Kevin Constantine Quotations

We're real happy. We talked about how good they are and how sharp we'd have to be, then we gave them a goal 15 seconds into the game. Thank God that kind of woke us up, and then we started playing pretty hard.

We're looking to try and put the first half behind us. There were highs and lows and a little bit of a roller coaster ride early on. We want to take lessons from that experience and set goals for the future. But really we try to focus on - not to be cliche - a shift-to-shift, period-to-period, game-top-game basis and not worry too much about what's happened or what's in front of us. I think the future will take care of itself if we just work hard every day.

Leland was by far our best player. He was awfully good, especially the more the game wore on, the better he got.

We traded Mike partly because we felt we might well lose him anyway and partly because if we kept them both, one of our key assets would have been on the bench for half our games.

We took the least 20 banged up guys and put them on the ice. I don't really have any feelings about it at all. We needed to rest some guys and that's what we did.

He's just so important. You're always going to look at (Zach) Hamill and (Peter) Mueller and guys like that and go, 'Look at that talent, look at that skill.' You're not going to realize Mark's role is just as important. But we've been around the game long enough to know it is, so we're thrilled he made a decision to stick with it this year.

He's better nervous than comfortable. He seems to thrive on the crowd and the noise. He probably hasn't played enough yet to get comfortable, so maybe that's why he's been so good.

There aren't many who could have scored that second goal. He's definitely a special player.

He was kind of like our team against Vancouver. He got points, but I don't think he had some of his better games of the year. It's typical of what we did.

I think it's human nature that when you score three goals as fast as we did, you have a tendency to think how good you are and how easy it is. In hockey, goals can come in bunches, and that's what happened.

I think it was a message to both teams that he was going to call everything he saw. It was the right thing to do. It was kind of crazy that everything was a penalty one period and nothing was after that.

Over the last five years, every goalie Shane has coached has been in the top of his league, ... Shane deserves this opportunity, and the Silvertips organization wishes him the best.

Our goalies were OK, ... This is their first experience in the league and they're young, and they did a good job.

I was hoping to get wins early because I knew it would get harder later. Then we lost the first two. I think the team did a pretty good job. Our biggest fear was the health of our team, and we got banged up. That's fairly typical when you play that many games in that many days.

It doesn't matter if it's here, Pluto or Jupiter. It's just nice to get a win, especially after such an evenly-played game.

That will be very rare and very welcome. It's been very unusual when we've had to do that.

Winning the division title is a significant milestone, and there is a tendency to let off the gas pedal. There isn't really anything left to play for in the standings, so it's a balancing act between getting healthy and rested and still be playing proper hockey when it comes to work habits.

We had our chances, they just didn't go in. It was a game between two competitive teams in a heck of a hockey series. We would have loved to have found a way to end it tonight, but we'll just have to forget it and be ready to play our next game.

We haven't exactly been prolific scoring goals, so whenever it goes in it's fun to see.

We'll look for the same thing we always look for,

You have those nights, but we haven't done anything different on the power play in the last two games. We've had the same number of scoring chances. The puck has just found its way to the back of the net lately. The good thing is the effort has been pretty consistent.

We're not taking anything for granted at this point. Our feeling is when and if there is a division title in hand, then we can start looking ahead.

We didn't have a specific plan to stop him. We just talked about how as a team they can really score.

The fact that those kind of goals haven't really hurt us hasn't made the point sink in yet. When we give one up and lose, hopefully it will mean more to our guys.

We had a fear, because of four suspensions in eight games, it was going to get even more out of hand. Something's been going on.

This team has learned over the last three years that things can swing and move quickly. The fact that we lost seven in a row earlier in the season shouldn't haunt us, but it does provide a really sharp, bold reminder that things can turn very quickly.

This year it's either been Mueller healthy or Hamill healthy, and they are the guys who quarterback our power play. We really haven't had that many times when they've both been healthy. They are both very capable, so whoever is fresh is going to be the guy to go.

We talked about how good they were and then gave them a goal in the first 15 seconds of the game. It's very hard to keep the offense going when there's a long break and we were very fortunate that we caught them in a rusty mode.

Vancouver is really good, and I was glad we were playing them because you have to elevate your game just to compete with them. This game was good for us right now.

This is a challenging time of year because there isn't a lot to play for in the standings. It's a balancing act between staying healthy, getting rested and still playing proper hockey. It's different and difficult because the rest of the year all you're concerned about is winning.

This is a mystery year for us. It's pretty rare in this league when the core of your team is 17, and that's what we have. We have the potential to have a lot more skill and score a lot more goals this season.

It's just hard to know what's going to happen, but in the beginning there could be a lot more power plays and penalty kills.

It seems that if our power play is clicking and our goaltending is in order, we've been winning. Of course, there's more to the game than those two things, but they are two big factors.

It wasn't even close. It was obviously a high stick and somebody out there has to see it. It wasn't just high, it was two feet high.

It's easy to know the guys who are on the team, but we have that bubble of eight to 10 spots that we need to make decisions on. All the guys that are competing for those spots did a good job. We'd rather have that. It's going to make for difficult decisions eventually, but it's good to see that the guys competing for those spots can play.

It's pretty severe. We had hoped it was just a twinge, but he couldn't even do the simplest drill.

Then we have no choice but to make some tough decisions.

It's bothersome. We've given up way too many two-on-ones and breakaways over the last 10 days, and we've discussed it as a team.

It's human nature to sit a little bit on a lead, but the game was very evenly played throughout. They had chances, we had chances and it was just a good hockey game and they pulled it out in a shootout.

There's too many of them to know right now. It's not like we can easily list that these four guys are going for these two spots. There's just too many right now.

If you look at the way we do our scrimmages here it's all about keeping the game moving and having less whistles, ... It's a more-fun way to watch the game. So I think from a fan perspective, anything in the game that can keep the puck in play and cut down the waiting around for referees to drop pucks in face-off situations are good. So I have no problem.

I'd give Leland about a C grade for the game. I don't think he gave up a lot of bad goals where you would give him a D or an F, but he didn't make the big saves when he had to, either.

He played really good in a start in Calgary and won the last game of the first half in Seattle, so we felt, based on that, he'd get more ice time. We just try to take the goaltender situation game by game.

You can't step off the bench to go fight, that's wrong. That doesn't belong in the game. I think the league, as it always does, will do the right thing in handling that.

The entire division is so tight that there's not much difference between any of the teams. As an organization, we have pride in what we do and want to play as well as we can in every single game left. Still, our main motive right now is playoff preparation.

All we can do is eat, sleep and rest as much as we can. There's really nothing else we can do. It was a great game in a very competitive series.

The chances of either of them playing are close to zero.

All that means is that I'll be 783 years old when I catch Scotty Bowman.

Potential is synonymous with getting your ass kicked.

In the playoffs will beats skill.

We only speak two languages here: English and profanity.

Goaltending is a suffering position. Your equipment protects you from injury, but not from pain, every time you go out there. And if you allow a goal, the red lights go on for everyone to see. But you get to be a hero too!

All the changes that were made I thought were good things. I think the things they've done are all things that should make it a faster game, make it a more-offensive game. Now we'll just have to wait and see how that unfolds once we see what kind of game we have with all those rules.