Brad Richards Quotations

When you've had a good team for that many years, the pressure will mount. There's only so many teams that can win, so it's not like they're bad players. But they're like everyone else - they want to win this thing.

We didn't deserve better. You can't sit there and say that we should have won this game. We were waiting. We started the game pretty good, but as the game went on, we just kept waiting. I don't know why.

We can control our own destiny, especially playing Atlanta twice more and Florida three more times, those teams are the closest to us outside a playoff spot.

We're fine with our team. We're very confident we can compete with anybody any night. I think we're a better team, we're more experienced.

We're just not doing enough right now. We're not trying to win games, we're just hoping. You can use a lot of fancy words but there's no other way to put it.

We're just happy to be in. You don't want to be asked to pick your poison.

We're still a bit loose. It's a great opportunity to even the series and turn it into a best-of-three. That's all we want to do now.

We have to get close to 40 shots again and keeping pounding the puck. Fancy passing plays, those things are not going to get it done. We have to keep driving the net and find a way to score goals.

When you score two goals one game and one goal the next and you get four points, that's great because we weren't getting (points) when we were scoring three and four. It's huge and this is going to get everybody's confidence going. We need to pull out games like this and then atmosphere is a little bit better in the workplace, you know?

There are no excuses not to win, this is the playoffs for us. You don't ever want to say it was OK when we lost the game, but I'm not going to beat myself up or question how we've been playing of late. We're going to keep our head high and keep pushing the way we've been going of late.

There are a lot of good teams there and just because you put on a Canadian jersey, it doesn't mean you're going to win. But that's the pride our country has. Those are the expectations and there's bitterness when you don't get it done. There's nothing else we wanted to do except win the gold medal. And a lot of countries, they just want to beat Canada. They played at a whole new level against us.

We're good enough to win anywhere. We had a 2-2 tie in the third and we didn't get it done.

We've never been the eighth seed, obviously. It's going to be different. We're not going to worry about what happened two years ago. We're just going to worry about our team now.

We're just fragile right now. Wish I could explain why.

I can just tell, personally, that we're just not as sharp as we were in the past,

From the start, we made it a priority to play well at home. We emphasized before the season that teams coming in here weren't going to have it easy.

This wasn't pretty but it was a big win.

This was not a step backward. If we play like that every night, we're going to win 80 percent of our games.

We're on a roll here right now and we didn't want to end that. To come back from 2-0, it's huge. It's so much more confidence for the guys. We're happy and proud of ourselves.

We've done this before where we've played a couple (good) games and gone into a lull again. (But) I think we're slowly getting a little bit more arrogance, a little more confidence. We still have a long ways to go ... but it's something we haven't had in a long time.

We've done this before. We have to guard against win two, lose two, win two, lose one. That's where we are at right now.

I would say it was one of the better teams I've seen.

I think it's just a bad bruise for now.

That can't infiltrate your room, it can't get into people's heads. If one person doesn't believe, this is not going to work. We've been loose, we've been secluded and having a good time. Everyone has been hanging out. This is so much fun to be part of the playoffs and we know how much fun it is for two months. We are all together having fun and we are just going to try to keep battling.

Marty got criticized for all the wrong reasons. Marty always cared. Marty was still Marty inside.

Johnny kept us in it. He was quite impressive.

That's the way change is. You see it in different teams and players around the league. It will happen to us someday, probably sooner than we can ever imagine. Every team evolves and that's the way teams go.

That's three shutouts against quality teams that are in the playoffs. It proves to ourselves that we are a good hockey team. I think we started forgetting that a little bit.

Whether you lose in double overtime or it's 8-4, it's all the same. Look what happened to Detroit; they had the same result we did. So it's back to work and move on from this.

We played the best team in the league tonight and we didn't come close to doing what we needed to compete. No disrespect to them, but we're a good hockey team, too. We just weren't tonight.

We were sloppy from the start. That's why we were down 4-1. We put together a very good third but they've got a great goalie and we just ran out of time.

We found a way ... that's what we've been doing. We've found ways to win, and this is the time of year you have to do it.

We haven't had too many weeks where we felt good and confident. It's been up and down and up and down and up and down all year. This is the time of year where confidence starts building and that's what we want to do. We're still not there yet. It might look great and it is better, but it's a lot of hard work.

We'll give it out best shot. We're not afraid of them.

We plan on picking it a notch. We have to. I don't think either team has played its best game yet.

We're not down. We're still loose. We look at it as an opportunity to even the series.

We shouldn't be down 2-1 going to the third period. Forget about the third period. We shouldn't be in that position.

We shot ourselves in the foot to start out. They played their best period of the series in the first. I just think we have to worry about ourselves. We have to come out a lot better.

To see him go out there and be physical like that, being a little guy, that gets everybody up.

We had a chance to go up 2-0 or even 3-0 with some power plays and we couldn't do it -- that really hurt us.

We've got to come to work and try to figure out how to take control of a game with our power play. Until we do that it's going to be a dogfight every night.

When you are in, you are in, it doesn't matter. It took a little while longer than expected, but we are in.

We've been playing better hockey of late at home. It's been a lot better than it was at the start of the year. We've been more consistent. We still haven't played a lot of full 60 minutes yet, but we're going to keep working on that.

We all know what to do. We've all been together long enough to know what to do and what makes the power play work. We're just not doing it. It's the obvious thing and I'm sick of it. We're all sick of hearing it.

Those two games we have to grab a hold of it. It's not the end of the world yet. We just have to make sure we nip it right away.

We just got along great. It put you as part of a team. You needed everybody you had. That sometimes gets lost today.

We scored six against Philly, but we've got to stop having these games where we're 1-1. We need more desperation offensively.

We (went) just a little bit back to where we were before this run. We started the game pretty good, but as the game went on, we were just waiting and hoping. We got off what (we do well). Don't know why. But that's what happens: a 2-1 loss.

Every game is huge right now. We're going to get out of this.

Even compared to football it seems people are more interested in us.

Isn't it funny? After all the quality chances, that one goes in.

They all play hard and they play harder against Canada. We're not going to take that game off and pretend it's a practice.

It was tough to get our emotional level up all day.

Sometimes those things happen. You put the puck on net and good things happen. Sometimes you are on the right side of the puck.

This is great. We talked about getting closure. I think we all needed that. It's been a while. Not that we're sick of hearing of it, but we've got to move on. It's not our Cup anymore. We saw it tonight for the last time, and now we'll fight like the other teams to try to get it.

This is the competition we're used to playing, and this is the game we're used to playing.

There were a lot of bouncing pucks, but I don't think we were that sharp. Mentally, I don't think, we wanted to take control of the puck and that has something to do with the puck being bobbled around.

They probably had more chances on our power plays than we had.

It's far from done, but we got some things accomplished (in Ottawa). We exorcised some demons in the third period (Sunday) in that building.

It's far from done, but we did get something accomplished.

It was probably the worst loss of the season. Not just the result but the way we played, we were undisciplined. It was good to regroup and bounce back.

It shouldn't be like this. We know what to do and what to do to make it happen. We are all sick of hearing about it and talking about it. We have to do it. We have to win the battles. We are talented enough to win the puck and hold the puck.

It's been an anxious time, for sure, and they're all very happy and very proud.

It's been one of those years. We feel now that finally we got in, we can start over here hopefully and try to do something.

It's been one of those years. A lot of good teams this year that did well, their power plays are pretty steady. We, for some reason, go two or three weeks where we can do no wrong, and then we go a month or a month and a half where it's just a battle. We got to figure it out. We have the personnel. If I have the answer, I'd think we'd change things.

It's scarier up around the eyes. The mouth, at least, you can fix it.

It's pretty obvious why we didn't get two points. I saw some saves out there that you just shake your head at. He made a couple on me that were ridiculous.

It's nice to know that there is not too much rust after a year off,

It's special to even be mentioned with such great players. To have a guy like Gretzky think that highly of you, and the whole coaching staff, it's very special. I guess you get rewarded for success and hard work. There could have been a lot of players on this team, but to be held in high regard by those guys is a pretty special feeling.

Everybody's doing the math, it's not rocket science to see what it means. ? We've already lost Nikolai Khabibulin and now it's going to be a big challenge to get Marty signed.

It's been unbelievable how Jay has handled this summer. There were not a whole lot of people outside the organization that thought he could get it all done. But he stayed steady and got done what he needed to do.

It's desperation. We know we've dug ourselves a pretty big hole. We weren't trying to get out of it. We were just floating along. The last three games, for sure, were a big step.

It's huge to win the division. It's another step for this franchise and another important accomplishment.

It's huge to get that extra point. We don't care what other teams are doing. That's just like a regular two points for us. It's a win. No other way to put it. With 29 games left, we gained a point (on Toronto) and moved up two points on the teams ahead of us.

They are very aggressive. Teams are going to know that I play back there, I'm sure they'll put more pressure on me. Today at practice I skated up front so I think we're looking to take a little pressure off that situation. But I'm comfortable in both spots.

They came at us pretty hard and it was a good pace, and you could tell they were ready to play the game. They get the early power play and you're looking to kill it off. To get a goal was a boost, and you saw us build on that to get a 4-1 lead.

It was just bad, everything, it started off bad and it was a waterfall, starting with myself making a turnover and it ends up in our net.

There was a reason we didn't want a salary cap that low, especially for our team,

That might have given me a chance to deke instead of shoot, but I did catch it out of the corner of my eye.

I know this sounds like a cliche, but we've got to keep it simple. We've got to play an up-and-down game and make sure that we're going north/south. I know that the team we're facing is going to try to go wide on us, but we're just going to have to deal with that.

I know people are going to think it's all doom and gloom, two bad losses, but we shouldn't be down 2-1 going into the third period. Forget about the third period, we shouldn't have been down, but that's the way hockey is, unfortunately. But we have to try to come to work and figure out how to take control of the game with that power play and until we do that it's going to be a dogfight every night.

I have no idea what is going to happen. That's next summer. I'm contracted to play this year and I'm just happy to get back on the ice. All that stuff has to play itself out. We'll see what next summer brings.

I heard he was here. Did you see him?

In the past we've found ways to win. And we have to start doing that real quick here.

In the NHL these days, you don't get surprised by too much. When we went and got Cory Stillman , you could kind of see it coming that something might not work out. We still had hopes that they would get both of them signed -- that would've been really good. That's the business of hockey right now, and other teams go through the same thing every year.

Clearly, the higher prices go right to the bottom line for our producers.

Canada is Canada. We all talk about how we could have two teams and we probably could. We all know the next three months of the NHL season will tell the tale.

He's stolen a couple games for us already.

I don't want to say that we have their number, ... They're a good team and they can beat anybody any night.

You can release all the oil you want from the SPR, but to make gas, you need refineries.

The hard part for us was getting in. We feel now we can start over here and try to do something. We have proven we can win in the playoffs.

The guys are all back here in Tampa and we're real excited, ... The city's been unbelievable, very enthusiastic. It's pretty cool to see, the atmosphere hasn't changed.

The goal deflated us, but we didn't grab a hold of ourselves; we went the other way and it snowballed on us. It's a time of the game where we have to help Johnny out and get back in the game, and we didn't do that tonight and that's why it went that way. It's not good enough right now.