While much of the attention in the Pacific Division is going to the three California teams, their neighbors in the Arizona desert are trying mightily to grab some headlines too. Seemingly never out of a game so far this season, the Coyotes were up to their old tricks again on Saturday night against the Washington Capitals. Down by two goals with less than more minutes to play in regulation, Phoenix rallied to eventually tie the game on a Shane Doan goal with only 1:46 remaining on the clock. Nobody scored in overtime, but the Coyotes capped off the night with a 4-3 shootout win.
Here’s what was being said in both locker rooms after the players left the ice…
– Coyotes captain Shane Doan on Washington: “Their power play is so good and we felt like we played a decent first period, getting a couple power play chances and they found a way to score right at the beginning of the second, giving them some momentum… That always makes it tough.”
– Doan on both team’s special teams: “We were actually better tonight 5-on-5. It was just on the power play that we gave up so many chances… They’ve got a great power play and you got to give the best power play in the league credit, you’re going to give up chances and there’s a reason why. Tonight was more indicative of our chances against 5-on-5 of what we need to be, but at the same time, we can’t go in the penalty box that often.”
– Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith on his delay of game penalty: “I’d say it was a stupid penalty, but I didn’t even know the rule. I honestly didn’t know that rule and it was the first time I had played the puck that far up for one, but obviously I had no idea.”
– Smith on the overall game: “I didn’t love that first goal. I thought that we had the momentum there and after that first goal it kind of sucked the energy out of us. We came in here and kind of regrouped. It’s a resilient group in here and everyone’s done a great job this year of sticking with games and we were able to find the tying goal there and get the win in a shootout.”
– Coyotes coach Dave Tippett on the overall game: “We are making some mistakes and we dug ourselves out of some holes, but I think in the third period we started to skate and started to work. I don’t know if it was the flow of the game, we were just kind of standing around. We didn’t get much to stay in forecheck, we just weren’t in the flow of the game and in the third period we got skating a little bit and we were able to put some pressure on and get a couple big goals to get us back in the game.”
– Tippett on his team’s late-game comebacks: “Whatever fuels them, that’s good. Whether it is internal or whatever it is. We knew we had to play better in the third (period) if we were going to give ourselves a chance, and a couple of good goals, the (Lauri) Korpikoski goal was off of a good forecheck where we actually got in there and recovered a puck. (Shane) Doan was really good all night, I thought him and (Mike) Ribeiro and whoever was with them were at least giving us a little bit of an offensive push…”
Tippett on Doan’s play: “He is shooting the puck well, and he is kind of hard on the puck all over. You see him and he has the puck a lot so that is a good sign for us. We are going to have to get better and one way for your team to get better is for individual players to start playing better, and he is the guy who has taken that responsibility the last couple of weeks and has really played well.”
– Capitals coach Adam Oates on the overall game: “We had a couple chances. Obviously, we had a five-on-three and a four-on-three to get an insurance goal or a winner but we couldn’t get it done.”
– Oates on his team’s power play: “It is a lot of little things that go into it. Decisions, speed, letting them get set up, missing a shot, missing a pass. We had a couple of chances but not enough.”
– Oates on his team’s discipline: “Too many penalties just in general. You know it’s going to bite you at some point and it did. It takes the wind out of your sails. Tough break for Nate (Schmidt) putting it in the stands but that’s probably a product of the course of the game. We got a point and we’re not happy right now, but we’ll recharge it for tomorrow.”
– Defenseman John Carlson on his team’s penalty killing in the second period: “It’s obviously not what we had in mind. It’s not what we wanted to get ourselves into, but we came out okay from it so that was a good thing.”
– Carlson on the overall game: “We always want wins and this one definitely slipped away from us and its unacceptable and we need to get back to winning again.”
– Goaltender Michal Neuvirth on his rebounds: “They had a lot of traffic and big bodies. I had a tough time seeing the puck tonight but I battled through. A couple times I didn’t see the puck and it just hit me.”
– Neuvirth on his team’s discipline: “It’s tough. You’re wasting momentum when you’re killing penalties, but I thought we did a good job on the penalty kill. I think if we would have scored on that five-on-three and made it 4-1 it would have been a different story.”
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