Postgame Quotes Nashville Predators vs. Ottawa Senators

Predators Quotes Head Coach Peter Laviolette On allowing the early goal and his team’s response to it… It was a tough break, a little bit of a redirect, just a tough bounce. They got a couple chances right after that as well, but Pekka made some big saves. As the game went on, we settled down even more and tightened up defensively.

On if his team got back to the basics tonight… I thought tonight we were pretty good defensively for most of the game. I liked the fact that we didn’t turn the puck over, their neutral zone can be tough to get through, but we did a good job playing a smart, simple game. Once we did get into the offensive zone, I thought we did a pretty good job establishing our identity as well.

On his team establishing offensive zone time in the second period … It’s tough to get through the neutral zone against this team and get the clean entries that you want. That means we have to put it behind them and go to work. I thought for the most part we did a pretty good job of that. It was good to establish the zone time, the only time we shot ourselves in the foot is when we put it blind into the center of the ice in our offensive zone. When we kept to the plan and what we wanted to do, it was working for us. We moved the puck pretty well side-to-side, low-to- high, getting some shots and a redirect goal. We also got some traffic on some shots from the point as well. It’s the zone you want to be in, even if you’re not getting the shots you’re looking for, at least you’re not playing defense.

Defenseman Ryan Ellis On how good this win feels coming off the rough road trip… We were disappointed in poor play on the road; at times it was good, and at times it wasn’t. Tonight, we came in and simplified a lot of errors in our game, and the result was there. If we continue with that game plan, I think we’ll like the results.

On if they were able to get back to the basics tonight… That’s pretty much exactly what we did; we got pucks behind them, got a better forecheck and when we turned over pucks in their end, we started our cycle game. I think overall it was a good game on our part.

On the give-and-go with Josi… It’s a read-and-react thing. We’ve been playing here together for a while, and he’s so mobile. If I can get moving it helps him out and vice versa. We try to create as much space as we can for each other and see what happens when we do.

Goaltender Pekka Rinne On what this win means…. It’s huge; we’ve lost five in a row on the road, it’s something we obviously have to improve on. But, it’s huge that we’re able to win our games at home. I feel like for any team it’s an advantage.

On giving up the first goal… It was a bad goal, you never want to start the game like that, it was the first shot, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve given up a rough goal. You just have to focus on making the next save and the things you can control. The guys responded really well; Watson scored a big goal and then it went on from there. All in all, I thought defensively we did a really good job; they didn’t have much of anything all night. We needed that win, and you could tell.

On if they were able to get back to the basics tonight… We addressed a lot of things after the last road trip. I felt like tonight, we played with speed, got the pucks deep, turned a lot of pucks over and created chances. Our defense always plays a big role in our offense.

Left Wing Austin Watson On how it feels winning tonight after losing twice on the road… It was good for us to get back on the winning trend, and it’s always nice to come back home and play in front of our fans. A really good group effort from our guys tonight.

On if he feels like he got back to his game after losing four key players to injury… We are missing some fire power, but as long as we stick to what we do well, we will play good and smart hockey. I think we get ourselves in trouble when we turn the puck over, too. We talk about these clichés like getting line changes and getting pucks out deep, it really holds true for us right now.

On what having those four players injured can teach this team… I don’t know if it teaches us anything but it definitely gives some guys opportunity. It’s roughly the same group that has been here the last three to four years so we have seen this sort of thing before. Guys get injured every year, it’s a part of the game but I think we are well-equipped to handle it.

Senators Quotes Head Coach Guy Boucher On the importance of not getting a second goal before the Predators tied the game… I thought we had a very strong first (period) – (Colin) White hit the post and it could have been 2-0 right there. Later on, at the end of the second period, we have a wide-open net on a play we had practiced this morning and executed. Tkachuk gets it, but it’s on his backhand, and he fumbles and it goes back the other way – that could have been 2-2. Tkachuk gets another chance on that same power play and the (Preds) goalie makes a great save. Then we got beat 1-on-1 in the third period for that third goal and that’s too bad. They’re missing six guys but I thought they gave everything they had. They’re the older, more mature team and when they got their push, it was hard for us to

keep up. The guys fought but we needed to get that second goal to keep it tight. It’s our third game in four nights and we burnt a lot of energy in the first two games.

On his evaluation of Stefan Elliott… He did some good things, we gave him the opportunity to be on the power play. He’s definitely somebody that’s been brought in to provide some depth and give us an opportunity to see what he can do; we get another guy, another able player and we are hoping to get some regular players back in the lineup with six guys missing. We have two days now to regroup and we’ll need it because those three games in four days were tough.

Goaltender Craig Anderson On what he thought about this game… At the end of the day, we got the loss so that’s not a good thing. I thought we did a lot of good things. I thought our penalty kill was outstanding, again. We keep making strides on that, so that’s a good thing. I thought, overall, we were going back and forth there for a bit and it could’ve gone either way for a good portion of that game.

On if he could see the stronger, defensive commitment to hockey from this group… I thought we did a better job tonight. It’s one of those games where we’re there, we need a bounce, we need a little something… We were able to stifle their offense a little bit and take momentum back. It just kind of went back and forth. Pekka (Rinne) made a good save there in the second on the hung zinger to Brady. Right there, that’s 2-2 going into the third. That’s a different story, have to give him some credit. At the end of the day, we’re not happy here.

On Bridgestone being a tough place to play… Their fans are loud and they’re definitely energetic. They definitely don’t like the opposing goalie, I’ll tell you that.

Forward Mark Stone On this being a tough game… I don’t really know what to say. We’re battling hard, it’s just these critical errors that are coming at us at unsuspecting times. That four-minute power play kind of deflated us a bit. We had one, two pretty good chances, but nothing that was sustained.

On their issues on the power play… They have a good penalty kill. They pressure the puck pretty well. We got in the zone. We had some pretty good plays, it’s just getting it in. We have to go back to the drawing board and practice our break out next time on the ice.

On them continuing to have issues on the road… I don’t think we’ve played poorly, but I don’t think we’ve played our best. The road’s a different beast. Teams come into our building and we play pretty well. We know teams are solid on home

ice. That’s the nature of the NHL. You have to have a good home record, but also you have to find a way to win on the road. I don’t know what to say.

Defenseman Cody Ceci On it being a tougher loss to take knowing they were so close to a win… I thought we played pretty well tonight. We scored early, that was big. We wanted a good start. We knew they were going to come out flying. From there, we just couldn’t solve them.

On what has been done differently on their power play to make it so successful… It’s been better. We changed a few things. I think it’s just been working well with our personnel. We just have to keep it up. It saved us tonight. It gave us a shot. They had a couple of power plays in the third that could have put us away, but we called them off. It’s been going well for us.

On if there’s anything else that can be done to get some success on the road… I don’t know what it is, if it’s matchups or what. We have to figure out a way to win on the road. We’ve been great at home in front of our fans when they’re behind us, but we’ve been struggling a little bit on the road. Hopefully we can sort it out before the end of this road trip.