From both sides of the aisle, locker room quotes following the Kings 2-1 shootout win over the Oilers…
Kings coach Darryl Sutter on the overall game: “Their goalie had a hell of a game, with almost 50 shots for them, 50 is a lot of shots. I think we had a lot of traffic.”
Sutter on overtime: “The skill level of our group, the guys that we’re using, pretty much Kopitar, Brown, Mike, or Jeff, I think they match up with the other team’s top end guys pretty good.”
Sutter on playing with Jay Wells (who was honored before the game): “He put some knots in my head, we played a few times.”
Anze Kopitar on scoring chances: “Our line had three or four really good tips right in front and I was whacking away late in the game. If you have 50 shots I’m sure there is people around the net. We had a couple chances on the power play and we couldn’t cash in, but the bottom line is we got the two points. That’s what is driving us ahead.”
Kopitar on overtime strategy: “There’s a lot of room out there. Five-on-five you usually dump the puck in but here you can almost turn back and re-create the regroup. And if you can do that eventually you get a good entry in there. You don’t just throw the puck away for no reason.”
Jeff Carter on offensive strategy: “We tried to make it as tough as possible on him (Bachman), getting bodies in front of him and crashing the net. We threw 48 shots at him. We had a couple good shots there (overtime) and I think we need to get a little more movement maybe. We got some good looks in.”
Carter on Richard Bachman’s performance in goal for Edmonton: “Not frustrating at all. When a guy (Bachman) gets the call up and he gets the chance to play we expect his effort. I thought he played a heck of game. We were able to get the two points.”
Oilers coach Dallas Eakins on his team’s performance, specifically Bachman: “I liked the way we stayed in the fight. We were under siege, especially in the third. I don’t think the guys had a lot left in the tank, but Bachman was excellent. I thought he made a couple of big saves, but for the most part he was just square to the puck and the puck was sticking to him. It would just hit him and fall into him. He really settled our bench down, and our team down with his play.”
Eakins on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: “Well anytime you get a guy that sticks out his knee and knees a guy we all hold our breath. Nuge was able to return, and then we will have to reassess him. Sometimes these things get worse overnight. Right now we are hopeful that he dodged a bullet on a bad hit.”
Eakins on the Oilers past two games: “I would have liked both points in Phoenix. I thought we had a real solid game there. Today coming in and playing a team that hasn’t played in a number of days, I thought we battled hard. The game that the Los Angeles Kings play, that is a game that we aspire to play. That’s a big, heavy, fast game. They are well organized, and they mean business every shift. I was happy with our compete level. I thought we hung in there and really supported each other.”
Oilers defenseman Andrew Ference: on Bachman’s effort: “It was a fantastic job by him. It’s a very tough team to play against for a goalie they stuff a lot of pucks around the net. It was a great performance by him.“
About John Hoven
