up two points:
Yeah, but that’s overtime, 3-on-3. You know, you’ve been beating that ice up all game long and that’s the way it goes sometimes, there’s some bounces. I thought it was a good road game, really. And you have lapses, it’s going to happen no matter what but you’d like to kill of that period to start the third. Obviously kind of a flukey bounce, a rare thing that you don’t see a lot of but I thought it was a pretty good road game.

Boyle, on the Kings pushing back in the third period:
Yeah they got that forecheck going again a little bit. We need a little bit more poised in our end. And they’re going to push, you know they’re going to push. That’s a pretty experienced team over there that’s done some pretty good things in the last few years so I think we, obviously we gave up a 2-goal lead which is disappointing. Thought the way we responded was pretty good. Obviously it’s not the final result and that’s kind of the be all, end all at this point of the season I guess.