November 2 postgame quotes: Toronto

Jake Gardiner, on the ice quality overall:
It seemed all right. I just don’t know what happened on the first one.

Gardiner, on whether it’s difficult to come back after allowing five goals:
It’s really tough. Their goalie is so good, it’s tough to score on him as it is. They’re a heck of a team and had a great start. Turning the puck over like that in the first and the second, just not going to get it done.

Gardiner, on whether anything was said to turn the game’s momentum around:
Just limit the turnovers and get the puck in and anytime we do that we’re going to, for the most part, outplay a team in the offensive zone. We have so much skill up front that if we can do that and limit the turnovers, we’ll be fine.

Gardiner, on why turnovers have been “a consistent issue”:

I mean, I thought we played well last night. Just a little maybe work on that same area. It’s just, you see one guy do it and it’s kind of a trend I guess.

Morgan Rielly, on getting back in the game after allowing five goals:
Just started working the game plan. Was working when we executed. We started working down low and moving our feet. I thought we had time when we were controlling the play a litte bit more, but we didn’t do enough of it.

Rielly, on the challenges presented by the loss:
I don’t know. That’s just sports. That’s how it happens. You know, there’s no excuses. You know, I think they played last night too, didn’t they? So no excuses. I mean they came out hard, we didn’t. And when you look back at the game, it had a big impact on the outcome.

Auston Matthews, on his second penalty shot:
I don’t know, I guess on the first one he kind of steps back on his net. I don’t know if I nicked him or not, but I saw an opening and I tried to go for it.

Matthews, on if it was a challenge for Toronto to dig themselves out of a five goal deficit:
It’s tough. Especially when you don’t start on time like we did tonight. I think for us, especially when we’re on the tail end of a back-to-back and they’re a fresh team, there’s no excuse for our legs not to be there, but we definitely have got to play smarter and the first period we didn’t play smart. You know, once we started keeping it simple and keeping the puck in and getting after their D, we started generating some more chances. So for us it could’ve helped if we started that at the puck drop for sure, but you know we showed some resilience. We tried to battle our way back, but in the end we’ve got to start on time.

Matthews, on whether there’s any rhyme or reason to bad starts:

There shouldn’t be any reason for that. Just because it’s a back-to-back I think it should force us to play a little bit smarter and take care of the puck much more. We didn’t take care of it in the first couple periods. Turned the puck over a few times in the neutral zone and they’re a good team, got a good transition game, got defensemen that can move the puck well. They caught us on a couple turnovers headed back our way and were able to capitalize on some chances.

Matthews, on his mindset going into the first penalty shot and on Jonathan Quick:

I just tried to open him up. like I said on the first one he’s kind of when you’re coming down, he’s kind of throwing moves at you and stuff. But just tried to kind of open him up a little bit and was able to catch him, I think leaning one way and he went the other. But I think throughout the game and stuff, I don’t know, I think in my mind he’s got to be the frontrunner for the Vezina right now. He’s so hard to get the puck by on the first shot. You’ve got to get rebounds. He’s so athletic, makes those saves that you see on the highlight reel. So you know I think we did a good enough job getting on top of him and creating some second chance opportunities.

Curtis McElhinney, on what challenges were presented in the game:
Just a tough start. You know I think LA came out ready to play and they jumped us early and capitalized on the opportunities that they got. So you know, it’s an unfortunate thing because we played a pretty good game last night against Anaheim, and we had a lot of good minutes tonight as well, it was just a tough start.

McElhinney, on his perspective on the first period:
Well you’re just trying to make saves I mean it’s one of those things I think with back-to-backs and three-and-fours you’re just trying to play simple hockey as a team and you know they jumped us. They got the goals when they needed them and unfortunately we couldn’t recover.

McElhinney, on the Kings’ rush:

They’ve got a good hockey club obviously they have a proven track record of winning and playing a solid game. They’re off to a good start right now so we knew we had our work cut out for us. It’s just one of those things, you’re trying to mitigate as much as possible and try to play simple hockey especially for us on this road trip.

Mike Babcock, on the game overall:
Well we gave them the two goals. We had the turnover—well we kind of battled our way back—we had the one right away in the game, was scored on a breakaway from when Gards (Jake Gardiner) falls, then we were pretty good. And hen Naz (Nazem Kadri) turns the puck over to the center of the net so that’s two of ‘em. And in the end you lose by two and you cant turn pucks over. I thought the first eight minutes were as good as we should’ve been and then I thought we did lots of good things. The penalty kill too, we got too high on three opportunities and they scored on two of them. So those are things we can fix. I liked our energy. I liked a lot of things. We had a lot of good players, yet we weren’t able to come away with a win.

Babcock, on the team’s process:

Well you’ve just got to be ready. We got in early, we ate, we should’ve been fresh. There should’ve been no issue, and yet we made those mistakes in the first period and in the end you spend the whole night working hard and grinding. I mean we had lots of opportunities, no question about it, but in the end you feel like you left one out here. You know I thought this was a good team to play against and a good opportunities for us. I thought we did have good energy after last night, we just made those mistakes.

Babcock, on turnovers and the penalty kill:
See besides the start I didn’t mind the game, except for our penalty kill. Our penalty kill is usually outstanding so I thought we did lots of good things in the game. But the start obviously is problematic. You can’t turn the puck over, I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t outscore your turnovers so we’ve got to do a better job in that area. We travel tomorrow, but it’s still an off day, and we’ll get freshened up and get ready for St. Louis. They’re one of the best teams in the league, should be fun.

Babcock, on Kasperi Kapanen:

Good speed, way better than wehen he was here efore . You know he used to be a skinny kid and now he’s got some meat on his bones and can fly. He had some quality chances. Looks like an NHL player to me.

Babcock, on whether he would consider the Gardiner turnover a result of bad ice:

I mean, it’s just one of those things. You can’t turn it over so I don’t know what happened there. No one’s trying to turn the puck over and saying that we can’t do it. So we’ve got to get that out of our game.

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