Dallas Drake Quotations

Until you get to step on the ice with him every day, you don't realize how much he puts into it.

Obviously, you didn't want to let him shoot the puck. That was your main focus. You let anybody else shoot it besides him.

Obviously, winning makes everybody feel better about themselves. We're not that high yet, but we had a good week.

He's your marquee player. He's a guy they can still build around and he's a guy that can still produce in terms of a lot of goals and points when he's healthy.

He looked good. We had a pretty short practice but I thought he looked really good.

We threw him to the wolves a little bit early in the year and he lost his confidence a little bit. But he went down (to Peoria), played really well, and the last couple games he's been outstanding.

He's a very skilled guy; we always knew that.

He was just a dynamic player, and he didn't get enough credit for his defensive play. He was great in his own zone.

He knows how much we expect out of him every night, and he's been great on and off the ice for us.

I think you've got to look at teams like Carolina and the New York Rangers . A year ago nobody expected them to be where are today and all of a sudden they're Stanley Cup contenders, especially Carolina.

That was unacceptable. We just refused to shoot the puck.

We really battled back for about six weeks there. We didn't expect to make the playoffs but we had a lot of players playing well for next year. And then we got hurt again.

We're not very pretty to watch, but we work really hard. We keep it real simple and that's the only way we give ourselves a chance every night.

You look at some of how young our forwards are, but they've really stepped to the forefront and made the difference in us winning and losing hockey games. And our goaltending has been out of this world.

We got into a little bit of a pond hockey game there, and that can get you in trouble.

The Phoenix game the other night had 27 penalties in it, so that's pretty much the whole game somebody's on the power play. Believe it or not, you almost have got to forget about the score and just try and play the game as best you can with the new rule changes. I know that's hard to think about it that way, but you've got to teach yourself to adjust to the new rules as quickly as possible.

We've got to get back to remember what we did to give us success when we were winning. What gave us success was everybody contributed, it wasn't one or two guys.

We've played a lot of games in January and up to this point. And we'll play a lot after the break. So it's important for guys to get the rest.

Unfortunately, I'm one of the guys that gets too emotional. So I've got to learn to pull the reins back a little bit. Sometimes I say things I shouldn't say. I'm going to try and get better in that area, not yell at the refs too much.

We just got away from our game plan a little bit. I mean, we're working hard. It's not a matter of work ethic. Mistakes we make against really good teams, they end up in our net.

Early in the year where we lost 11 or 12 in a row, there were times when I didn't want to show my face in public. It was frustrating. You feel like you're letting a lot of people down and you expect so much more out of yourself and from the organization.

There's going to be a lot of relief I'm sure for a lot of people around here. It's taken a while, but it will be good for everybody in the long run if they can get this sorted out and have a good summer.

There's nothing you can really put a finger on, except preparation. For whatever reason, maybe we feel too good about ourselves. We shouldn't. I think we get out of our element a little bit. Then we try to do too much.

That's going to be a rivalry going on for a long time. Jacks loves that, I think he loves playing against him. It helps him elevate his game.

They're getting the chance of a lifetime. It's not going to come along like this every year for them, because next year the team might be different. This is their time to show themselves, see what they can do.

It's one of those nights. They scored on their good opportunities and we didn't even come close.

It's one of those nights, the last couple have been. We make a mistake and it ends up in our net. That's just the bottom line. There's no real reason or rhyme for it. They scored on their good opportunities and we haven't even come close.

It's more positional play now. Before, if you got beat, your first instinct was to grab and hook and in most cases, you were allowed to get away with that, especially when you were short-handed. Now, if you do that, they call it, and you're down five on three. Your body position has to be a lot better.

That's part of it as you get older, and unrestricted. No offense, I'd trade all of us, too.

It's sort of been one after the other.

It's been tough and nobody in here's going to lie that it hasn't been a tough year for all of us, not knowing what's going to happen. But we have no part in that, everything in that is out of our control. All we do is play hockey.

It wasn't a very good day for hockey in North America.

I'm not going to say it was the prettiest game, but I think the third period, we played solid. 'Sandy' was the key to the game. He made some huge saves for us.

I'm sure he will. He had a lot of respect in St. Louis.

In my opinion, he's a guy that still has a lot of hockey left to play. When he's healthy, he's still one of the best players in the game. The salary he would be making him makes him very affordable.

I played with Keith in Phoenix when he was pretty heavy and he scored 50 goals. I've seen Keith play at a certain weight and be pretty darn successful.

He said 'Guys, I apologize for the situation I put you in, I put everyone in a bad spot a little bit. We didn't expect much from him, we were just happy he was back.

You could look at it two different ways. You could look at it as being relieved, we're moving on. But for guys like me, the way I look at it, it's frustrating because you'd rather find a way to get back on the ice and figure it out.

The hardest thing to do sometimes going down the stretch, especially when we're not going to make the playoffs, is to focus. It's easy to say that we've got nothing to play for. But our young kids have been great, trying hard every night to win.

All three goals came on turnovers. They took advantage of us. We've got to find a way to not turn the puck over.