After the Kings shutout the Coyotes 4-0 Wednesday night in Los Angeles – securing their 1,500th regular season win in franchise history and a spot in the NHL playoffs for the fifth straight year – here’s what was being said in both locker rooms, including quotes from Dustin Brown, Martin Hanzal and both coaches…
Dustin Brown on the expectation to make the playoffs:
“Maybe four or five years ago, this was a big deal, now this is just part of the process. It is good to get it out of the way now when we need to use our remaining games to get our game in order.”
Brown on the strong third period:
“It is very uncharacteristic of this team to blow a third period lead and I think we have done it twice in the last couple of weeks, so again, that is what these last games are about is getting our game honed in and getting ready for the types of games we will play in the playoffs.”
Alec Martinez on how he is feeling after clinching playoff spot:
“I think we just took a focus on playing well tonight and obviously Phoenix is a desperate hockey team right now and points are big so I do not think it is really good to think about stuff like that, just go out and focus on your game and try to play well.”
Martinez on the best moments of the game:
“I think the difference between tonight and [Monday] obviously we held that lead in the third, that was a big focus, I thought we played a full 60 minutes. We got contributions from special teams, which was huge and I thought we played pretty well defensively, obviously good goaltending, but it seems like we get that every night.’
Kings Head Coach Darryl Sutter on the game:
“I liked what I like every night, to play hard.”
Sutter on clinching a playoff spot:
“We had a great march and it’s good to clench a playoff spot.”
Phoenix Head Coach Dave Tippett on the game:
“We gave up a goal early, got chasing the game right from the beginning. That probably wasn’t the ideal circumstance to put ourselves in. The first period I thought we hung around it, we just couldn’t get anything to go our way. We had a couple chances that we thought that we could get a chance to get ourselves back in the game. We could maybe find something, but it didn’t happen.”
Tippett on the need to finish:
“You just got to keep pounding away. Its two-fold. A little bit of five-on-five and our power plays, which have been good all year has kind of dried up a bit. We got to keep working away. We talked yesterday it’s like a playoff series, after every game you just reset and you get right back at it and can’t worry about the night before. You got to concentrate on the next game, and go out and find a way to win.”
Tippett on trying to make something happen:
“Everyone’s got effort, it’s what you do after that really matters. We had two or three opportunities that we could have found something around the net that we didn’t finish on them. That’s the way the game went for us.”
Martin Hanzal on tonight’s season low in shots:
“We obviously didn’t score a goal so something was wrong there. I thought they just played a better game tonight. They outcompeted, out hit and outplayed us today so it was as simple as that.”
Hanzal on the playoff push:
“We have five games left. We are still out of the playoffs right now but we all know how important these points are so we have to make sure we win the rest and get in.”
Keith Yandle on the game:
“I think we just didn’t do the little things. We lost the specialty games a little bit and if you do that in a game you’re going to find yourself behind.”
Yandle on tonight’s season low in shots:
“Yeah they did a good job of blocking us out and keeping us from getting in the zone. On their penalty kill and our power play we didn’t do a good enough job to get pucks at the net.”
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