Via the team, quotes from both rooms after tonight’s game:
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the reasons behind giving up the four-goal lead…
“Guess there is no really easy explanation. First of all, they are a good team. And everything went our way in the first period. You lose a little bit of momentum because it was a little too easy, you get a little flat and all of a sudden, here they come. You start sinking yourself and before you know it, it’s happening pretty fast.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the play of the third line…
“I’m glad those guys are getting rewarded because they’ve played really good hockey for us lately. We talked about it when Joel Ward got his goals. Chimmer [Jason Chimera] got one tonight, Perry [Matthieu Perreault] made some great plays, Fehrsie [Eric Fehr] got one. They deserve it.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green on losing the four goal lead in the third…
“Tomorrow we are going to wake up and we have our two points and that’s all that matters. And this game’s put away, but we have to learn from this. We can’t let situations like that happen. They used to call us the Cardiac Kids for a reason and we showed that tonight.”
Washington Capitals center Mathieu Perreault on pulling ahead of Winnipeg by four points…
“It was huge. We had a couple of games in hand here and we took advantage of them. And now we have got our destiny in our hand. We have to just keep winning and not look back.”
Washington Capitals forward Eric Fehr on playing with Jason Chimera and Mathieu Perreault…
“It felt a lot like the line we were about couple of years ago, where we were able to create a lot of energy. It felt like we were getting a scoring chance every shift. We felt a lot better and we were finally able to put the puck in the net, which is good as well.”
Washington Capitals forward Eric Fehr on the Capitals winning streak…
“I think our specialty teams has been really great the last couple of games. Our penalty kill has really improved; I think that’s one of the bigger things. In the game today, specialty teams can win or lose games; I think our penalty kill has been great. And obviously we have had timely goaltending. Whoever has been in net made some big saves for us at key times and helped us keep the streak alive.”
Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper on this being a loss but taking some positives out of it…
“You take it as a loss, ultimately, we ended up losing the game but you can sit here and say a lot of good came out of that loss. We scratched and clawed back to get a point, ultimately we didn’t finish them off. It’s tough when you take the penalty and half the overtime is going to be a four-on-three.”
Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper on his team getting in penalty trouble early…
“It’s one of those games, you take eight minutes of minor penalties in the first 10 minutes of the game against the number one [power play] in the league and a lot of our top guys are sitting on the bench and all their top guys are on the ice, it’s tough. I thought when we came out of that just down one [goal], I thought momentum was going to swing our way and we were flat for the rest of the period.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Teddy Purcell on his team showing something while crawling back in…
“With the situation we’re in, the playoffs are pretty far away, we could have packed it in but it just goes to show that we have a lot character and fight in here and even though there’s only seven or eight games left, we’re trying to build and get better for next year.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Teddy Purcell on what changed that allowed them to get back into it…
“I think we just limited our turnovers. In the first period, we made it really easy on them. Obviously, [the Capitals] have a lot of skill guys and it’s hard to play any period when you’re in the box for eight out of the first 20 minutes. We limited our turnovers and we started getting more pucks at their net. I think we ended up with over 40 shots and in the first period we only had five shots. I thought we controlled most of the play for the last two periods.”
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St Louis on the Caps early power plays being the key early…
“We fought back. We dug ourselves in a hole in the first period. Obviously, we had a tough time getting going. We took a too many men [penalty], a four minute high-sticking [penalty, I think [the Capitals] had eight minutes of power play [time] in the first period. It’s not just them scoring goals, it’s about them feeling good about themselves, their good players are getting a lot of ice time at that point and a lot of touches, and that carries over to five on five. They become tougher to play against, they got a little swagger from it but I thought we answered in the second and the third [period].
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