Mike Babcock Hard Quotations

He was as good with the puck and as hard on the puck as he is now, relative to the skill level. He was a committed guy then. I coached his older brother and his younger brother as well and they're good people.

Good for him. He's played hard, he's practiced hard and when he's on the ice, he's determined out there. That's great for him. It's fantastic. He should feel good.

He's been outstanding, so he's making it as hard on the coach as possible. That's a great thing.

Just like everyone here, I'm shocked at our situation. It's hard to look at our team and think we didn't do a lot of good things to prepare for the playoffs and you would expect to have success.

I think everybody realizes that we had a great opportunity. But you find out quickly that last year was last year. There are now nice pictures of the playoffs hung up around the locker room, and people were saying nice things about us and patting us on the back all summer. But now we are trying to reestablish work habits, foundation and identity. I think it makes you more hungry, because we all know how hard it is to get there. It will be a huge battle for us and we are excited about the opportunity to try to get back there.

We've played hard as a team and found ways to win. We've done that a lot, and you're optimistic those things can continue.

It's not like we hadn't had tons of chances, we just weren't finishing. The big thing we wanted to do was not panic and just keep doing what you are doing, get people to the net, work hard at it and let's not be pressing. I thought we managed the puck well and made great plays in the middle of the ice and really came at them with some speed.

I don't know if you can imagine how hard it is to beat a team three times in a row. But you've got to give our guys credit. We hung in there and it wasn't pretty, but we found a way.

He's got a little magic going on right now. But he goes to the net hard and he competes hard, and that's what he does. He just drives the net every time. We know, and he knows, he doesn't want the puck until he gets to the paint.