With 27 saves on an equal number of shots, goaltender Kari Lehtonen earned a 2-0 shutout victory over the Kings in Los Angeles on Thursday night. Following the game, here is what was being said in both locker rooms:
Coach Darryl Sutter on assesing the game:
“I thought we fought hard, but couldn’t come up with a goal to tie it or cut it in half.”
Sutter on generating opportunities:
“Some nights you are going to get a lot, some nights you’re not. We scored 10 goals in the last two games coming into the night, so tonight we couldn’t get one. We need a little bit more from the top then. When you’re a little banged up in the back, you need to look at chances from your top-end players.”
Sutter on the energy level coming on the second night of back-to-back games:
“I thought early we were sluggish, and I thought we got better as the game went on.”
Justin Williams on the overall game:
“We chased the game. We chased it from the first period on. On a back-to-back that’s tough, but it simply wasn’t good enough. There wasn’t enough fight and our power play wasn’t great; it didn’t score a big goal for us like we needed tonight.”
Williams on preparing for the Ducks on Saturday:
“We have an afternoon game so we need to make sure we’re ready for that. We’ll have a skate tomorrow and take care of ourselves, and take care of our home ice.”
Tyler Toffoli on preparing for Saturday:
“I just don’t think right now is the time to talk about individual games. We need to figure out our game as a whole and get better as a group. It’s hard work. We have to get back to how we play hard games; playing with the puck, playing in their zone and wearing the other team down… We need to come out hard, use our crowd to our advantage, the crowd is going to be very good and we have to be ready to play from the drop of the puck.”
Toffoli on Stars goaltender Kari Lehtonen:
“We had a couple good chances there, but for the most part he was seeing all the shots, we didn’t do a very good job getting in front of him and taking his eyes away. That’s one of the main reasons we didn’t score tonight.”
Stars coach Lindy Ruff on the overall game:
“It was a good win, we knew we had them on a back-to-back and we came out pretty good in the first period. They had a little push in the second, but we responded pretty well. We needed the one really big save from our goaltender, but other than that we played a pretty clean game defensively. We didn’t give up a lot of good opportunities.”
Ruff on the difference in the Stars over the last few games:
“Some of it has been puck management, some of it is just mental composure in some tough situations. Our penalty killing is probably the biggest difference maker. It’s the one area that is giving the other team life, and the last couple of games we were able to keep the other team off of it.”
Stars forward Jason Spezza on the overall game:
“I thought it was a great road game by us, we got some big saves by our goaltender when we needed it, and I thought our third period was a really good period for us. We’ve struggled with the lead a little bit this season, and it was a good step in the right direction for us to lock it down like that.”
Spezza on losing streaks compared to wins:
“I think when you’re in a long losing streak, I don’t think we were playing as badly as we thought we were, and when you’re winning games you’re not playing as good as you think you are. That first win is tough to get after being on a long losing streak. So getting that win in Phoenix gave us confidence.”
Spezza on Lehtonen’s glove save on Jarret Stoll:
“That’s a special save, and it shows his athleticism. At the time of the game, the way the flow was going, it was a big save to maintain the lead for us.”
Stars goalender Kari Lehtonen on the big win:
“It was a tight game, and it was nice to see us play solid after two periods. Usually when you’re up by two goals there are some hairy situations, but we didn’t give them much.”
Lehtonen on his huge save on Stoll:
“It’s one of those things that maybe one out of fifty times you’re able to get it. It sure felt good and I was happy about it, but it doesn’t have much to do with goaltending when you’re just scrambling. It ended up just hitting the glove, but I have to be happy with it.”
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