Even after changing their goalie and getting away from the media circus of Vancouver, the Canucks couldn’t solve the riddle that’s become the LA Kings. The game was scoreless after 40 minutes, but Dustin Brown potted a goal in the third period and that’s all LA needed to win. After the game, here’s what some of the Canucks were saying…
Henrik Sedin on the overall game – “Mentally…it’s the playoffs; it’s exciting. We played one hell of a game tonight. On the 5-on-5 we were all over them; the power play was better. If we keep playing like this, we are going to score goals.”
Sedin on outplaying Kings and still losing – “That’s the playoffs. We have to keep doing the same things over and over again and we are going to get bounces. We showed tonight what kind of team we have and if we come in Wednesday and play like this we are going to steal the game and bring it back to make it work.”
Sedin on the crushing hit he took from Dustin Brown – “Clean hit.”
When asked if he was just winded from hit, his response was ‘Yep.’
Kevin Bieksa on the current mood of team – “What do you think? We’re down 3-nothing; it’s not good. Any better questions?”
Bieksa on the overall game – “Yeah, we do [deserve better]. That’s what happens in playoffs. It was a close game and we played really well defensively—we didn’t give them a lot of good chances and we kept their shots down. At the other end, we ran into a hot goaltender. We had a lot of shots on net, we had a lot of traffic, did a lot of good things offensively, and sometimes you run into a hot goaltender. We’re happy with the way we played; we moved this forward, we keep the momentum moving forward, and these guys have to beat us one more game for this to be over.”
Coach Alain Vigneault on outshooting the Kings and not capitalizing – “You have to give credit where credit is due and obviously they are getting a great performance by their goaltender. It’s another hard fought game by both teams tonight. They were able to make us pay for one of our mistakes and we weren’t able to make them pay for some of their mistakes.”
Vigneault on taking penalties – “We took a lot of penalties, some I’d have to question, but that’s the nature of the game. We did what we had to do to kill them. For the most part of the game I thought we were good except for our finish.”
Vigneault on Brown’s hit on Sedin – “I didn’t like the position Henrik was in but other than that it was a good hit.”
Lots more from the Kings locker room coming up.
Everyone keeps talking about how the hit Brown put on Sedin was dirty. It was a good hit, nothing dirty at all shoulder to shoulder it’s not like he came from behind and hit him blind. Besides, the Canucks were playing dirty all night long. They are a dirty team to me and it just seems like any chance they get to fight they will. Our boys our handling things great though. Just one more game and I know we can do it.
Respeck to Henrik. He came back, played hard made no excuses afterward. It’s a shame his teammates won’t follow his leadership.