Willie Mitchell Quotations

When you're a desperate team, you do whatever it takes.

Next time he's in the net, we've got to come out with our best effort we've ever had this year. He's the first guy to walk through this dressing room, Dwayne, and say (to Schultz), 'Hey, you made the right play. It happens.' He's such a team guy. He deserves better than that.

I'd like to think I'm a guy who competes every night, and that's how I try to lead. I'm not a rah-rah-rah guy, but I try to get the spirits up in the locker room.

For some reason, we lose focus and let them get back in the game. To give up as many points as we did is just a lack of concentration on our part. We need to do a better job and we will.

He's a big man, but he does go down very easy.

He just told me to relax and I told him I'd try to do the same things I did the month before, like being consistent defensively, taking some pride on the penalty kill and playing hard against top players.

Knowing it's a rival game, we knew they were going to play way above themselves. We just didn't get the job done.

I thought we've played pretty well the past two games, but we haven't been rewarded for it. We need to find a way to win these types of games.

I think the writing was on the wall about a week ago. The Wild didn't really want to negotiate with my agent. I pretty much knew what was going to happen.

Our big win against Nashville means nothing if we didn't win this one.

You can hear it. You chuckle when you see them get on a guy like that. But it means a guy must be doing something to get that kind of reaction.

Wasn't a good trip, no doubt. I thought we played well the last two games; we just didn't get rewarded for it. We've got to find a way to win the tighter games.

You lose teammates, but you don't lose friends. It's a good situation for him. He's a good goalie, and they're lucky to get him.

We got in trouble early. We were in the box a lot.

When you go 0-3, there's not a lot of satisfaction or sense of accomplishment. Obviously, guys are frustrated.

We've got to find a way to get him a win because he deserves it ? more than anyone.

We fell apart for 20 minutes, and it cost us the game.

Everybody knows Colorado has a great power play. You might get one or two, but eventually it's going to catch up to you.

Fatigue played in there, but we were able to muster some energy to come out with a win.

There's no doubt they didn't play their best game. Flat? Yeah. And in the second half of the game they might have been coasting around a little bit.

I wanted to go 84 feet. If we got into a half-court game, that was to their advantage. They threw it in to the big kids and we told them to read and go on the passes. It worked some of the time, but we got away from it.

That's not fun. Hockey is no fun if you aren't playing for anything.

You've heard me say it before: There needs to be more desperation in the room, more passion. In the past, our niche was we worked hard no matter what. That's been our identity. This last little stretch, that hasn't happened.

It's a lot more puck control, and I like it. It's systematically moving the puck up the ice from one player to the other, and it really seems to work.

It's good to be home sometimes, but it's a breath of fresh air to get on the road, play in some different buildings, grab some dinners and hang with the boys.

I just kind of made mention of the fact that there have been a lot of times in the third period, even when I was there, for some reason, they got real tight. It's tough for that not to creep in again, so I told them if we get some pressure, we're going to get some chances because they'll tighten up.

He brought a lot of enthusiasm and passion. He works his butt off and competes every day. In the playoffs, you want to have guys like that.

The guys played well. Minnesota played really well... It's kind of weird saying that.