The sad thing about this whole scenario is that Rick is a wonderful person and a great guy, so I hope everything works out in his favor. It's hard because I love the guy. He's a great guy, you know. I just hope it all works out for him.
We worked hard and took a lot of pride in that for the first 35 games, and we were killing big penalties at crucial times. It's been non-existent these last three losses.
It's been a hard week for my family and the only focus I have right now is this hockey team.
It's not a question of shutting him (Thornton) down. It's a question of playing against him hard and our guys have played against him hard, and we played against him hard.
It was a hard fought game, our guys played a tough game. They're a team that plays really hard and our guys really came to work tonight.
He works harder than any athlete I've ever been around as far as off-season conditioning goes. He's a maniac . . . I see him playing another three years no question. He could be our ( Julio ) Franco .
We got a little bit lucky. It's hard to keep all of your good, young defensemen. He's a tremendous young man who works hard every single game, every single practice. He never cheats in one drill, and that's how he plays.
I like how hard this team played (on the trip) and how unselfish it was. . . . We're playing as a group and that's most important. The outcomes have been better because we're playing better as a group.
We played hard tonight. Curtis made some big saves. We played well and deserved to win. But, the Kings did play last night. That's just scheduling. We were more rested than the home team.
Not much really to add to what I said two days ago. Nothing for me to talk about. I'm not involved. It's been a hard week for my family.
I watched how fast he skated and how hard he shot that puck. I wish I had an extra No. 7 in a red jersey. I could have found a spot for him on my power play.
In a lot of ways he reminds me of ( Mark ) Messier . He's solid. He's hard. He just wants to win.
Our Achilles' heel has been killing penalties at home. They get a power play goal and it's a 2-1 hockey game. You get the number of points they have as a team by hard work, and we knew they weren't going to quit by any means.
What records show are consistency, and that's what he's shown in his career. When a guy gets that many wins it's from a lot of effort and a lot of hard work and a lot of hours. I know the players tonight wanted him to get this at home.