Craig MacTavish Quotations

The perfect guest again. I wondered why they're going to pick us to retire Al MacInnis' jersey. There's no excuse for not having everybody ready to play and we end up being the perfect guest for what ends up being a crucial game for us.

On a day-to-day basis, we're constantly communicating on what our shortcomings are. We're trying to improve ourselves. This gives us a couple of other irons in the fire.

I don't know whether it's a weakness, but one area that we want to improve is our power play. Our penalty killing has to improve, too. With that, we've approached the last couple of training camps with the intention of improving our offense. Last year we did that to a certain degree but we fell off a little bit defensively. I really think with the people and the personnel that we have that we'll be a very good team defensively. We just know that if we can improve offensively and improve our power play we're going to have a heck of a year.

He's been close on that move a number of times.

I thought we moved it around well, but when we did get the five-star opportunities, we didn't put it in the back of the net. That's maybe the only criticism I have of the game.

Maybe (only) one stretch we were able to roll four lines in succession. That's not the way we wanted to play.

We were up 2-1, and both of our losses at home were tough to swallow. I thought that even the sixth game was our best game of the playoffs, a game we felt that we should've won. It was difficult, but we had a few injuries that hurt our chances. The thing about Edmonton is that there is no better place to play playoff hockey. When it's over a prematurely as it has been in the last couple of years it just leaves everybody wanting more and wondering why more hasn't been delivered. We're starting to get impatient and hopefully we can deliver.

We had lost four overtime games in a row and we were due for a win.

We haven't made our mind up yet on a lot of players. We're starting to see some combinations on how our top three lines will look going into the regular season. But there are still a lot of different scenarios that could play out with the fourth line and who the 13th forward will be.

There has got to be a change in that rule. The puck is going into the net anyway, the net coming off the mooring had nothing to do with the goal itself. That was a big goal, too.

Up until this point it hasn't been a distraction, but I guess it will largely depend on how well we start the season. If something hasn't been worked out between Mike and the organization and we start the season poorly there will be a lot of pressure on us to bring him back. We're looking to have a good year with or without Mike.

You have to have the confidence to do it with 17,000 people watching. I had one penalty shot once and all I could think of was don't fall and don't shoot it into the corner. Get a shot on net.

You get to know how close they are. You get to see what your team is going to look like down the road.

There's probably going to be a player or two from this group that starts the year and maybe two or three more that play some games as we go on. That will all be dependant on them as we go by.

Ryan has been an integral member of our team for a long time around here. We don't have a lot of guys with the type of tenure that Ryan has on our hockey club. That's not withstanding the value that he has purely from a playing standpoint. He's a versatile guy and he really does a lot of things well for us. We are certainly happy to have him back, and happy they settled and made an equitable deal and arrangement before reaching arbitration.

At least we were trying in the third, which is more than I can say for the first two periods. At least we started trying. It was a pretty pathetic effort by our group.

It's kind of comical in a situation like this. But it's going to be pretty intense when the regular season gets going.

It's a big win. I can't argue that.

It's maybe the most important stretch we've had in a number of years. It can be a little overwhelming, but how we handle the pressure is going to be one of the big factors in the success that we're going to have.

It's good that the young guys go through that. Now they know how much work they have to do.

It's great for the fans. The league wanted to create these rivalries and they've definitely done that.

You think it's going to be a seamless transition. (Right now) he's making lots of plays.

It's devastating for a team. We'll have to pick ourselves up tomorrow.

It will be a work in progress. We like to think, as everybody would at this stage, that we're progressing and we have our teams prepared. But there will be things that crop up. Every coach is saying we don't want to struggle with the learning curve early on. But some will.

Calgary is getting a lot of attention and so they should, having gone to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. But Vancouver went to overtime in Game 7 against Calgary and finished first in the division.

You want to give them at least a couple of games. One to get their feet wet and try to establish some confidence, and then you give them another to see what they can do.

The games have both been very close in this building, yet we've been outscored 6-1.