BOSTON BRUINS POSTGAME QUOTES BOSTON BRUINS VS MONTREAL CANADIENS Wednesday, January 17, 2018

BOSTON BRUINS HEAD COACH BRUCE CASSIDY POSTGAME On the Bruins’ play… Yeah, even though they scored first early, they got a bit of a break going to the net, it wasn’t like it was this huge breakdown or we lacked passion or energy. We responded well and played the type of game we wanted to. I thought we skated well, controlled the pace for the most part, got the goal back fairly quickly, then wanted to play behind their D, get a good forecheck game going, be hard to play against, limit their chances, and I thought we did that.

On the 5-on-3 penalty kill… You can’t say enough about those plays, those turning points in the game. I thought we had been the better team, but they found a way to stay in the game on the road, and that was their opportunity to take control of the game, and we did a good job, real good job. It doesn’t surprise me. Adam [McQuaid] is very good on the kill. We’ve said that all along, that’s one area we miss when he is out of the lineup. Zee [Zdeno Chara] did a good job, Bergy [Patrice Bergeron] and [Riley] Nash up front.

On the power play… Our power play didn’t execute very well – the first one. We were getting frustrated there wondering if we were going to get on it. Looked like there were some opportunities to get some calls; we finally got one and kind of forced some plays. But, they bounced back on the next one and that insurance goal – those matter a lot, even though it ends up 4-1 when you look at it. At the time, it was a big goal for us. We talked about trying to get in front of the net, get some traffic, force them to push us out of the scoring area, and eventually we got the puck in there and got rewarded. Even though it wasn’t the prettiest play, we had bodies there so we outnumbered them. We were able to recover the puck and eventually push it to the top of the crease.

On controlling the tempo of play… We’re trying to do that against everybody, to be honest, but especially against Montreal. They generally are a good skating hockey club. The first time in there, I thought they were better than us area. For the most part tonight I thought from the get go, maybe the first couple two, three minutes, but we found our legs in Montreal probably after about 10 minutes. I don’t know if that had to do with the break or them just being better than us at the time, but we end up finding our legs and I think yes, for the most part we have, and that will be our goal again on Saturday obviously up there. If we can outskate them and play behind them, then we have a good chance to win.

On Chara’s play on the penalty kill… Torey [Krug] and Grizz [Matt Grzelcyk] are not regular killers for us, so he knows that; he thrives on it; he wants it. Sometimes you’ve got to grab him by the scruff – well I can’t – but Kevin [Dean] will try to get him off in those situations – not in a five-on-three – but he relishes that role. That’s where [Brandon] Carlo and [Adam] McQuaid/[Kevan] Miller do a good job for us as well, and that’s where we’re trying to find that fourth. Charlie may have to go to his off side, or where we can get in trouble – we’ve talked about the dimension of that lineup. If we dress Grizz, then you lose a bit of that, especially if a D takes a penalty. It is invaluable to us. If you look at our PK all year it has been in the top five, maybe slipped out to seven or eight. Zee is the biggest reason on it – and the goaltender has to make the saves – and that’s not being disrespectful to Bergy, who does a great job, or Nash, but Zee sees a lion’s share of it, and he sets the tone on it.

On Willie O’Ree… I love Willie. He is very sharp for his age, very personable, great guy to chat with. I don’t know if the other guys appreciate retired players as much, having them around, these young guys. I do. I am a huge fan of the game, so I could sit here and talk hockey all night about ex players. For me, it’s great, personally. I’m sure the guys enjoy it too. I wish more of the former players would come around, as well.

On Kevan Miller… Kevan Miller I don’t believe will travel with us, simply because he is ill, and keeping him away from the players – we don’t want another kind of what happened before Christmas to go through the plane, so we’ll evaluate him. If he is ready, then he will come in in the morning, and we will make a decision on the lineup with him tomorrow. Missed a couple days of practice, so right now, I’d say he is questionable. We’ll make that decision tomorrow. On staying rested… I haven’t seen the final minutes, but I know going into the third we were pretty balanced, and it stayed that way in the third. They’ve played twice; this would be their third in four, so they do have a bit more rest, but it’s not like they’ve been sitting at home for three days. We have to get out of that mindset, to be honest, in back to backs. You’ve got to be, ‘hey, we’re going there to play.’ Make sure early on you don’t extend a shift so that it’s tougher to recover. Every team goes through it, and we’ve made a priority to try to be better in those back-to-back games, and part of that is managing the puck and your shift length early. On the Claude Julien tribute… I thought it was a very classy move by the Bruins, and hopefully everyone else thought the same thing. I thought it was well deserved and a good move by the organization. BOSTON BRUINS DEFENSEMAN ADAM MCQUAID On his performance in his first game back… Not too bad. I wasn’t sure what to expect, just went with the first shift and then the second and just went down from there. I wanted to try to keep things really simple, Grizz [Matt Grzelcyk] made life pretty easy to play with - he played really well. All the guys did, so it was nice to be back be a part of the win, I’m happy to be back.

On how he felt after logging big minutes on a 5-on-3… I was a little tired [laughs]. I tried my best not to overstay or overextend my shifts, I didn’t have much choice in that case. I felt that one a little bit.

On whether he thought tonight was a good game to come back in… I don’t know, it worked out so… The focus was on tonight, obviously we’re happy with the results and we think everyone added a little something and that’s what we need to continue to do.

On whether it felt good to get the 5-on-3 under his belt… Yeah, it’s nice to be in those situations – you don’t want to be – to be put in that situation I think guys thrive off of wanting to kill that and be in those situations. Even though I was a little winded at the end of it, it was a good feeling for sure.

On how itchy he was to get back in there for game action… Yeah of course it goes without saying that I was looking forward to getting back out there. A few nerves this afternoon, just settled into the game and like I said it felt good just to be a part of the win, as fun as it has been to watch the guys win and when you’re actually on the ice and on the bench and a part of the battle it’s that much more gratifying.

On whether he sees anything different with the team now vs. last time he was on the ice… I think guys are making smart, strong plays for the most part. Not too much high-risk plays, really supporting one another both from a structural standpoint but also verbally so yeah it feels like the guys are really coming together as a team both from a playing standpoint but also a camaraderie standpoint, that’s important.

BOSTON BRUINS GOALIE TUUKKA RASK On Montreal’s first goal and how the team responded… Yeah, it didn’t bother us really. It didn’t look like it. You know, we took the momentum and got the goal back. Kept the momentum until we got the penalty, and they kind of got some looks there, but overall, good game.

On getting separation between the rest of the division… Yeah, you know, that’s what you’re shooting for. Gain as many points as you can. They’re all important games, especially divisional matchups. You try to get points, like we have. Still a lot of games left, so trying to keep our game the way it’s going.

On getting crashed into… No, it just knocked the wind out of me a little bit. He did get a shot off, kind of. But then ran out of real estate after that.

On feeling something special with this team… Yeah, the way we played. I mean, obviously, it’s tough to say. There’s always something special going, but if you win a lot of games then people tend to talk about that a little bit more, but I think we’re a great group of guys who are all battling hard out there, playing for each other, and I think that itself is special.

On the team not hitting a wall and being worn down… I don’t know, we haven’t felt like that. You know, we don’t obviously play every night as sharp as you would like to, but you know, we look at videos and our effort and battle has always been there. And execution sometimes is not there, but I think that’s what it all comes down to. Just effort, battle level and how well your head is in the game…a lot of it is just being a smart hockey player. You know, you understand what you do right and what you do wrong and then you correct the mistakes, then you go out there and execute them. I mean it’s pretty simple to say it, but I think the guys we have here are really smart hockey players. They understand.

On defense getting in the crease… I think it’s been pretty good all throughout the year. I don’t know, I think everyone is just doing their job. They’re trusting goalies; goalies are trusting the defense.

BOSTON BRUINS FORWARD RYAN SPOONER On what it is about this team to persevere through tough game situations… I’m not sure what it is. Yeah, I mean the first period tonight, again, wasn’t the best one for us. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great. The second and third periods, I thought it was a lot better so it was definitely good to see. Not really sure why, just the character of our team – we just want to win and if we don’t, it’s not acceptable. So, that’s kind of where we are right now and how we’re trying to play.

On if the young guys are attentive to learning… Yeah, I mean, I just think that we have a good mix here. We have some guys who are young that stepped up for us and that’s huge. I mean, to be one of the top teams in the league you have to have some guys that are 18, 19, 20 [years old] that are going to step up and we’ve had that so that’s been good for us.

On if it was special at all scoring in this game against former head coach Claude Julien… It’s just another game for me, I just want to help out. It was nice to score though, yeah, for sure.

On if his goal is indicative of how things are going for the team… No, I was trying to pass it. I mean, I got the puck and now that I look back on it I probably should have brought it to my forehand there but I saw that [Carey] Price was kind of out of the net a little bit and there’s three guys in front. I just tried to throw it there and hope for the best and it went in so that’s good.

On if there is a feeling that there is something special with this team compared to years past… Yeah, I mean, I think the last 15 games or so, I think we’ve gotten points in all of them. Um, that’s good for us. I think the one thing right now is we can’t really get content with the way that we are playing – that’s something that we can’t really do. So, um, we just have to go out there, just play hard, we’ve been good with that so it’s good to see.

BOSTON BRUINS FORWARD BRAD MARCHAND On a strong effort tonight… Yeah, every part right now is important and we just want to keep going. We had a good game, it was a frustrating start there but the boys did a great job battling back and again, we got the two points which is what matters.

On the confidence in the room when you’re down a goal and come back to control the game… Yeah, especially that early in the game it’s not that big of a deal being down by a goal but, yeah we have a lot of character in here. We’ve shown that plenty of times throughout the year, we saw almost 60 minutes left in the game we can battle back, and we did. It ended up being a good game for us.

On what goes in to the successful penalty kill… Yeah, they did a great job. Our PK has always been pretty good and they came up big tonight. We needed that kill to keep us up there and it was a great job by the guys.

BOSTON BRUINS DEFENSEMAN TOREY KRUG On the Bruins controlling the tempo of play in the last two games against Montreal… Yeah I think up in Montreal they came out pretty fast obviously, a lot of energy in their building. Tonight I think we did a good job of pushing them back on their heels and dictating the play so it was a nice 60 minute effort for sure.

On feeling out the energy in the building… A little bit. I mean we knew coming into it, it’s a late night game against Montreal, our building will be buzzing every time. I think that first shift obviously, they get one there, pushed us back a little bit but we did a great job responding and making sure that we were focusing on our game because we knew that there was a lot of time left and we could really dictate the game if we stuck to it. So I thought we did a good job of maintaining that.

On the 5 on 3 penalty kill, and Adam McQuaid’s big part on that kill… Yeah that was incredible really. He was great, he logs a lot of time on the PK and Quaider [Adam McQuaid] first game action, I know he’s been working really hard in practice and make it game like for him and when he got the chance he was blocking shots, making clears when he could and those two obviously did a great job. That was a big point in the game, they could have easily taken a hold of things there and gotten some energy but instead it was energy for us.

On the confidence that the team is playing with right now… We feel so good about our game that we know over the course of 60 minutes that we’ll get our chances if we’re working hard and stick to you know our layers and stick to our defensive posture that will turn into offense for us so you know it’s just confidence in our system and the way that we’re rolling right now and guys are stepping up, we’re getting contributions from everyone and that’s a big part of it.

On if the energy from the fourth line spreads across the rest of the roster… Yeah it sure does. Like I said, good teams get help from every line and you know when a line goes over the boards what their role is and what they’re going to do and I think right now everyone has a great idea of what their job is for this team and you know that line in particular does a good job of getting us energy and you know everyone else it just trickles down. So it definitely does give us a boost.

MONTREAL CANADIENS HEAD COACH CLAUDE JULIEN POSTGAME On his overall thoughts… Yeah, we weren’t in it from the get-go, probably the first five minutes, and then we’d been playing good hockey until then. I thought our last four or five games were really good, and then tonight, we just, I said in French, not good enough. So, obviously, it’s a disappointing loss for us, and especially with the situation we’re in, but, you know, we didn’t play well. Simple as that, and, you know, we hope we can bounce back next game and resemble more the team we did in the last four or five.

On the players’ mindset… Well, you know what, I think those are questions you need to ask the players, not the coach. I think, you know, I can’t answer for them, so, you know, it’s important for you guys to ask the right people. That’s part of your job. My job is to tell you that we weren’t good enough tonight, and we need to be better. I think that’s my response. Really, I need to get this team to play better, and no matter what they’re thinking, they need to change their approach if that’s the case, and then we need to believe in ourselves. If you don’t believe, there’s no way in the world you’re going to get an opportunity or a chance. When you’ve got the kind of goaltender you have, that’s going to give you a chance every night. You should take advantage of that and say, “You know what? Good things can happen if we decide to work together and work well and be on the same page.”

On his video tribute… Well, yeah, you know, it’s always something that you kind of dread a little bit because it’s a little emotional, and at the same time, trying to keep your emotions intact there so you can coach a game and stuff like that, but, you know, I appreciate what they did for me, and as I said, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about this organization that gave me the opportunity to spend 10 years here, and you know, at the same time I’m kind of happy it’s over so we can move on now, but that doesn’t mean you forget what’s happened here. It’s always going to be with you, but now I’m in another chapter of my coaching career, and I’ve got to think about that. MONTREAL CANADIENS FORWARD BRENDAN GALLAGHER On how to explain tonight’s loss… You can’t explain it. You just have to look in the mirror and be better as individuals, be better as a team. The situation that we’re in we have to be smarter than that and understand that you can’t afford to have off nights, especially playing a team that’s supposed to be our biggest rival. We’re supposed to show up and, you know, we’ve always loved coming into this building and playing well. Tonight that wasn’t the case. We… at no point in the game did we have the effort level that we needed to win, and you know, like I said we got the result that we deserved.

On this being a big game for Claude Julien… It’s a big game for everyone I think. You know, you hate to lose. It doesn’t matter the situation. He hates to lose, we hate to lose. We didn’t play well enough, and we got the result that we deserved.

On how you avoid getting discouraged with the situation they’re in… I mean, there’s no feeling sorry for yourselves. No one else is going to feel sorry for us. You know, we got ourselves in this hole and there’s no point in quitting. You know, for us right now it’s… there’s a reason it’s so difficult to come back. You can’t afford to have off nights. I think, you know, especially in a game like this, you know, coming in here that’s just disappointing, and as a group we’ve got to expect better from ourselves.

MONTREAL CANADIENS FORWARD MAX PACIORETTY On tonight’s loss… Yeah, it was a bad game. We’re not happy about it. It seemed like nobody really wanted the puck, and obviously, you know, play against a team like that offensive line [is] probably one of the best in the league, and you know, gave them opportunities to feel good about their game and they made us pay.

On whether they feel bad for Claude Julien because of the loss… Yeah, I mean, you know we know the position that we’re in, and every game is important. You know, he wants to come home, and you know, where he was for so long, and you know, put up a good effort and it wasn’t there tonight.

On how big the 5-on-3 was for Boston… Yeah, it was a sloppy 5-on-3. Definitely out of sync, so we’ve got to look at as to why and improve that.

On whether tonight’s flat start is hard to explain… Well we didn’t come out flat. We were up 1-0 and had a good first couple shifts, and then like I said, it just seemed like people were panicking with the puck and didn’t seem to want it, and that’s the difference between good teams and not is, you know, when everyone wants the puck and everyone wants to make a difference and we definitely didn’t play like that tonight. We’ve had a lot of talk about the fact that we’ve been playing pretty well as of lately, and I think in my mind that’s the difference.

MONTREAL CANADIENS DEFENSEMAN JAKUB JERABEK On scoring his first NHL goal… Actually, in the first moment, I didn’t know. I thought it was Patch [Max Pacioretty], that he tipped it, but then the guys on the bench told me that it was [Zdeno] Chara, so then, you know, the game was in the beginning, so it was nice, but it was just the start of the game.

On what went wrong in the game… I don’t know. It’s hard to say. We scored a goal in the first minute, and then we had a couple good shifts, and after that we made some mistakes in the D-zone and stopped playing.

On getting more playing time… Yeah, sure, if you get some more ice time, it always helps to feel more comfortable. Yeah, I’m glad.

MONTREAL CANADIENS HEAD COACH CLAUDE JULIEN PREGAME On coming to Boston as a visiting coach… Well, it was a little different. You come here as a home team coach and now you come here as a visitor, [it’s] a little strange, but obviously familiar with what’s going on, but as I said in French, a lot of construction going on around here, and things seem to be moving ahead. So, it is a little strange, but at the same time, I think I’ll get comfortable soon enough.

On if it’s nice to see not just former players but staff around TD Garden… It is, and I’ll probably see more tonight, guys that work security and all that stuff. You don’t coach here 10 years without getting to know the people that work in the building and stuff like that, and I’ve always had good relationships with them. So it will be nice to see them, but at the same time, like I said, it’s more important for me right now to remember what I’m here for, and I need to be as prepared as I’m asking my players to be prepared for this game.

On if he took time over the summer to reflect on what went right for him in Boston… Usually you ask the other one, right, what went wrong? I think a lot of things, it’s the people that surround you, and I think, from staff to upper management, and obviously players, and we talked about different stuff. The leadership group was very strong here, is very strong here, and guys that I was able to have from day one … I was fortunate to have good players, but at the same time, what went right was we just seemed to evolve with the game every year, try to bring something new and keep the guys interested and excited, and I think that’s what coaches have to do today. You can’t keep coaching the way you did 10 years ago and expect that it’s going to work today. So, players evolve, and so do you as a coach. You need to evolve with the game. I felt I was able to do that in a lot of different areas, and kept the guys motivated and excited.

On if he has had a chance to catch up with any players or management… I did, different times. Summer time, you might get a text from somebody, or you might text somebody because you found out whether he’s a new father or got married, and I’ve said it before, there was a bond that was built here with players because of what happened to us. You don’t win a Cup and all of a sudden disappear from each other’s lives. It’s been said before, it lasts forever, and I think I’ve had the proof of that just in what’s happened to me in the last year. Players texting me after the game last time we played them, guys saying hi to me today at some point. That’s the off-ice stuff. The on-ice stuff is two teams trying to beat each other to earn the two points.

On what he liked about coaching and living in Boston… Well I’ve said it before, it’s a great city. People that come and visit the city love it. I liked it. I think as a family this is where our roots really grew. With a young family and stuff like that, I think there’s lots to be said, and I’ve said it before and I’m certainly not ashamed to say that this is a great sports town that supports its teams, and fans are great. So there’s nothing to dislike about this city and right now, it’s about coming in here and hopefully making them not like you so much.

On if there’s anything that sticks out about the Bruins since he’s left… I’m not sure I’m clear on the question. I think when you look at this team, they made some room for young players to come in, and they cleaned up some situations here in the last year, and they allowed some of their young guys to grow in the minors. You look at [Jake] DeBrusk and stuff like that, you look at [Charlie] McAvoy that’s come in, and their leadership group is still the same. They have a strong leadership group and they tweaked certain things, and they’re trying to play with pretty good pace, but when you look at us against them, I don’t think there’s a very big difference in the pace of the game. Sometimes it’s about bounces, sometimes it’s about certain teams making certain adjustments. It could be personnel related to how you play, but at the end of the day, in the standings, there’s a bit of a difference there. But I think when the two teams played each other, there didn’t seem to be a big difference. So, from my end, we’ve just got to keep trying to improve and keep plugging away here, and I think we’ll be heading in the right direction.

On dealing with the absence of two centers from the lineup… Well, I don’t like to use the word difficult, but I like to use the word challenge. It’s going to be a challenge for us, honestly. You can’t lose two centers, and we all know that that’s probably our challenged position right now. We don’t hide from that fact, and then you lose one guy that’s there all the time, the other one, Shawsy [Andrew Shaw] that takes a lot of draws, stuff like that. So, you have to, I guess, adjust. You want to ask your players to be conscious on how they play and what they’re doing out there on the ice. You’ve got to be even better and smarter and you hope that as a group you can overcome those kinds of things. But it’s always hard to ask one guy to pick up the slack and do it all on his own, so that’s what we’re going to try and do here, and I understand not having the last change is an even bigger challenge for a coach. So we’re going to try and hopefully be able to make the best decisions possible.

On what he expects from Jacob de la Rose tonight… I said it yesterday, I’ll say it again. He’s a young player, very young player, but has size, skill, great skater, great shot, and he just needs to develop, and those are opportunities for players like that to develop when they’re put in there, because you don’t really have a choice. And I think it’s an opportunity for that guy right now to step up, and then hopefully become a better player. So if it doesn’t pay off right away, it’s going to pay off in the long run. So, we’ve got some young players that we’ve got to keep developing here, and in order for them to develop, you’ve got to give them those opportunities when they come.

On if he would still be coaching in Boston if the Bruins’ youth infusion started earlier… You know, we can dissect all we want, and I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I think you move on, and that’s not for me to say. People can decide on their own. All I know is there’s a lot of new faces here and a lot of faces that are gone that would deal with me. So, that’s just the team that was rebuilt, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve rebuilt, and they gave some young players some time to develop in the minors, and those guys are paying off right now. But as I said, when you have a good, strong leadership group, it’s the best thing for a young player coming in, and they have that here.

On how he would describe the current state of the Bruins-Habs rivalry… Well it’s still there, and I know a lot of people would love to see the gloves flying off again, and all these five-on-fives and stuff like that, but it’s not so much because there’s not a rivalry. I think it’s because the game’s changed. There’s consequences now that are a lot more severe than they were back then, and I still think there’s, as you can see, in my estimation, last game that we played, even though there might not have been fights, there was a good intensity, and you could tell both teams were playing some of their best hockey. So, to me, that game meant a lot against each other, and you’ll probably see the same thing again tonight. Whether it builds up here because it’s three-in-eight, we’ll see, and it’s certainly not going to be premeditated. It’s going to be because it happened.

On if it’s hard to not think of Boston as home… No, I mean, just because you work in Montreal doesn’t mean you have to look at this city as a host city in your mind, you know, your family is still here. We built some roots here, but we’re looking forward to also having the same kind of life we had here in Montreal, and that’s the plan.

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