Ron Wilson Quotations | Page 2

This road trip, I think, gives us a lot of confidence. They were all tough games.

There comes a point where we have to have some people step up and play as well as they can and make sure that their teammates aren't trying to do too much. And you have to respect people around you. That's a lack of trust if you don't think other people can do the job that you try to do too much.

There comes a point when we have to have some people step up and play as well as you can. That's a lack of trust if you're trying to do too much. If one guy tries to play 1-on-1 hockey, that's telling your teammates they aren't good enough.

We thought they might be a little weary, especially this time of year, and psychologically they can go up or down. You want to jump a team like that as quickly as you can, and we had a lot of energy.

We're not paying attention. Our defense has to stay back and we only had one in position. They picked us apart. A tired mental mistake was made at that point, not looking and not understanding or seeing what you've got off a rush.

You have defense that is struggling to create any kind of offense, so if we need a forward back there, I would never hesitate to put Patty back there. He's a smart player and you could see that tonight.

You have to confront the things that happened the year before. To stick your head in the sand is the wrong approach. We need to figure out what went wrong and why it went wrong, then address those issues and move on. It's been fun for me to have a full training camp and to have some time and patience in the preseason without being under the microscope of winning and losing.

You have to be professional about this. You have to be ready because you're going to be held accountable by your teammates and you're accountable to yourself and that's all that really matters.

Thornton, even though he's not getting points, is totally controlling the game on the ice. He's very dedicated right now. It's almost like there's a beast out there and you're not going to take the puck from him.

We just have to play better at home.

We just have to make sure we don't take our foot off the gas here. We've got a lot of momentum. You saw that energy in the first two periods, we were all over them and that's the way we're going to have to play in the playoffs.

We had a decent first period and then we came out and made soft plays, miss- read two on three situations and next thing you know we are down 2-0.

There is plenty of time. You want the two points in regulation, but we kept battling all night long. We just couldn't find a way to get that extra point earlier.

The players have to step up on the ice and play. They have to work as a group.

We've played all these (recent) games as if they're must-win games. That being said, you can't get too caught up with the focus being two points that you forget about the process.

We've been missing that type of performance from a player all season. And hopefully that will light the fire under a couple of guys who are capable of doing it, but just haven't decided to do it.

We've been like umpteen points behind (in the standings) and caught people so two goals down in the first 10 minutes is not that big a hill to climb for us.

We've had now for us kind of turning points where we could have put the other team down two halfway through the game and we just missed. At some point something bad happens and we don't really seem to respond.

Tonight was kind of an anomaly. You're not going to threaten teams with five power play goals. Since we picked up Joe, though, we've had one of the most dangerous power plays in the league.

Tonight it seemed like we had five or six guys missing.

This was when your youth can be to your advantage, and it was for us. (Tampa Bay) flew across the country, too, but we are the ones who should be used to it. They looked sluggish at times, and we took advantage of that.

This was the opposite of the last game. They had five guys missing, and tonight it looked like we did, too. Five or six guys missing. You need a complete team effort to beat a team like Detroit, especially here, and we didn't get it. So we'll just throw it away and move on the next one.

This was their third game in four nights. It's not like we're spring chickens right now -- we've been playing a lot of hockey -- but they didn't have the same zip that they normally have. And that's why I think we were able to carry the play.

This was the fastest exhibition game I've ever seen. It was faster than some regular-season and even some playoff games. That doesn't always translate into goals, but the transition, the up and back, is fun.

What's even worse is we won't be back here for three years, so the Bruin fans and all his buddies won't see him for three years here in Boston. That's a shame.

We just keep on battling. What happened tonight shouldn't. We'll address it and move forward.

You have a game plan. Not like a football game, but an idea of how you want to play, you establish it, and that's always the test when you fall behind early, to see if you can sustain what's been successful. That's kind of a test for us, to play as well as we did for 60 minutes.

We talked if we pushed the pace and cycled them and go wide on the defense, there was a good chance we would draw penalties and we did.

We had the puck on our stick and didn't get it out of the zone. And when something like that happens at this point of the season it's inexcusable.

We hung in there and got the job done.

We expected that in the first period and I thought we responded. I just didn't think that would signal the flat second period we had. We were awful.

We don't want him handling the puck as much as he does, and yet he does and he makes mistakes like he did. His focus has got to be on the puck and not what other people are doing.

We're very aware, we've got a chart up. I try to make everyone on the team aware of where we stand and what we have to do to make the playoffs.

Toward the end we were running out of gas but we got a point so I'm not disappointed. I'm not going to view this as a loss.

We did a good job and had a lot of people involved. I think they only had one scoring chance when we ran into each other on an entry. But other than that we didn't give up any (quality) shots and that's a real positive.

At this point in the season, that is inexcusable.

Electric blankets, portable heaters, insulating, all that type of winterizing, weatherizing (items) are selling early this year. Electric space heaters seem to be taking off early this year, too.

There's no momentum from two years ago. There's no carry-over. We had to start from scratch.

It would have been an awful feeling had we not prevailed in overtime. We got rewarded for our hard work.

The right guys are scoring for us. I'm cheering for Joe to win the scoring title and for Cheech to win the goals title, the Richard Trophy. Provided it doesn't take away from what we're trying to do to win, I'll do everything in my power to put them in the position to succeed.

The ship is much easier to access when it's in the water and significant work, like testing the combat systems and running the engines, can be performed in a more efficient and timely fashion.

The test was, could we handle the adversity in the second period and we did.

I wanted that shootout so bad. I had my lineup card all filled out.

I wanted to get Patty a little more involved. I think he got excited to see he'd be on the point on the power play. He needs to be playing around 20 minutes a game. It was my fault he didn't play more the other night.

The one that killed us was in the third period -- 3-2 game, we get a power play and I don't know if we even got a shot. If we did it was a bad-angle shot. That could have made a difference.

A cynic might say he's profiting from playing with Joe Thornton, and there's some truth to that, but he did score 28 goals without a pass from Joe Thornton two years ago. And he basically was playing on a grind line, a third line, doing a lot of the work himself.

A couple of soft plays and we handed these two points away, just not one but two. And it's a shame.

Somebody will say he only had four assists, but they were huge -- setting up winning goals, making big plays, drawing penalties. He could have drawn about 10 more penalties. And he's a leader in the room along with Patty, they share that responsibility.

Special teams in this series will be big.

As long as you can get the job done and you let those guys know you believe in them by putting them in certain situations, yeah they're going to make a mistake every once in a while. My experience tells me the veteran guy will make mistakes, or maybe won't even try to do something for fear of making a mistake, that's what I like about the young players.

That shot he took was a cannon. It was on his stick and into the net, unbelievable. Matt Carle continues to improve, to be the type of player that raises a lot of eyebrows.

You wait for somebody like that to mature. He's still not there to my satisfaction defensively 100 percent all of the time, but he's getting closer.

You're not going to take many penalties when you have the puck.

You're always going to struggle because of the excitement of the first day, but I was generally happy with the pace of our practice. It's exciting to be working with all these guys again.

This is a result of hard work from teachers and administrators. Being one of the six schools in Arkansas to accomplish this is exciting.

This is an important time of the year and that's always the test - can you maintain what you're doing that's so successful in spite of being behind or not being able to cash in?

They took a lot of penalties early because of the pressure we were applying.

They scored first but I didn't see the team flinch. We were ready to play from the beginning of the game.

A lot of times with the width of the rink you have bad angles ... you're always looking to pass the puck because you think somebody's going to be in a better position (to shoot). It's a better play in our league to throw it at the net and scramble things up. That's something he'll learn with a little more experience.

The young guys with the way they're competing, they're really hungry, and that's what you need at this point in the season. Not guys who are afraid to fail, but guys that go out there and compete really hard.

They finished higher than us in the standings, they earned home-ice and you never can forget that. If we take our foot off the gas and allow them to start to control the play, they can quickly turn the series around and get home-ice again.

They end up scoring to make it 4-0 and there goes your energy.

There was only one D back. Maybe it was a tired, mental mistake.

There wasn't much flow, but I was happy with our play defensively.

There's a buzz around our team in the locker room.

They're simple mistakes to correct, however inexcusable to make because they're simple positioning failures. And a couple times you lose, whether it's a battle in the corner or on the third goal a giveaway, moments like that at the end you look back as being the turning point.

About halfway through the game, we lost our energy. We were all over them in the first period and we just didn't have the energy to do what we needed to do to keep them in trouble.

It was a tight-checking game and they should never have got a 5-on-3, it's as simple as that. It's not a good call.

It's a hard game for him because the first half of the game, he only had a couple situations, but really he didn't face any rubber. That's hard for a goalie to maintain his focus and composure, but he did.

For a while there, I thought we were looking for ways to lose. I'm just glad we found a way to win.

For all the people who say we're too young, this is when it really comes in handy. I've seen some of the teams that are longer in the tooth -- they're the ones that are really weary on the second nights.

It's kind of like a mustang or stallion that you have to break -- you see all this potential but it's kind of wild. I think he is still a work in progress, but he's certainly showed a lot of great signs the last five or six games he's played.

It's going to get harder. We're going to need huge contributions from everybody.

It's going to get harder. We'll play a team, and it's going to be one step closer to the Cup. It's going to get harder. We're going to need huge contributions from everybody.

It shows you to just shoot the puck. And the lesson learned hopefully for a lot of our guys is just shoot the puck and you have a chance to score. If you don't, you're not going to score.

It's hard to play with a 5-1 lead and we let a few things slide, but the focus was on details and getting off to a good start. We knew if we got off to a fast start we could make it easier on ourselves.

It's hard to know what's going to happen in the next few days, because there are so many teams still in contention. But some teams could lose a couple of games, and suddenly they're not looking to buy anymore.

Darryl can say all he wants that it has no impact on him, but there will be some emotional ties. I know how I felt the year, two years after every time we played against Anaheim (a team that let Wilson go as coach). I wanted to beat them bad. You're always going to think about being let go.

It's nice if we don't have to hide Christian, just play him against specific people or make sure he doesn't go out against guys in the past that maybe he was intimidated to play against or who would plain-old dominate him. I don't feel that way anymore.

It's something we actually talked about with the linesman. They cheat on every face-off, and they killed us the other night. I don't know, maybe having said that caused them (the referees to make the call). But it is a penalty. You rarely ever see that one called in the neutral zone.

Each one of them wants to score so bad, they go to the net hard and they live to see the red light go on. That's what's common amongst them all.

Everyone gets along very well, even the new girls. We try to keep it where everyone is very close.

The best thing we can do is win all our games, then you don't even have to bother. Our focus right now has to be on Colorado, but those two games against Vancouver right now are huge as well as the game in L.A. It's the L.A. and Vancouver games that seem to have the most importance.

That is the first time its ever happened for this franchise. Since we picked up Joe (Thornton), we've had one of the most dangerous power plays in the league.

It looked like we did not have much energy tonight. (Phoenix) maintained their energy while ours pretty much was sapped by the third period.

It's great that kids like Stevie are contributing. He certainly acts like he belongs here.

It's hard for the defensemen to clear people when you can't tackle them in front of the net. You can still play defense, but you have to work much harder. You have to move your feet, and defensemen have to be mobile, which is how we tried to build our team.

It's huge to get that out of the way. All we really do is get to think about it for a couple hours here and play Vancouver again. If we could get sixth or even fifth, that would be a real feather in our cap considering where we came from.

It was a play where we could have gotten the puck and we didn't. We were casual and they made us pay for it. We talked about that between the second and the third periods. We just gave them life.

It was kind of old-time hockey. I'm not happy that we had to go to overtime to win, but we certainly deserved both points with the way we played physically.

It was looking for awhile like the way the game started that we weren't going to get anything and once we battled back it's hard in a game like that to keep your foot on the gas without risking anything and I think in the future we've got to keep on pushing.

I've had four guys do it and they all go for it. They all go to the net hard and live for the red light to go on. That's what they all have in common.

None of our players want to go out there and prove anything to Darryl. They have a lot of respect for him.

It was one of our best efforts of the year, from the first minutes to the very end of the game.

They did not score one even-strength goal against us in this building, and they were the best home team in the league this year. That's a real confidence-booster for our whole team, and in particular our defense.

They were red-faced at the pace we were trying to play the game at.

They were tight and squeezing the sticks. That team is totally drained because they're surrounded by a negative atmosphere.

They were tight, and squeezing the sticks as they were, we were able to take advantage of it. When you get on a roll like this, you go storming into the playoffs. ... That team we played tonight is totally drained because they're surrounded by a negative atmosphere, and it's sliding all the way down the (roster).

They looked sluggish at times and we took advantage of that. And a lot of that had to do with the pressure we created at the right times.

They worked really hard. It was a battle. Fortunately, our power play was clicking and we got the job done.