Via the team:
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the play of the Capitals tonight…
“We played a solid game in Toronto; we played lousy tonight. Lousy. Not good decisions. We get a lead and we still don’t do the right things, even though [on] the third goal that we scored, we get the goal from doing the right thing. Brooksy’s [Brooks Laich] goal came from what we talked about all night long. We are up three to one and we turn it over twice the very next shift. That’s mental to me.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on what the team can do differently…
“Guys got to fight through. You are up three to one, and maybe you think it is going to be an easy night. Then, all of a sudden they get the puck again. No. We got the goals. We were doing the right things. We have to be disciplined in who we are. Even our fancy guys; probably from the fancy guys first.”
Washington Capitals forward Marcus Johansson on what went wrong in the second period…
“Penalties, I think. We’re making those mistakes that make us have to take penalties sometimes. We can’t afford that. They had three goals on the power play, and that’s not okay.”
Washington Capitals forward Marcus Johansson on giving up a goal right after scoring a goal…
“We can’t have that. The games are too tight, and those goals are big. Like tonight, it’s tough to see that last one go in there when we just tied it up. It’s tough to bounce back from that.”
Washington Capitals forward Brooks Laich on the play of the Capitals…
“We saw a very good hockey team in the first period with 18 shots and three goals and did a lot of things right, and for the rest of the game we saw a very bad hockey team. Bad decisions, bad penalties, getting outworked. We looked very unstructured in the last 40 minutes, and that’s unfortunate because that was one of our best first periods of the season.”
Washington Capitals forward Brooks Laich on if the Capitals reached a boiling point during the game…
“The power play goals that they got, one’s a deflection, one’s a nice shot and one’s going wide and goes of the guy’s knee, they kind of take a little wind out of your sail, but it’s not a boiling point. We talked about it on the bench; maintain our composure. We’re still in the hockey game. Calls are going the other way, bounces are going the other way, but stay calm, stick to the structure. But we just weren’t able to get it back and tilt the ice back their way.”
Washington Capitals defenseman John Carlson on having control of the game and then losing…
“We had them. We were close to putting our stamp on it. But we let them back. It’s tough. We need wins right now and this is certainly one that we can look back on and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Because it’s not a good loss.”
Ottawa Senators head coach Paul MacLean on his team’s mentality after the first period…
“I think there certainly were a lot of angry people in there. At the same time I thought there was a lot of solution as well within that. As far as being angry I thought it ended up being more intense and focused on the structure of our game and the work ethic that is needed for our game to work. I thought that ended up being the difference in the game, not anger but intensity, not frustration but intensity, and focus on how we have to play as a team with the structure and to really work at it. I think it allowed our skill to come out and give us an opportunity to win the game.”
Ottawa Senators head coach Paul MacLean on the teams power play…
“Goals. I thought we shot the puck and had people at the net. That second we tipped one in, I think one goes in off Mika [Mika Zibanejad]. We had people at the net and we’re shooting the puck. Any time you’re going to be effective on the power play you have to be shooting the puck.”
Ottawa Senators goaltender Craig Anderson on getting the win tonight…
“It feels good to win. That’s the bottom line. We’re here to win hockey games. Tonight we found a way. I think we found ways to battle, we found ways to dig ourselves out of our hole we put ourselves in to start the game. We came out and had a terrific second, got ourselves right back in there. I just love the battle that these guys put out there tonight. Just finding a way. Smitty [Zack Smith] with a big goal out of the box there and finding a way. After he takes a penalty there, he steps up to the plate and scores a big goal for us.”
Ottawa Senators goaltender Craig Anderson on the atmosphere in the locker room during the first intermission…
“A lot of angry guys in here. We weren’t happy with our effort that first period. Obviously not happy with being down by two goals, but we hold ourselves accountable. Each and every guy knew it wasn’t good enough. We knew we had to come out and put our best effort in the second.”
Ottawa Senators forward Colin Greening on getting his first goal of the season…
“It was just a sigh of relief. Also it was the tying goal so I think all of that together just made it a good moment. We got back on the bench and we came in here between the second and third period and we realized yeah it was a tie game so we couldn’t just rest on our laurels.”
Ottawa Senators defenseman Chris Phillips on building momentum leading into tomorrow’s matchup with Vancouver…
“It sure does. Obviously a huge two points for us tonight. We need to build off of this momentum and keep it going. We look at the standing and we’re not in a great spot right now. We need to get on a bit of a role. We can’t be satisfied with one every couple. We need to get something going.”