Mike Barnett Team Quotations

Doan seized upon the opportunity. The ideal situation is when you have a captain who not only takes on the off-ice leadership role seriously as he has, but backs it up each and every night on the ice. And he and our two goaltenders have been our best players all year long. The accountability they have to each other is really something big that is building every week, and it's critical if you are going to have any team success.

Doan seized upon the opportunity, ... The ideal situation is when you have a captain who not only takes on the off-ice leadership role seriously as he has, but backs it up each and every night on the ice. And he and our two goaltenders have been our best players all year long. The accountability they have to each other is really something big that is building every week, and it's critical if you are going to have any team success.

He's already showing an amazing attention to detail. I went out and spent two days with him when he was making his final decision, and by the end of the second day as a I was leaving he showed me a copy of our schedule, and he'd already penciled in all the practice times and team flight times for the entire year.

He's already showing an amazing attention to detail, ... I went out and spent two days with him when he was making his final decision, and by the end of the second day as a I was leaving he showed me a copy of our schedule, and he'd already penciled in all the practice times and team flight times for the entire year.

Now we're really seeing even the byproduct of the style that he's comfortable with and the confidence that comes from winning. We're achieving the success as a team that comes from 23 guys paying attention to team defense. We're not taking anything from what Brian has remarkably been able to accomplish, because it's extraordinarily hard to get a shutout, period, let alone to think of four in a row. But it really is an entire roster sacrificing anything and everything needed to get in front of pucks or deflect pucks or controlling positions defensively to be aware of taking away scoring opportunities.

On the plane home, Wayne went to great lengths talking about how great a job Bird was doing, and about how the team was playing a style that reflected his own philosophy as a player,