From the team…
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the Capital’s first goal of the game scored by forward Alex Ovechkin…
“It was a big goal for us, no question. It got everybody going, and it gave the team a little feeling that we could maybe do it. It was good to get something and give us a little life to give us something to build on.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the play of forward Alex Ovechkin…
“He is a pure sniper. I mean, the fourth goal with the ice conditions at that time, the length of the pass and the weight on the pass – that’s an incredible shot. It really is. That’s why he’s a superstar.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the play of forward Nicklas Backstrom…
“He played a great game. In New York the other night he had one of his best games and it just rolled into tonight. He played great. I played him a little more because we were behind so much. It’s tough when you get a lot of penalties because some guys don’t get to play, so I used him on some penalty killing. He had a fantastic night as well.”
Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin on his first goal…
“We’ve been in this situation before, I think we were down 3-1 vs. Detroit after the second period, and I’m sure everybody knows we have lots of time left, and we just have to take one at a time. The second goal by Nicky [Nicklas Backstrom] was huge, and we just felt we can come back and we can win the game.”
Washington Capitals forward Troy Brouwer on tonight’s game…
“Emotional that’s for sure. We’ve had a few of these games where we’ve had to come from behind, maybe not in such dramatic fashion, but we came in here after the first with Ovi’s [Alex Ovechkin’s] first goal and we thought it would be a great story if we could pull this one out and kind of back and forth a bit, but the guys showed a lot of character out there tonight and we played hard.”
Washington Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom the power play…
“It’s always nice to score a couple goals on the power play. It makes you feel good, and we’ve been struggling a little bit on the power play lately, so it’s always nice to get a couple goals on power play.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Karl Alzner on Alex Ovechkin…
“It’s great, you just put the puck on a tee for him and he knows what to do with it – it’s pretty amazing, the shot that he has and finding those spots. Of all the games this year, this is the one we needed it the most and it was honestly very impressive.”
Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper on the play of Tampa Bay…
“It’s disappointing the way it transpired. I truly believe we deserved a little bit of a better fate, but this is two games in a row that we played pretty well and we come out a point short. I don’t think it’s a situation where you go back to the drawing board. I think we’re playing pretty well.”
Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper on defending Alex Ovechkin…
“Let’s face it. You can’t leave number 8. He didn’t even have to work for his goals. He didn’t move on the first one, he didn’t move on the last two at all. If you are going to let that guy take shots, well this is sometimes going to happen. That’s the disappointing part. We know where he is, we know what he can do. We just didn’t have a stick on him, we weren’t in the lane and that’s the troubling part.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis on the play of Tampa Bay…
“It’s frustrating. This is a team that doesn’t need much to get back in the game, especially if you put them on the power play. Everybody in the building knows where the puck’s going. Number 8. That’s his shot. Obviously we didn’t do a good enough job taking it away from him. When we were there, we didn’t block him. Scores four pretty much from the same spot. We did good things, but good things don’t mean much if you can’t close it out.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis on the game…
“This is a game we should have won. We had that game. A bunch of times we had that game, we just couldn’t close it.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Tyler Johnson on the play of Tampa Bay…
“We have to take some positives. Our PP [power play]got us a goal and that’s obviously something we’ve been struggling with, so for us to get that, that’s huge. I thought we played alright. Our penalty kill didn’t bail our team out there and that’s something we are going to have to address.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Tyler Johnson on having a lead and giving it up…
“Whenever you have the lead, you don’t want to give it up. For us to have the lead multiple times and for them to come back, it’s kind of throwing a dagger.”