After the Blackhawks shutout the Ducks 2-0 in Anaheim on Wednesday night, here’s what was being said in both locker rooms – including quotes from Corey Perry, Jonathan Toews, and both coaches…
Corey Perry on the Ducks lack of scoring lately:
“You’re going to go through highs and lows scoring goals. Right now we’re in a rough patch. We’ve scored one or two goals in the last three games. Especially at home, it doesn’t win hockey games. We had a good effort tonight, but the bounces just didn’t go our way.”
Perry on facing desperate hockey teams:
“There’s only a quarter of the season left and everybody is starting to jostle for playoff spots. This is make-or-break time for a lot of teams. Teams are starting to heat up and we need to find a way to do the same.”
Ben Lovejoy on the effort tonight:
“It was no moral victory, but we did have a much better effort. We ran into a good team with a good goaltender, but we’re out here to win games. I think everybody in the room feels like that was better, but we want to win.”
Lovejoy on the gap closing between them and the Blackhawks:
“It doesn’t change anything. We want to be playing our best hockey and we haven’t the last two or three weeks. Tonight was significantly better and a step in the right direction, but that’s a very good team. In order for us to beat them, we have to be playing at our very best. We’re getting closer.”
Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau on the power play:
“We had a lot of chances and didn’t score. We all work on the power play. We had opportunities, but we didn’t put it in. What are you going to do?”
Boudreau on handling adversity:
“Nobody likes to lose. We’ll recover and get back at it tomorrow. I thought we played a pretty good hockey game. It was a 1-0 game for 57 minutes or so. It could’ve very easily been 1-0 the other way, so I’m not going to sit here and [complain] like we’re dying here. We’re still in first place overall in the league. There are a lot of teams that would love to be in our position right now. We will overcome this and we’re going to be fine. We’re going to be there when it counts.”
Jonathan Toews on the win:
“It’s big for us. I feel like the last month or so there were a lot of games that maybe we didn’t play so well but we were close and we just didn’t find a way to get the extra point…whether it was overtime or we didn’t play well late in the game. These last handful of games on this road trip, we are back to playing that smart, team style game that we want. If we had to win 1-0 tonight, we were going to do it. We had great goaltending, some good kills out there. I think everyone was playing pretty responsible.”
Toews on keeping the Ducks out of slot:
“It’s still a tough team to do that. They’re still going to get their fair share of chances. Guys like Perry and Getzlaf and some of their other shooters have great ways of getting open.”
Corey Crawford on his shutout:
“The win is the most important thing. It is always nice to get a shutout but catching up to them at little bit, that’s what is important. We have one more game left before the break so it just sets us up for a chance to pass them.”
Crawford on defense:
“They are a pretty tricky team down low. They are really good at feeding guys back door and getting those open net chances. Our D was aware of that and I thought they played it really well tonight. The backside play wasn’t there for them and our D was able to take it away every time.”
Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville on special teams:
“Those 5-on-3 kills there with that power play and the looks they got…getting through it was huge. They had a couple good looks, Crawford made some key saves, had some blocks, and some fortunate bounces. But to me, that was a big part of the game for us and scoring first obviously helped.”
Quenneville on Crawford:
“He was great. Saw the puck, rebound control is in order. I thought we played hard and well in front of him but I thought he played a real big game for us.”