Rapid Reaction: Ducks def Sharks, claim Pacific Division

After the Ducks beat the Sharks 5-2 in Anaheim on Wednesday night – and claimed their second straight Pacific Division title – here’s what was being said in both locker rooms – including quotes from Corey Perry, Joe Thornton, and both coaches…

Corey Perry on clinching the Pacific Division:

“We can be happy for a little bit, and then get back to getting ready for LA on Saturday. We can enjoy this one and enjoy the things we’ve accomplished so far, but there’s a lot more to be done.”

Patrick Maroon on his two-goal game:

“It’s very special. It’s my first time doing it. [Teemu] Selanne and [Mathieu] Perreault have been my linemates for most of the year, so they’ve been great for me all year. If it wasn’t for them, I don’t think I would’ve done it. Hats off to them. They helped me out.”

Teemu Selanne on the next two games:

“We want to finish strong. That’s what really matters. Everybody is excited about the playoffs right now. We want to make sure nobody gets hurt, and go from there. We can’t wait until the playoffs start.”

John Gibson on clinching the Pacific Division:

“We knew coming in that it was for the title. To clinch it at home is a little more special. It was going to be a tough game, and we came out and played the way we knew how to play.”

Head coach Bruce Boudreau on clinching the Pacific Division:

“It’s cool because it’s a really tough division. When you start out, you have certain goals. One is to win the division, then the conference, then the Presidents’ [Trophy], and then you win every round of the playoffs to win the Cup. Those are your seven or eight goals. We’ve got one down, but we have others we want to have. We know it’s a tough grind. Every team you play is tough now.”

Joe Thornton on the game’s outcome:

“We played a heck of a game. We were in their end for the majority of the night. A couple of soft goals, we lose the game. That’s all.”

Thornton on Gibson:

“He played well. He challenged us. We had some good looks but he was there. He’s a big goalie. They have two good goalies to choose from so it’s a good problem to have over there.”

Dan Boyle on the Kings:

“Obviously (it’s) going to be a pretty hard-fought series. Very good team over there. I believe we won the first one and they won the last one. We’ll see what happens.”

Boyle on the Pacific Division title:

“You can look at it tonight, you can look at something we did three, four, five games ago, or you can go back as far as you want to go. That is just the way it goes. We still like our team. We like our chances going into these playoffs. We are going to have a tough battle, like I was saying, no matter who we are about to face. Obviously we have our hands full with the team we are going to face.”

Head Coach Todd McLellan on effort:

“It was the effort we expected from the group. I thought they played hard. We made more mistakes than they did and it ended up in our net more than it did theirs. But you can’t fault them for effort, for the attack mentality. Just mistakes ended up costing us. We could play that game again and clean some things up and we would probably leave a lot happier than we are now.”

McLellan on pulling Niemi:

“We weathered their storm early. They came hard. We went up 1-0. The first goal, obviously one he would love to have back I’m sure. I was concerned coming out in the second that that would put us back on our heels but we responded well. Then they get the second one and we still responded. By the time the third one went in, you could feel the bench get a little deflated. We needed to do something at that point, so we made the change and I thought we responded well again but just not enough.”

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