POSTGAME QUOTES BOSTON BRUINS VS Saturday, December 16, 2017

BOSTON BRUINS HEAD COACH BRUCE CASSIDY POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE On the too many men ... Yeah, it was all three actually – we’re scrambling to get on the ice, so the call might have been from, like, [Charlie] McAvoy jumping for [Torey] Krug, it might have been Krech [David Krejci] going for Bergy [Patrice Bergeron]. I don’t know. I can’t complain, I mean, we’re trying to gain an advantage there. Sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you don’t. We didn’t. And the other one was on the power play; we had a forward jump for the wrong guy. I mean, we had six guys. So, it’s hard to complain about them, you know, we were at fault there, we’ll take the blame for that and unfortunately it’s a lousy way to lose, but we had some chances in overtime too, we just lost our footing on a couple too. It was one of those nights, it seemed like we were – we had some chances at the offensive blue line, even in overtime, we just lost control of pucks and lost our footing and took away some good chances for us.

On if he takes solace in the team being able to tie the game... Oh, I do. I always tend to look positives. I think it’s too long a year to always dwell on the things that didn’t go well. I mean, you’ve got to correct those. Some of them I think were self-inflicted with the penalties, obviously. Some of our puck play, we forced plays. That’s not structure, that’s just poor decisions, and I thought we had a lot of giveaways and it showed in the stats. Having said that, when you’re down two-nothing, it’s not easy to come back in this league against a good team, and we did. Now, we knew they were a little fatigued, so we had that going for us and sooner or later our skill would come through in the power play, and it did. So, it’s a big point, and then late in the game, you know, Torey [Krug] is in all alone, he makes an unbelievable save, Krech [David Krejci] rings one off the bar, [Danton] Heinen even late had a chance down low, so there were plenty of chances to win it, too. So, we’re going to look at the good parts of the game too, and obviously there were some ugly ones.

On the issues with the team’s power play... Early on, I thought the pressure in zone, we weren’t able to handle it. They were more aggressive on the kill than we were ready for and we just did not handle it well. We had a couple plays in mind we thought might work down low around the net and I think we forced the puck on those down by the line, so we spent a lot of time going back into our own end and breaking the puck out, which becomes frustrating. We tried to run a delayed play tonight; we were out of sync on it. So, there was problems getting into the zone and there was problems in the zone. There was problems, I mean, whoever watched the game clearly – I mean, we struggled on the power play. We’re not going to hide from that, but it got us a goal later, so we eventually kind of got it squared away but we certainly had opportunities early to take advantage and we didn’t.

On how their structure matched up against the Rangers... On five-on-five? Like, sorry, I don’t want to ramble – when [Michael] Grabner comes through the middle and goes off the glass and off our goal? Right, they, like other teams in the league – Pittsburgh will do it – will stretch their weak side winger, New Jersey, to try to pull your two D out, and what has to happen is at some point, the two D have to identify who’s going to take that player. If he starts on one side of the ice and goes to the other, there has to be a pass off generally because it’s more of a ploy to create space in front of your D by dragging them, losing their gap. So I think Kevan Millar went with him originally and then never recovered his gap and Grabner coming flying through the middle of the ice, you’d better be on time with a guy like that, because when he gets ahead of speed. So, that’s where we lost our gap, and they do it and they’re successful against a lot of teams doing it, but I don’t think they did it to us all night. I think at times they did and that’s when they’re good. Usually that, if your first forechecker has a good stick and you’re forcing pucks out of their hands early, then that guy is just lost. He’s skating out of the zone and we may have possession of the puck, and that’s where we needed to be better with our first and second forechecker. Creating some anxiety on their D so they’re just throwing pucks up and then you’ll probably get them back. But once they’re able to make that good underneath pass, I’ll call it that, that’s when you get into trouble and we did, and that’s when your third forward high has to be good. So, we had some breakdowns there. That’s the stuff we talked about that we have to address, because you play teams like that that do it and you need to be better through the neutral zone in those situations.

On the disallowed goal... Yeah, I mean, we get one disallowed. Pretty nice play, you know, happened to Washington the other night, so I mean, those things even out. But that one was just, of all nights, when they’re coming in playing their fourth in six nights and you want to get a lead on them, I think it was the only chance we gave up all period that we had charted. Now, there might have been one off the wing, and it wasn’t even a chance, so that’s unfortunate for us, fortunate for them.

On tinkering with the lines… Well we did, and then we would get a power play and then we would mess with the power play groups, and now you’re messing and messing and messing. One thing we did say after the second period – let’s just get back to basics here. We’re going to roll our four lines, keep everyone involved the way we started, and I thought our guys – we finally settled it down. The second period was a goofy period, I thought. We had one shift in our end; I think we were in there two minutes, and yet we came back in the game. Offensive blue line – we mangled some pucks that we don’t normally do, so there’s just a lot going on. So, I think we just had to settle it down. I give our guys credit. We did. The two mistakes were the too many men on the ice, to be honest with you. Other than that, I thought we had a good third period and gave ourselves a chance to win.

On Ryan Spooner… I thought he was fine. He scored a goal; they didn’t count it. He won some battles on the wall playing his off side. Power play, like I said, was out of sync, but I won’t put that on him; I put that on all five guys. They were just not on the same page or forcing plays that got guys frustrated. So yeah, I was fine with it.

On Spooner going to the net… Well, when you play the wing you have to because you’re not the playmaker as much anymore. You can still make plays from the wing, but now you’re with Krech [David Krejci] who likes to hold it, and that’s a positive. Krech wants guys to do that, so that’s we’re trying to get out of [Anders] Bjork and Jake [DeBrusk] on that line. You need someone to go to the net for him. He does a good job when he has wingers that do that, so it’s a positive for him. If you can build some chemistry, that would be good for us because Ryan can be an effective player for us with his speed and his ability to make plays. We want him to play a hard game. What I mean by hard is hard on the puck, going to the net, winning puck battles. I don’t mean Noel Acciari hard where he’s running guys over, but just be harder, and I thought he is trying to do that. He did it in Philadelphia – Nashville he got injured, but tonight I think he was trying to do it.

On if Spooner or Krejci will have to shoot more while playing together… Krech will. I don’t know that Ryan will ever be a true shooter, but Krech has. He can shoot it. You saw that shot at the end off the bar – I mean he beat him clean. I think he had 23 goals last year, which might have been his career high. You’ll have to do the checking on that, but he will shoot it. I think it’s just, in the past, he has always had other guys on his wing that will get to the net, so he’ll distribute it. I think he’ll do whatever it takes to score, because he likes to score.

BOSTON BRUINS GOALTENDER TUUKKA RASK On the first goal… Yeah, I’ll talk to the bull gang right after this, what the hell happened. Must have been a Celtics game last night. Yeah, I felt it in my back, that’s all. It hit my mask first. Give me an assist on it… Yeah, I saw him. It’s kind of similar to that Detroit goal, I guess I should be more patient. But he’s coming in with such good speed, it’s tough to match it. I tried my best and then I just went down a little bit too early. He got it up, I got my leg there extended there but he got it up.

On the OT winner… No, I saw him release it. You know, you play your angles, the guys in front are doing the flat screen and I saw him release it and I just made a save. But you know, it’s a perfect shot. If you beat me like that, I tip my hat and you won because I thought he’s got no corner there but obviously he did.

On how they are playing defensively… Very good. Stingy. I mean very, very good. There’s not a lot in the slot area there which is great. That’s where the goals are scored for the most part. I mean, we recently are giving up some breakaways but those things happen. When you play with skill and try to make those plays, those things happen and that’s why we are there to try to cover it up. But overall, I think the slot defensively has been great.

On trying to progress defensively… I think we’ve been pretty good at it. It’s been mostly power play breakaways really, but I think we’ve been jumping and making plays when the defense have been jumping in the rush. I don’t think there’s been too many turnovers of that. But yeah, I think when you play teams like Washington and the Rangers they are pretty heavy and they battle in front of the net so you really got to get your nose dirty and battle in front of the net to get rewarded. That’s something that we need to pay attention to, I guess.

On building character from falling the past few games… Yeah, for sure. We talk about it all the time. Especially at home, we try to get the lead and extend the lead. Today we thought we got it but then we had it bounce against us. I thought we played a good first period, they had nothing going on until their power play there they had some shots. And then the second period you fold down two-nothing and there was a period where we weren’t at our best and we battled back. This team has showed a lot of character coming back from deficits.

BOSTON BRUINS FORWARD BRAD MARCHAND On getting goal called back… Yeah, getting the lead early. It boosts your confidence and we were playing pretty well at that point. They kind of turned it around after that call back but that’s how it goes. You know, we had one go our way the other day and it’s part of hockey.

On getting late power play goal… Yeah, we didn’t do very well. It’s kind of frustrating with how things have turned around. We were so good early on with PP and not as good lately, but we got a big one there. That’s when we needed to step up and had the unfortunate goal at the end on the PK but that’s really the only play that he had. He made a good shot, got to give him credit, but he didn’t have many options. That’s how it goes.

On improving power plays… Yeah, it’s on us. We’re forcing plays when they’re not there. Maybe we need to realize we have an extra second, need to calm it down a bit. When we do that, we are at our best that’s kind of when things go well. When we take that extra second, we have good support and read off each other well. We aren’t doing any of that now, we are pressing a bit, but something we need to work on and get better at.

On calls in OT… Yeah, tough to have calls like that. But again that’s hockey, that’s the game. We don’t want to give them up especially in OT. But that one is on me, I should have shot that instead of try to make a play back door. And it goes the other way, we had too many men and they scored. It’s a tough choice.

On the crowd… Yeah, it was pretty cool. I don’t think I’ve seen that too many times in an arena. A lot of Rangers fans came in, I would say. That was pretty cool. We were laughing a little bit on the bench. Definitely makes it fun to play out there.

BOSTON BRUINS FORWARD DAVID PASTRNAK On Marchand’s goal… Yeah I kind of got out behind the net and I look up what’s open, Bergy [Bergeron] wasn’t, and I try to hit Marchand and, you know, there was a lane and, you know, he made a good shot.

On finally getting a goal on the power play… Yeah I mean, you know, it’s tough. You get nervous and you think if the power play doesn’t work, you just force the play. You should know it works when you start from the simple place and then works. I guess we adjust the mentality, you know we are only people, you know, so when it don’t work you try to do too much. You know it was a bad day on the power play for us you know at least it got us a point at least. You know, it was a tough ending.

On the too many men penalties costing them opportunities… Yeah, definitely. I think, last 10 minutes we didn’t let them do anything. You know it’s 50/50, same as shootouts you know. You get it 2 on 1 and unfortunately it doesn’t work. We hit their stick and then they go 2 on 1 and then it started, 0-3, we made a tough change and it hurt us today and we need to be aware of it next time.

On what lesson they take from last two games… I think it’s just that we are just people. I don’t know you know, we just need to sit down a minute. We have a tough week ahead of us so we got a point, it’s better than nothing. The Rangers is a good team and always play good against us. It’s good that we came back and, you know, we got the point. Obviously we could have finished stronger, and it shows how it is. We are going to get better from our mistakes.

On the crowd… Yeah the crowd was awesome today, you know. It was fun the crowd got us going, you know. We heard some boos we heard some cheering, so it was fun.

BOSTON BRUINS FORWARD RYAN SPOONER On how he felt tonight… I felt good. It wasn’t a bad game. I thought the first period, probably my best period. The second period kind of tailed off a little bit, but as a whole I was happy with it.

On if the timing on the power play was off… Yes and no. I don’t think it was terrible. At times it was terrible, but at times it wasn’t bad. We scored on it, I think twice. I think one just ended when Heinen scored. It wasn’t awful, but it could be better. I think me, Pasta [Patrnak], Marsh [Marchand], Bergy [Bergeron] and Torey [Krug], haven’t played together on a power play maybe four or five games all year so maybe just a little out of sync. We just got to be on the same page and that’s going to come.

On if he and Krejci can find chemistry with Spooner on right wing… Yeah, I mean, I am not really much of a shooter but I can try to do that. I was playing right-wing tonight so it was kind of a change for me but it was fine. Play with Krech [Kejchi], you know, you got to get to the slot and get open.

On if he can become a shooter… Yeah it’s just more so just trying to get in the spots. The guys that can score can find the soft spots and that’s something I have never had to do before. I guess I have been the kind of guy that just tries to make the pass but playing with Krech, maybe you have to do that a little bit more. That’s on me and I just got to do it, so.

On if Krejci has be more of a shooter sometimes… I mean yes and no. He can really shoot the puck too. I think for me and him that we just need to make sure one of us gets in front of the net, depends on who’s on the left side of us. I know me and him we like to work on the goal line up to the blue line and one of us just needs to get to the slot, to the front of the net and I think we will be fine.

On playing on the right-wing … It was a little bit different. Same as playing the left side. Just got to go out there and play and have fun with it and that’s what I try to do.

BOSTON BRUINS FORWARD DANTON HEINEN On his goal getting the team back in the game... Yeah, no, we absolutely didn’t have the – we weren’t as sharp as we’d like to be, but going down two-nothing, it was nice to get back in it, you know, we battled back and got a point out of it and unfortunately fell a little short.

On missing opportunities to get a lead in the first period... Yeah, we had some chances and then we were, for like half that period, we were creating some stuff and pucks were bouncing or whatever – it wasn’t going in for some reason – but, you know, that happens. You’ve got to try to stick with it and we end up battling back, so I mean, that’s a positive.

On playing from behind... Yeah, no, for sure. For a stretch there we had tough starts and we tried to fix those and be ready to go. So, I think starts are huge – especially in your own, in your home rink. So, we’ve got to keep on trying to start well.

On if the team’s power play was where he’d like it to be... No. I don’t think so. I think we weren’t sharp or crisp on the power play and we had too many men there at one point – that was my fault – but, yeah, no obviously we’d like to be more sharp and crisp, but you know, just keep working on it.

On his goal and Zdeno Chara’s assist... Yeah, no, I was just kind of – I knew he was going to put it on net and he got a lot of wood on it, and luckily I got a stick on it.

NEW YORK RANGERS HEAD COACH ALAIN VIGNEAULT POSTGAME On his overall thoughts on playing the back-to-back… Yeah, I mean, there was no doubt that, you know, our guys came up big tonight. It was a greasy, hard-fought game. I really liked the way we competed. We got some good saves at the right time, some good penalty killing. You know, they came back from down by two goals, but we were able to, you know, this was our sixth game in nine days, and we were able to grind it out and get it done in overtime.

On the team’s penalty kills… Well, I mean, they’ve got a real strong power play, and there were a couple of pressure areas that we wanted to definitely address tonight, which we did, and our guys did a pretty good job.

On if he was happy he played goaltender Henrik Lundqvist… I mean, yeah, like I said before, it was a big game. You know, Henrik had been playing real well, and I just thought it was the right thing to do. We’re definitely going to need Pav [goaltender Ondrej Pavelec] going forward, but I thought for tonight, we needed him to do this.

On the numerous penalties… You know, there were a couple penalties there that we don’t usually take, a couple slashings, but you know, that’s part of the game, and some nights are different, and the penalty killing did a pretty good job, and our power play got us the winner tonight.

On winning two in a row… Again, I mean, we’re playing some pretty good hockey here, like I mentioned before, our body of work here for the last 20-somewhat games here has been pretty good, so it’s a tough league, you know. We’ll take these four points in the weekend here in a tough part of our schedule, reenergize and get ready for Anaheim.

On the overtime goal… Patient play, waited for the screen by Kreids [Chris Kreider], I mean, their goaltender couldn't see a thing on that one, and he just put it in the open spot, so there were a lot of good moments. I think Ryan McDonagh, tonight, had one of his best games, had a lot of energy. Again, Hank [Henrik Lundqvist] made some big saves, and it was a team win. When we win, it’s about the team, and that’s what happened tonight.

NEW YORK RANGERS GOALTENDER HENRIK LUNDQVIST On his overall thoughts on playing the back-to-back… Challenging game. They’re a good team. Two games where it felt like it was a lot of pressure at times. I knew playing this game would be challenging, physically, just a short time of recovery, but I saw it as a great challenge for me to try to make a difference. It was a fun game to play. Back to back games here, like I said, tense games and two teams that play pretty hard, so we really had to earn the points in these two games, but we found a way, and it’s a good feeling.

On playing well against Boston in general… Yeah, well, you know, when you play the game, I feel like the more I play, the more relaxed I get. It’s something we talked about over the summer. You know, playing back-to-backs and playing more games just helped me to be in the right mindset. Physically, it’s more challenging, but mentally, it’s easier, I find. The biggest part of the game is the mental aspect, so, you know, they asked me after the game, I was tired. They asked me last night, but I said, “I want to go.” It’s a fun challenge to have in front of you.

On if he was surprised Mats Zuccarello scored the overtime goal… No. You know, you guys have seen it. It’s such quick release. Every team has one or two players that can snap the puck like that, and as a goalie, you just have to be on your toes at all times. It’s hard, and he, you know, fakes it, he looks you off, and then it just comes at you fast, and it’s a good thing for me to have in practice and to work on that as a goalie to be on your toes all the time. It’s another big goal for us.

NEW YORK RANGERS DEFENSEMAN RYAN MCDONAGH On his overall thoughts on playing the back-to-back… Yeah, we knew it was going to be a challenge. Obviously, you never want to look ahead, you know, so we focused on last night, did a great job there at home, and then coming into a building like this, you know, the crowd’s always behind their team really well, and, you know, it was kind of a chippy game, obviously with a lot of penalties taken by us, so it was a great job by our whole team, making sure that when you stepped on the ice, you were ready to compete and do your job. I thought our execution was really sharp, and I know we gave up one on the PK, but I still think as a whole there, that was the difference-maker for us against their skill.

On the chances on the penalty kill… Yeah, I mean, we like to use our skill there, too. We’ve got guys that can make reads offensively, and the great thing is, you know, we’re not cheating for it. Obviously, we’re coming up with a blocked shot or coming up with a clear on a bouncing puck and getting in foot races, but first and foremost we want to do our best to make sure we just kill it off.

On Henrik Lundqvist… Yeah, he was definitely in the zone, and we’ve seen it many times throughout the season. It’s great to see him playing with confidence there, being aggressive on guys. I mean, he’s just making such good reads. He’s, you know, coming out on guys when they don’t have a lot of room and taking away their time and space and making those tough saves side to side, and did a great job not allowing those rebounds in front against another good team in front of the net.

BOSTON BRUINS HEAD COACH BRUCE CASSIDY PREGAME On lineup changes… [Ryan] Spooner is in. [Anders] Bjork is out.

On Anders Bjork being scratched… It worked for Jake [DeBrusk], I think. Just taking a deep breath and going up watching it from up top. There’s a lot that goes into it. You can see the game at a slower pace up there – how much room you have away from the puck, what’s going on. Sometimes it just a matter of, ‘I don’t want to be up here again, so I’m going to fix whatever I need to fix the next time I’m in there and off we go.’ So, I think that’s it as much as anything sometimes. Just understand it’s not automatic you’re going to be in the lineup every night. We have good players who have sat out; good players that don’t get in there every night, and there’s competition. So that’s it. Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later, but I won’t make promises who is playing Monday. We’ll get through this game and go from there.

On where Spooner will play… He is going on right wing with Krech [David Krejci] and DeBrusk. Ryan has played a little bit of wing for me, and talking to him, he’s not that concerned whether it’s right or left wing, to be honest with you. It’s just out of the middle and onto the wing. So, it’s all a little bit new to him in that way. Sometimes, the skill guys like to be on their off side, get off the wall a little easier, taking pucks on your forehand when you haven’t had a lot of experience with it, so there’s some positives in that part of it. As a centerman, I think he used to like to come in the right side in the zone, so there’s some familiarity there with it. If we don’t like what we see, we’ll move it around.

On the Rangers… They are playing well. It’s their fourth game this week, so obviously when you look at the schedule it favors us having not played yesterday. I don’t know how much you read into that. It is a factor sometimes, so we’ll hopefully take advantage of it early in the first period. Our legs should be better. There’s no guarantees there. That’s a bit of our game plan is to make sure we dictate the tempo early. Hopefully it results in a lead. We know we’re a good team with a lead. The last two games we chased it a little bit – worked out one night, didn’t work out the other night. So, we value the importance of that – playing with a lead. Tonight, that’s a bit of the mindset. At the end of the day, we still feel we’re playing well. The games we haven’t gotten points on, we were right there, so I think the group is confident the way we’re playing, and we’ve just got to keep sticking with the process.

On the upcoming busy schedule… Well, you do have to be concerned about ice time. In Detroit, a lot of our top guys played a lot of minutes. The penalty kill the other night is an example. We tried not to use Bergy [Patrice Bergeron] and March [Brad Marchand] a lot. It worked the first period. We’ve got some of our guys that are in the second or third rotation did a good job. It caught up to us on the goal they scored, so you take your chances somewhere where you don’t want to tax your top-end guys. That’s where we went the other night, and it worked three of the four times. At the end of the day, the schedule is in front of you. You play the games. I’d much rather have this heavy schedule when we’re winning, playing well. I think the guys just get in on a roll and sort of just get into the routine of playing well. It’s easier to manage when things are going well.

On Noel Acciari’s physicality… That’s a part of his game that is generally there every night. Sometimes, I think what happens is that people are aware that he is coming now. Maybe before he snuck up on some people. Now, the word is out that he drives through his checks, and I think people know when he is on the ice, and they’re a little more cognizant of getting rid of the puck and protecting themselves, not putting themselves in bad spots. I think his will is still there. He missed a little time with his injury, so he’s playing a little catch up as well. We’ve talked about that – the guys that miss – he has got to find the pace of the game again. That’s part of it. It’s part of the game we expect to bring every night. Hopefully it becomes contagious for [Tim] Schaller and [Sean] Kuraly. They’re big bodies as well, and we would like to see a little more of that out of them as well when they don’t have the puck.

On Spooner playing wing… Obviously, that is a challenge, especially where is your pressure coming from? Is it coming from the D? Is it coming from their high forward? So that’s a lateral pressure versus one that you can sense behind you. That will determine where the puck goes. Take it off the wall. So that’s the challenge for every winger. It will be more so for him, but we just like the way our centermen are playing so if he is going to be in the lineup, it had to be a little bit maybe out of his comfort zone, but that is what we are going to do. I think he understands; he is okay with it. We’re going to have to live with some timing issues on the wall until it comes around for him.

NEW YORK RANGERS HEAD COACH ALAIN VIGNEAULT PREGAME On the short turnaround during back-to-back games… Every team has these situations in a season, and now it’s our turn. You’ve got to play smart. You’ve got to keep fresh legs on the ice as much as you can, and we’re going to be ready for the challenge tonight.

On potential lineup and starting goalie… Same lineup with Hank [Henrik Lundqvist]. Big game. You know, our most important game right now is today against Boston. Hank played real well last night, and we’re confident that he’s going to do that again for us today.

On the plan to give Ondrej Pavelec starts… Which I did, because I was able to play him in the Pittsburgh game early on. He was going to get a chance to play here, and after thinking about it, I just felt that that was the right decision to make for this afternoon.

On ’s play when he is scoring versus not scoring… The only difference is him finishing. He is getting a tremendous amount of looks. Yesterday in the first period alone he had three opportunities at the net where there’s not even a shot on net, but he’s alone against the goalie. When it was important, when the game was on the line in the third period, he scored a big goal for us. We need him to continue to do that, and we need him to have a good game tonight.

On the power play without Mika Zibanejad… There’s no doubt that it’s – I think the percentages are almost double when Mika is in there than when he’s not there. That right-handed shot, that right-handed opportunity to one touch a shot brings a different dimension. When we have two units right now, we only have one right-handed shot. So, it makes it a little bit more challenging, but we did yesterday, I think, and in the last four or five games. Yesterday was our best game, not just because we finished, but we got some real good looks. We were able to make some real good plays, and hopefully this afternoon we can do that.

On Henrik Lundqvist… We’re no different than any team in the league. You look at the teams that are having success, and you can analyze their game, and the one common denominator, I would say, is goaltending. When you’re getting the key saves at the right time, you’re not chasing the game. It makes it very hard in this league when you do and when you are chasing the game. Right now, there is no doubt that Hank has been playing well for us, and like any team in the NHL, we need goaltending.

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