From the team:
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the play of Capitals forward Evgeny Kuznetsov…
“I think last game in Pittsburgh he actually got a little feel of it. You know you get your first point on the power play, which is kind of an easy point, but it still counts. You get your juices going. Great play on the second goal and then protecting the puck on a cycle, which is kind of something you don’t necessarily expect.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on how his team closed out tonight’s game…
“Hopefully tomorrow’s session because we won will be a lot easier to critique. One of the good things was in the last five minutes we did a pretty decent job of protecting the goalie, blocked some shots, guys stayed in position. You know they rallied, but we didn’t ice it. We protected it and didn’t go for the empty-netter.”
Washington Capitals forward Tom Wilson on the chemistry of his line with Jay Beagle and Evgeny Kuznetsov…
“He [Evgeny Kuznetsov] is such a creative player, a lot of fun to play with. The first couple of games he wasn’t sure, and he’s really finding his groove. Hopefully we can have some good chemistry for years to come… [Jay Beagle] is always hardworking; you know he’s going to bring that. He’s going through the middle on that goal that I scored. He started it, drove through the middle, opened that space up for me and [Evgeny Kuznetsov] made a great pass. It’s really fun to have a little bit of skill, a lot of hard work and it’s been fun.”
Washington Capitals Tom Wilson on the importance of the play of the third and fourth lines…
“When it comes down to it we have to win hockey games. I said before, its crunch time now, and we have to be going hard. You need all of the lines rolling, and we had their fourth line’s number a little bit tonight, and that’s got to be the case.”
Washington Capitals center Jay Beagle on the play of linemate Evgeny Kuznetsov…
“We had a lot of fun. I talked about it in pregame skate today a little bit with Vogs [Mike Vogel]. Kuznetsov was becoming familiar with me and Willy [Tom Wilson], and we were becoming familiar with him. That was a fun game to get us going. He showed his offensive side and it is fun to play with that.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green on his game-winning goal…
“[Kuznetsov] did a great job battling down the corner and keeping control of the puck. He made a great play to Nicky [Nicklas Backstrom], and I noticed when Nicky was wheeling the net that he saw me before he even looked up. That’s just the way Nick operates, so I just had to freeze the goalie and get a good shot.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green on Vancouver gaining momentum…
“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit there and made it difficult on ourselves, but we stuck with it. Obviously, we need the points so we were fortunate tonight. Sometimes you get those waves through periods, momentum shifts, and they had it there for a bit. We have to make sure that we eliminate that [momentum shift] when we notice it right away.”
Vancouver Canucks head coach John Tortorella on his team generating chances tonight…
“We played well. We came away empty. No regulation points. It’s a frustrating one for us because I thought a lot of people did a lot of good things.”
Vancouver Canucks head coach John Tortorella on the play of Nicklas Jensen tonight…
“He has played well. There are some nice little subtleties to his game. I liked the way he fought back in the scrums and didn’t get pushed around. Since we’ve brought him up he’s done some really good things and I thought tonight was his best game.”
Vancouver Canucks forward Henrik Sedin on focusing on the big picture…
“We have to look at this road trip first of all. We knew going in that we needed at least a 3-1 road trip. We’ve got to go down to Florida here and get these two games. Come back and at least give ourselves a chance down the stretch.”
Vancouver Canucks forward Nicklas Jensen on having Henrik Sedin assist him on his first career goal…
“Playing with a guy like that is amazing. It makes the game a lot easier too. He finds you in the spots where you don’t even realize he can find you. It’s pretty neat playing with a guy like that.”
Vancouver Canucks forward Shawn Matthias on a tough third period loss…
“Yeah it’s frustrating. I thought we played really well all game. To tie it up there and to let that happen, it’s upsetting. We play Florida in two days and can still come out with three win on a four game road trip and make it a good road trip. That’s where our focus is and we want to forget about that.”
Vancouver Canucks goaltender Eddie Lack on tonight’s game…
“It’s really tough when you don’t get the results. I thought we played a really good game, and it’s really frustrating when we can’t get the results either.”