From the team:
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on having patience after a slow start…
“What we did talk about was [how] you have to be patient. You can’t gamble to try and get that first goal… It’s a recipe that you try and sell every night. We tried to sell it in Boston the other night. We had nothing going for 40 minutes. We came out and [Alex Ovechkin] had that great chance on the empty net and missed. The game might have turned a little bit there, but we got behind a little bit. We weren’t playing that bad. It’s hard sledding; it really is. The league is very difficult. We waited, we didn’t panic, we didn’t give an outnumbered situation to try and cheat to try and get a goal. We got the first [goal], [Brooks Laich’s] line broke them down to get the second goal, and then the PP [power play] wins it.”
Washington Capitals head coach Adam Oates on the possibility of Evgeny Kuznetsow playing on Monday…
“If he feels good and we get a practice, we see how he looks and we’ll watch some video because he doesn’t know this hockey and we don’t want to put him in a situation that he can’t handle right now. But, in saying that, if we can spot him in the lineup it could be a nice spark for us…He’s a very talented man. I think he’s big enough, and he’s got a good head on his shoulders, so we’ll try to ease him in as slow as we can and hopefully not play him for 20 minutes the first night.”
Washington Capitals forward Troy Brouwer on the play of the Capitals tonight…
“We’ve had a couple of starts in the last few games that haven’t been acceptable on our terms. Going into the third it was kind of the same story again – we need points. It was against a team in a difference conference, but we still need points. Whether is 20 minutes, 25-or a shootout, we still need two points. We know that we are at point where our season is on the line every game, and that should be enough motivation, and tonight it was.”
Washington Capitals forward Troy Brouwer on the goals looking forward…
“We go into a tough game against Pittsburgh here in a couple of days and then a home-and-home. It’s another tough divisional game, two games actually. Good rivalry games, games that the guys in here get up for and want to play their best hockey for. We need four points in the next two hockey games here, especially before we have one more game and then go out on that real tough Western road swing. We have got to get points at home when we can, and we’ve got to get points against divisional team.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Karl Alzner on the desperation the Capitals are feeling…
“All you have to do is kind of take a second a realize how many games are left, what kind of position we are in and how the teams around us are playing to kick your butt a little bit, and realize that you have got to do something now or you are going to be in some trouble. We’ve been feeling it, of course. We are a team that likes to try and go on runs at the end of the season, so hopefully we can do that.”
Washington Capitals defenseman Karl Alzner on the momentum after his goal…
“I was excited. Everyone seemed really excited. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was me who scored it and not a guy who normally scores, but people seemed really up after that. It was the perfect momentum swing and the perfect line to come out right after that. It was a perfect storm for us.”
Phoenix Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett on his team giving up a two goal lead tonight…
“To win hockey games in this league you have to pay the price to win them. In the critical times of the game we don’t pay the price to win. We have that and some of the issues with taking bad penalties in the third period, and it has caught up with us.”
Phoenix Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett on seeing consistent team breakdowns…
“You’re going to have breakdowns. There are going to be things that happen in a game. To me it’s the little things you have to do to win, and that’s blocking shots, getting the puck deep when you have to, not taking a penalty late in the game. Those are the things that are coming to bite us.”
Phoenix Coyotes forward Shane Doan on losses becoming a pattern this season…
“I don’t think it’s a pattern. I think it’s just we weren’t good enough in the third period. Obviously the message is the same as it’s always been. We just have to be better. In the third period we weren’t good enough and let them get some momentum.”
Phoenix Coyotes forward Shane Doan on a few mistakes becoming defining moments…
“That’s the way the game is played. It’s a game of mistakes and when you make them they capitalize and it’s going to cost you. Tonight we weren’t good enough when we made the mistakes, and they capitalized. We had opportunities to put the game away, to get up 3-0, that would have been big.”
Phoenix Coyotes forward Radim Vrbata on tonight’s loss…
“It seemed like we stopped playing the way we played in the first and the second. When you have a 2-0 lead going into the third you have to find a way to win, and we didn’t.”
Phoenix Coyotes forward Radim Vrbata on what the team needs to do to turn things around…
“For two periods we didn’t give them much, or if we did Smitty [Mike Smith] made a save. Like I said, 2-0 going into the third, especially when this happened a couple of games ago. We should know better and learn from the last game and just find a way to close games out.”