September 16 postgame quotes: Brown, Fantenberg

Dustin Brown, on rekindling chemistry with Michael Cammalleri and Anze Kopitar:
I thought we had good looks. First preseason game, I think it was a good start. We were in the right positions a lot of times. If you looked at three, four, five plays there, put it on the wrong side or just those types of plays, those are going to happen this early. But I thought our positioning was good. We were in the right spots, we just didn’t execute as well. That’s what preseason’s for, really.

Brown, on whether this game was a taste for the league’s crackdown on slashing:
I hope not. We might as well just go two minutes power play, two minutes penalty kill tonight. I mean, I get what they’re trying to do, and they probably change rules like this a lot. They crack down really hard for the first 20 games, and then they kind of find the happy medium where you can still play the game. There were a couple tonight where it felt like it’s just a stick check going for the puck and you hit the guy’s stick. For me, that’s how you forecheck, that’s how you’re taught to play, is stick-on-puck. If it’s up in the hands, I get it. We’ll figure it out. They’ll figure it out, but it’s probably toughest for the refs because they have us yelling at them and they’ve got the league yelling at them all at the same time.

Brown, on whether this was a typical first preseason game:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve been through a lot of them – it’s more just the timing of it, the speed of it. It makes it especially hard on the PK. Like, the PK, your timing and footwork and your spacing is difficult to get this early in the year, and we had a lot of work on it tonight, so in a way that’s probably a good thing. I’d rather work on it now and figure it out quickly.

Oscar Fantenberg, on whether he was happy with his performance in his first preseason game:
Yeah. I felt better and better more as the game went on. I think I’m going to get more comfortable with the small ice and stuff. That’s more how you practice and play in games. I would say OK game, but I can be better, for sure.

Fantenberg, on his goal:
It had a really good bounce in the corner, so I took a few strides and just hammered it. I think [inaudible] was in front of the net, so he didn’t see the puck. Just [shot] it as hard as possible, and luckily it went in.

Fantenberg, on whether there’s any relief scoring in his first game:
Yeah, for sure, it makes it more comfortable. You know where you can be better, and I’m just going to keep working hard during practice and games, and just take it step-by-step. It’s going to be harder. Every day is going to be hard, and every game’s going to be better and better and more pace, but again, we’re going to get more comfortable having more practices and games on the small ice. It’s a quicker game, so I just have to take as much in as possible.

-Lead photo via Juan Ocampo/NHLI

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