The view from Montreal

The Curse of 1993? The Kings have now lost seven consecutive games to the Montreal Canadiens, and haven’t defeated them in Los Angeles since 2003. The Canadiens had been 0-2-2 in their previous four games, and concluded their three-game West Coast road trip with a victory. Think they’re serious about hockey in Montreal? The Staples Center press-box seating chart listed 15 media members, not including the TV staff, the English radio staff and the French radio staff. Most U.S. teams have two media folks, at most. Here’s how the Montreal Gazette covered yesterday’s game, followed by some additional postgame quotes from the Canadiens’ locker room…

Canadiens end road trip with win over Kings

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COACH JACQUES MARTIN
(on the game…) “I thought we had a good effort. I thought the last two games we’ve played extremely well. In San Jose, we only came out with just one point, but I felt we could have had a better fate. It wasn’t a lack of work. I thought that we executed pretty good today against another top team, a big team that’s physical. I thought we used our speed and quickness to our advantage. … I think the last two games, I liked our third periods. … I thought our power play was good. We scored one goal but we also created some good scoring chances.’’

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BRIAN GIONTA
(on the game…) “(The Kings) had a lot of shots on the power play in the first period. So it [shots on goal in first period] was a little deceiving, but for sure we got better as the game went on, and in the second and third I thought we overtook the play. … It’s [the win] big. Obviously, the last six games or so we’ve been struggling a bit so today here was a pretty good effort for us.’’

(on getting three points on the road trip…) “It’s certainly better than one point. At the end of the trip we got much better. It was a big trip for us, that could turn things around, and hopefully we start doing that.’’

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CAREY PRICE
(on the game…) “It’s huge. Obviously, we weren’t having the best road trip. We needed to get that win and we needed the points right now. We need a lot right now. We just need to keep plugging away.’’

(on the Kings…) “They’re a team that goes to the net pretty hard. That’s what you have got to do to score goals in this league. You’ve got to get guys going to the net. … I thought our guys did a really good job of playing defense today.’’