Game 3 vs. San Diego postgame quotes: Gulls’ Eakins, Kerdiles, Enroth, Kossila

All quotes courtesy of San Diego Gulls PR

Head coach Dallas Eakins, on the game-winning goal
I think Kase made a hell of a play, dropping it back for Kerdiles and I don’t think the goalie saw it. There was a ton of traffic and Nic was able to get it through to the net. Just a quick bang-bang play. We had a bunch of those in the second period and weren’t able to convert, so it was nice to get that one.

Eakins, on the physicality:
I think there’s a whole lot of ice packs going on in both dressing rooms right now. It just kept going back and forth, highly physical, lots of bad blood and I’m sure there’s lots of guys hurting on both teams right now.

Eakins, on Game 4:
We’ve got to stay out of the penalty box. We took a couple penalties tonight that were totally unnecessary, and there’s no worse feeling in this game than to be sitting in the penalty box when the other team scores, especially in the playoffs. A game, it could cost you the series. The other thing is, we got to stay healthy. Guys are getting banged up here. We’ve got lots of extra bodies, but we’re going to have to backfill this one.

Nic Kerdiles, on the win:
It’s definitely exciting and you saw that in our celebration. This was a big game for us, to go up 2-1 against a great Ontario team and get a chance to finish them off on Monday at their rink. It was a great performance by the guys and we are all really happy about it.

Kerdiles, on his game-winner:
(Ondrej) Kase made a great play there and left that puck there for me to shoot it. Luckily I found the back of the net. I knew where I was shooting that puck right when it hit my stick and I tried to put everything on it.

Kerdiles, on the rivalry:
You see how intense it is with the physicality out there. There are a lot of scrums, gloves in the face and things like that. You have to keep your discipline out there since one bad penalty can kill your team. The rivalry is heated right now and it is good to have the momentum going into the next game.

Jhonas Enroth, on the game:
I think it was an even game. It could have gone both ways. That’s always tough games when we play against them and we knew coming into the series. We got the win and that’s all that matters.

Enroth, on the mentality going into Game 4:
We feel good about ourselves and hopefully they feel worse about themselves. We have momentum going into the next game and I think we’re going to come out flying the next game.

Kalle Kossila, on the Kerdiles game-winning goal:
That felt so good. I was jumping on the bench like a little kid. I knew it was going to be a goal at the last second, or even overtime. It just felt so good when I saw the puck go in.

Kossila, on the physicality:
It’s just something that happens throughout the game. You don’t think about it, you don’t plan it, it just happened to happen and you go and live with it.

Kossila, on the scoring throughout the game:
It’s just tight hockey and the goals happened to come early. I know both teams had a couple power plays there and that’s when you have to capitalize. It’s hard hockey 5-on-5, there’s not much room, not too many opportunities so it happened to go this way.