After the Maple Leafs beat the Kings 3-2 in Los Angeles on Thursday night, here’s what was being said in both locker rooms – including quotes from Anze Kopitar, James Reimer and both coaches…
Darryl Sutter on the game winning goal:
“I think everybody knew where the puck went. I think he [Kopitar] thought it was in the net. The power play was not good enough. It cost us the game.”
Sutter on Dustin Brown and his line:
“He got benched. The line was tired so they did not play that much.”
Sutter on Marian Gaborik:
“He played really well for us.”
Sutter on the end result:
“Turned the puck over, penalty killing. We scored a power-play goal in the first, then they scored and it’s a 2-1 game. The power play cost us the game. In the third period, we gave up a short-handed goal.”
Anze Kopitar on Toronto’s game winning goal:
“I missed an open net. He [Reimer] made a toe save on me, and then I fired it over the net. Nobody knew where the puck was, then they came down on a two-on-one and scored.”
Marian Gaborik on the game:
“We have to play a 60 minute hockey game. We had some spurts where we were good, we had some chances. At the same time, we had some struggles in our own end. That team is very talented and they have a lot of speed, so we have to do a better job defending in our zone.”
Leafs coach Randy Carlyle on the game:
“I guess for us, we need every point that we can possibly get and we’re in desperation mode as every team is and we just found a way to gut it out. We gave up a two-goal lead, and we found a way to get a big goal. I think Dion’s was a power-play goal. It was the end of a power play and then that got us started.”
Carlyle on Toronto’s play:
“We were a lot harder to play against. When we took the body, they are a big physical hockey club and if you don’t try to control them down low and allow them to roam they are a big group that get the puck to the net and they have a lot of skill both on the front end and the back end.”
Carlyle on Jonathan Bernier’s injury:
“Lower body injury, he was a little sore before the game and we just said if you can’t go let us know and after the first period he felt he wasn’t going to be able to give us what we needed and we made the decision we would go with Reimer.”
Leafs goalie James Reimer on Jarret Stoll collision:
“Ya, I wasn’t quite sure. I mean, all I know is he chipped it in to space and I thought I had an opportunity at it and it probably wasn’t a very good choice and I dove for it to try to shoot it away but his knee or skate hit me in the head.”
Reimer on which player would play goalie:
“It’s funny, we had that discussion in Anaheim with someone and we came to the conclusion that ‘Gunner” would be the one to go in, I think his dad was a goalie or something”
Carl Gunnarsson on Toronto’s road trip:
“Ya, it’s been up and down, first a real good game at Anaheim and then a real set back against San Jose, but we bounced back tonight and I think we had a good one here.”
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