October 15 postgame quotes: New York

Doug Weight, on John Tavares and the team’s performance:
Yeah, chances have been few and far between, but they’ve gotten their share. You know, when they go in they’ll go in. But that was a tough one. I think it was a rolling puck and I don’t think he’s fighting anything. You just want things to go in at key times. We’ve had a couple of key times on this trip, so maybe that’s magnified. You know, we’ve got to play like we did in the second period. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit, taking a couple penalties right in the midst of a really tilt in the ice and just pouring lines on them. They were dog-tired. And that’s how we’ve got to play, and find a way to get that consistent effort, but it was just great to watch. The first period, I thought both teams were a little flat-footed coming off the back-to-back and kind of touchy-feely a little bit. But listen, I’m not praising losses. It was just a good effort and we worked hard and created some chances and it was the same thing right before Z (Casey Cizikas) scored. We had three to four shifts that we boarded on. We had energy. We were above the puck. We were in good spots. It was destined to get a goal. And I thought we were going to tie it up. We had some good chances.

Weight, on whether he was simply looking for an ugly power play goal:
Yeah, I think you do. Other teams have had a couple go off of our pants. And I think it was the second game in a row we had an own goal. I think the first one went off Peley. But those are breaks. You’ve got to earn them. So regardless of having good opportunities, we’ve got to start scoring and we’ve got to stop giving up opportunities as well. And it starts with shooting the puck. We’ve got some guys that can fire it. And we’ve got to start moving around a little quicker and get some pucks to the net and they’ll go in for us.

John Tavares, on the team’s lack of power play success:
Obviously the power play has really let us down so far at this point in the season. It’s some good things at times and at other times, we’re just not executing. Sometimes we just aren’t getting good bounces so it seems like it’s a combination of a few things. All we can do is wake up tomorrow and find a way to turn the tide and get better.

Tavares, on his performance this season:
They’re counting on me to produce and I haven’t done that as consistently to start the season as I would like. We’ve had some opportunities and have been creating some opportunities, obviously the power play hasn’t been successful either. I definitely expect more of myself, especially when I get those chances.

Casey Cizikas, on tonight’s game:
That was a fun hockey game to be a part of. It was fast. Everybody was taking a body, and it just came down to a few, little mistakes.

Cizikas, on the team’s performance:
After that first period, we played well. We were getting pucks in deep and we had opportunities, we just have to bear down on them.