Via the team:
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on strong start and play in the first period…
“We did a lot of good things actually to get the lead. We talked about that and we put ourselves in a good position. You’re in the driver’s seat that obviously helps. We got three goals off faceoffs tonight, which is an important thing. We went to the right spot on [Brouwer’s] goal. We talked about the cycle and having a guy in front, [Brouwer] got rewarded on that [goal]. We had a good power play, quick. And then the third goal – same sort of stuff. We did the right things, we’ve been working a lot on [defense], getting the puck to the net and getting it through traffic. [Backstrom] was a little far out but still had half a screen. The puck had eyes.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on Jason Chimera and Joel Ward’s chemistry…
“They play the game correct, they do. They complement each other and they play the game correct. They put the puck in the right spot and they use their bodies and their strength. They go to dirty areas and good things happen when you do that on a night-to-night basis.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the play of defenseman Karl Alzner…
“When we played the Islanders last week I think [Alzner] might have had 7 shots that night – 4 legitimate chances. It doesn’t always turn into your turn, but the more we work on it, when it is his turn, we need a goal from him or a good play and he got one tonight. Every little touch he makes benefits us big picture.”
Washington Capitals forward Troy Brouwer on opening the scoring tonight…
“Our line had talked about getting more pucks and bodies to the net and I thought maybe it rattled in after the first shot. I didn’t know I touched it as you could tell by my reaction. I think I had at least one more whack, maybe two more whacks, after the horn went off. In situations like that you have to do whatever it takes.”
Washington Capitals forward Troy Brouwer on the importance of gaining an early lead…
“Lately a lot of the time we’ve been coming from behind, having to come down from either one or two goals. You’re not going to have a ton of success later on in the season doing that. We were able to squeeze out some points here and there, but you can only win so many games like that. We were… in a good situation after the first period.”
Washington Capitals forward Eric Fehr on simplifying the game…
“I think we were getting a little bit too fancy, looking for that perfect tap-in, backdoor play. We talked before the game [and said] just get pucks to the net and crash and get some rebounds and try to get a greasy one. It worked out.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Nate Schmidt on rebounding from a loss…
“We put a lot of pressure on Carolina [on Tuesday]. We played really well in the first period, and it just didn’t go our way. Tonight was a little bit different. It’s just the bounce of the puck. A couple of breaks here and there for us, that’s all that’s the difference between winning and losing a game.”
Nashville Predators head coach Barry Trotz on how Shea Weber and Roman Josi played against [Alex] Ovechkin’s line…
“I thought they did terrific. I think at the end of the night, I thought the [Alex] Ovechkin line had all of their chances on the power play. I thought the [Joel] Ward, [Martin] Erat and [Jason] Chimera line were by far the best line. Not looking at stat sheets, but looking at hard to play against, zone time, chances, I thought they were the tough line tonight.”
Nashville Predators head coach Barry Trotz on the his team falling further out the race…
“It’s making it very difficult. You can’t just look at the big picture, better to just look at the next game. Win the next game and you’ve got to work at it a game at a time. Every game has the ability to win. We had enough zone time and enough chances to win. We just don’t have the finish that we need right now. That’s where the Pekka Rinne’s of the world can nullify a lot of things for you if it’s not coming easy.”
Nashville Predators forward Matt Hendricks on overcoming his emotions tonight…
“It was nice to get the start and get the first shift out of the way. Get the feet moving a little bit. Once you get down it’s tough to come back in this league.”
Nashville Predators forward Matt Hendricks on tonight’s game…
“It didn’t end up the way we wanted that’s for sure. We didn’t execute the game plan to a T. There were some good efforts, there were some good opportunities, some good chances. [Braden] Holtby made the big saves when he needed to and we didn’t play the structured, difficult, tough game that we needed to execute against a powerful team.”
Nashville Predators defenseman Roman Josi on the team’s losing streak…
“We’ve just got to win some games. We didn’t play poorly tonight and they just capitalized on a lot of chances. We had some chances too and we couldn’t score. That doesn’t give us any points. We’ve just got to find a way to win and we had some games in that stretch where we didn’t play well at all and that just can’t happen. We’ve got to play well every night, were pros, we’ve just got to find a way to win.”
Nashville Predators defenseman Shea Weber on the team’s struggles tonight…
“We couldn’t find a way to score. Obviously we didn’t have many power plays tonight to try and build momentum that way. I thought we did some good things on the first one [power play], got a few chances and we even five-on-five we generated some opportunities. Same story, we’ve just got to find a way to put it in.”