Locker Room Quotes – Wild def Kings, tighten playoff grip

After the Wild beat the Kings 3-2 in Los Angeles on Monday night, here’s what was being said in both locker rooms – including quotes from Drew Doughty, Matt Moulson, and both coaches…

Kings Head Coach Darryl Sutter on the game:

“We were better in the third than we were in the first. We turned a lot of pucks over in the neutral zone, it had nothing to do with third period it was all first period.”

Sutter on defense:

“It’s not about defense, it’s about checking. It’s puck battles and tough parts to the game that we have to be able to control and we weren’t doing that, I feel like a lot of guys weren’t into that tonight.”

Sutter on playoffs:

“Until you get that ‘X’ beside it, you’re not a playoff team.”

Justin Williams on the game:

“It simply wasn’t good enough. We’ve had a tendency this last week or so to give up leads in the third period and that’s very uncharacteristic of us, so we need to rectify that in these last five or six games because we’re a team that shuts it down once we get the lead.”

Williams on the Wilds’ play:

“They were moving the puck well and they shut down the neutral zone quite a bit and we had some trouble getting through it tonight. Their team has been playing well since the Olympic break as well, and they found a way to get it done tonight and we didn’t.”

Drew Doughty on the game:

“Keeping the lead in the third period is usually our team’s forte, but we didn’t play very well in the second, and we had a little collapse in the third period where they got two really quick, and we couldn’t get it back. They’re a good defensive hockey team and we knew that if we let them back in the game it would be tough to win it, and we just didn’t do a good enough job.”

Minnesota Head Coach Mike Yeo on the rally without two guys on the bench:

“Yeah, it was real impressive character win, as far as I am concerned. When you are battling all game, you lose a couple of guys, and let’s not kid ourselves we are going against a pretty darn good hockey team, a team that is very good when they are playing with the lead. But our guys stayed with it. There was a brief period in the second period, where you could tell that there was a bit of, I don’t want to say frustration, but you could tell there was a bit of a let down because we had some great chances and then they end up scoring a goal. Again, for the leadership, for this group to bounce back and find a way to kind of recapture our game, and stay with it in the third, it says a lot about our group”

Yeo on the playoff race:

“We should feel good about this game, and then we will focus on our next one. Beyond that nothing matters to me right now. I think that this is a game that our guys deserve to take the night here. We have a couple days before our next challenge, but I think they should feel good about this one. The same time recognize what we did, what we put into it. We will get reset for the next one.”

Matt Moulson on come back:

“We talked about it before in that Phoenix game; sticking to our game no matter what. I thought we did a great job of digging in in our third. We had a short bench so it’s a big win. We had guys blocking shots out there and then Mikko with the big goal. As cliché as it is, it was a great team win tonight.”

Moulson on the third period rally:

“I think it’s a testament to how we were playing in the first and second; making sure we were getting pucks deep and trying to ware them down. That was our goal; to make sure we’re getting pucks behind them and get our forecheck going and I thought we did a good job of that.”

Moulson on scoring on Jonathan Quick:

“It’s always good to score a goal. He’s stopped me a lot more times than I have scored on him and also has a couple trophies that I don’t have so I don’t think I can do too much bragging.”

Mikko Koivu on the third period:

“That’s a great hockey team out there. They came out hard and all game long but I thought we responded well.”

Koivu on the third period rally:

“You don’t want to be behind but it shows that we believe in what we do and I think we were right there even when we were down. We were able to create offensively and I thought we were tight defensively, as were they. It was a good hockey game and was great for our confidence.”