Ken Hitchcock Team Quotations

We're starting to gain an identity and a lot of confidence. The game (Sunday) against Ottawa has really moved our game up a notch... You can hear things on the bench, the bantering between players, which is excellent. You can hear the locker room has a lot more life. Our team is starting to gel.

We're starting to gain an identity and a lot of confidence, ... The game (Sunday) against Ottawa has really moved our game up a notch... You can hear things on the bench, the bantering between players, which is excellent. You can hear the locker room has a lot more life. Our team is starting to gel.

We were a team going very well for an extended period of time. In the last 10 days we have not played near as well as we are capable of.

We're a team of 23 guys, and the only thing that's going to be a constant is the centre-ice position. The rest is going to move and move quickly. I don't think you can cast in stone, even from day to day the line combinations.

No. You had one team playing reckless and one team trying to get away with playing careful. We didn't get away with it. We had to dig in.

I guess I need to apologize. I know better than that. I kind of lost discipline the way our team did in the game.

I find the entertainment value of the playoffs is out the door. It's all about competition. This, to me, brings it back to grassroots where it's one team playing another team and it doesn't matter who's covering the game or who's watching.

For whatever reason, this team just seems to wade into things. We waded into this series. We almost got away with one in Game 1. We didn't get away with it in Game 2. We're locked in now.

I think the proving ground is when we play this way, we have success. It's a hard way to play. It's difficult and very demanding. The decision you have to make as a team is do you want to play this way and win or do you want to find an easier way to play and take your chances? They like playing and winning.

I think you're seeing in our team the realization of how difficult this challenge is, how hard it is, is starting to grasp everybody. I think you'll see our team starting (today against the Czechs) to dig in at a whole new level.

I thought we got better as the game wore on. When you're killing back-to-back-to-back penalties, it's hard to get momentum. That's living dangerously. You can't expect a team at home to go 0-for-9 again.

I think there's a tremendous feeling of team in the locker room. Nobody wants to be the person that lets the other person down right now. If you stay with that feeling, you can take a long run.

I think everyone is hoping physical play will be allowed. Our team is built that way. You cannot play in an emotional setting without getting physical. Over 82 (regular-season) nights, there are times it's hard to get physical. But when your focus is on playing the same team every second night, it's hard not to get physical.

Our team feels really good about itself right now. For any other team to lose their best player in pre-game warm-up, that's emotionally draining and these guys really responded.

Our role players came through. You had one team (Washington) playing reckless and the other trying to get away with playing careful.

Look, it's my responsibility to get the team ready, OK? This is on me. We were embarrassed for our fans and for the city of Philadelphia with the way we played. We've got to make amends when we go back home and get this series back even. We've got a lot of work to do.

Management misses an opportunity to build a team greatly.

We have to try to catch them. We are a team that is getting better almost daily.

We got beat by a much better team tonight, a team that was much more composed with the puck than we were. We didn't have near the composure they did.

You are just dealing with an unbelievable level of fire when you're giving a team like that six, seven or eight power plays. You're not going to beat that team. You have to eliminate the reaching-in penalties. I know it's a natural reaction for most players but we've got to have the people that are doing it, not do it.

There are times during the season when you have to review. It was very, very productive. We don't have those type of meetings very often, but when we feel like our team isn't playing well, we do.

The only thing I know is that we've always responded to losing in a really intense fashion. The response to winning has been our problem. I'm not sure why; that's probably a discussion for July or August. But it's been the M.O. of our team for a long time now.

When you look at a team like Ottawa, to me that's a good gauge on your team and individuals. They still have the heaviest team in battles and competitiveness.

We had a team that had a high payroll and we were able to pare it down,

When you play a team like this, it's the first team to crack, and it was us tonight.

We weren't prepared to pay the price to win the hockey game at the start and when you give a team like Toronto a sniff, they're going to make you pay a price.

We had the wrong attitude to start the game. They play a heavy game, they play an old NHL game and we wanted to play around the game instead of plow through it. When you give a team that's in a desperate state like Toronto some hope, they're going to follow through.

We did a lot of better things; we played the same way for 60 minutes that we did for 45 minutes in Carolina. We played good. We fought really hard. Ottawa is a team that everyone talks about their speed, but to me it's about their competitiveness. Every board battle is critical.

That's living dangerously. You can't live like that. You can't live expecting a team at home to go 0 for 9 again. That's no way to live. You're going to have to be better in that area.

There's a tremendous feeling of team in the locker room. There's a tremendous feeling of not wanting to let the other guy down, and especially when the game's on the line, you see it every night. ... If you stay with that feeling, you can take a long run.

About 25 percent of your job is coaching the team on the ice and about 75 percent of your job is all of the stuff that happens off the ice, whether it be preparation or putting out fires. I think he's going in with his eyes wide open about that.

It's still not good enough. We know the rules and we took two penalties in the third period that we can't take, not when the game is on the line. You're just dealing with an unbelievable level of fire when you're giving a team like that six, seven or eight penalties.

That goal brought our team back into the game.

It seemed like every mistake we made went in our net. We deserved a better fate. We had a ton of things go right. We out-shot them. We out-chanced them. We outplayed them, but they're an opportunistic team and they took advantage of the mistakes we made. That's what good teams do.

It was a heck of a lesson. It's the best team we've played all year. You make puck errors down in the zone like we did, you're going to get schooled.

They were the better team over the six games. They took advantage of us and they poured it on when they saw that they had the advantage.

If our team was loaded and had everybody in it and we were making the mistakes we're making now, you'd have a very upset coaching staff. But there's big picture stuff going on and we've got to keep it realistic.

If you can't get ready for the best team in the league, you're in trouble. They've taken on all comers this year and they've really eaten up some teams. I don't know whether it's the fear of getting embarrassed, but we've got a lot of competitive guys and we love to play in these type of games.

In my opinion, this is the best team we are going to play so far in the season,

He sets the highest standard for himself and everybody on the team and when he goes, we go. He is hard on himself, demanding on himself and that is what makes special players.

I don't think anybody was looking for the penalties. I said it before ... the first team that adjusts is going to be the winner. You end up with a ton of scoring chances, a ton of special teams and you're going to have to get better and you're going to have to adjust. Whining about it isn't going to do anything. It's not going to go away.

You know that if you just stay with the program, the home team is going to be the one that presses. We've caught people pressing hard when the game is on the line, and we've caught them on some odd-man rush situations. And we've won a lot of points late.