Tom Renney Game Quotations

It may affect our transition game. He's got really good poise with the puck, he's got good deception where he can look people off and then make the appropriate little outlet pass. Those are real critical to our transition game and how much time we spend in our own end.

We're coming. I think this game changes things.

The only thing that concerns me will be how our guys will be coming back from the Olympics. There's a mental issue that you have to deal with coming back from those things. These guys expend so much of themselves at this event. It's such a pinnacle at two-thirds of the way through the season. I don't know how that magnitude of an event is going to affect them. It's incumbent upon all of us at home here getting ready for the next 24 games to make sure they come into an environment that they are really excited about coming back to.

We're beginning to see a bit of personality in the other three lines. They can contribute, game in and game out.

You're in the 'big parade' now, and you have to participate. If we give ourselves the chance to play five-on-five hockey, then who knows? This is something that's been in our game early in the season, late in the season, and it's obvious that we are incapable of dealing with these types of situations. We have to stay out of the penalty box to give ourselves a chance.

My guess is we'll certainly be emotionally attached to the game like we should. Whether or not we execute in a way we want remains to be seen.

We'll take it, you'd better believe it. We haven't had too many games that bark. This one was a big dog.

I didn't think we were real sharp, real crisp (early in the game), and if we weren't careful, we might have beaten ourselves tonight. But we did hang in there and we did pay attention to details that can win you games and ultimately got ourselves a nice lead.

Kevin was fine. I thought it was more an opportunity to wake up 18 guys and get ourselves back in the hockey game by doing what we have to do in terms of managing the puck, and maybe give yourself to play 5-on-5 hockey or better.

Maybe we got too full of ourselves after the last game and figured we had arrived. I'm not going to blow a gasket, but I'm angry that we didn't respond to a really terrific challenge for us.

It's a judgment day for our team. This season could be recognized one way or the other by how we choose to perform on Saturday. We want the outcome to obviously be in our favor. We have to play a good, strong, playoff hockey game and if we do that, we'll put ourselves in a position to win it anyway.

I don't know if we're a Stanley Cup contender right now but I think we can continue to surprise a lot of people by what we do these next 20 games and the playoffs.

We really do have to get our heads around the way the game is being called. We're growing up in a hurry here, and we cannot afford to play hockey like we did tonight or our growth will be stunted in a real hurry.

They all felt that they've been well prepared, well organized and that the game plan was appropriate and that they needed to check in mentally and emotionally to go and execute. I'm not sure where that leaves you at the end of the day as a coach. You're still sort of picking straws.

It's time to circle the wagons and explain to everyone we must be better. I'm disappointed in what we have chosen to do here in the last few games and I don't like that. There's a lot at stake here.

We've got to get back to good habits of how we start our games ... how we manage the circumstances in those first six, eight, 10 minutes. We have to try to dictate the terms.

The guys really understood the game plan. We worked with them all night long. We kept them to the outside; they didn't get a lot of second chances.

It's a game to build on. Now we're at ground level and we can keep building. We played hard and showed the character that is symbolic of our team for most of the year.

It's a game to build on. Maybe the first one was, too, but we were in a hole. In terms of execution, it was some minor things, but it was pretty good.

I thought Kevin played very well and deserved the opportunity to come back and get another start. I thought we developed sort of a flow and pace to our game that showed we were in sync, and I didn't want to mess with that.

I wasn't as familiar with him as a player as I was with the other Czech guys. His contribution to our offensive game has been real good. I do like the fact that he understands what our job is off the puck defensively.

They take good point shots, create traffic at the net and they're hard people to move. Whoever wins the specialty-team game should win the game tonight.

This is a game to build on. The first one was too, but we were in a hole. Now, we're at ground level and we need to keep building. I think that we played hard and showed character.

Mission important and possible. It's a race to four games and they've only got three. As far as I'm concerned, we can certainly do that.

We have to draw some conclusions form this game and how to manage the puck. You can learn an awful lot by looking at a loss. This happens.

The Devils have been playing playoff hockey for a while. It's a real good opportunity for us to pay attention to how you can turn a season around, and you can do that in one game. And with that in mind, game on.

We're sort of playing a hunch as much as anything. He's played New Jersey well, and our last good game of hockey was here against them with Kevin in goal, so I don't think that is unreasonable at all.

We're going to stay the course and keep working at it. We had a game as we have had a couple of other times. We don't want to make it bigger than what it is.

I hope we're developing a reputation as a team that's tough to beat, whether at home or on the road. I hope that we're being identified as a team that plays a responsible game without the puck, that we are solid from the goaltender out.

Every game to us is very valuable but this does conjure up the type of emotion that is playoff-type hockey, or certainly consequential hockey. We want to play that as much as possible, because it makes us better.

He may be around for a few days just to give us a chance to do that. Whether that gets him into a game situation remains to be seen.

Henrik played fine, I have no problem with that at all, but Kevin had a really good game against these guys to start the season. Those are those intangibles that I have the right to use and maybe not even explain if I don't feel like it.

We had a good transition game and passed the puck up quickly. We got the puck behind people and deep. The best way to beat the trap is not let it set up.

You want to do better than that. You want to answer the bell. We did have a strong game against New Jersey. But so what? That one's over.

To his credit, he's certainly been the consummate team guy and likely in retrospect having even deserved more starts than he's gotten. His injuries have prevented that from happening. These are big games for us moving forward and he'll play a significant role in how far we go here in these next games and hopefully what we do beyond that.

If somebody is trying to play you straight up and play the game within the rules and that's physical, I have a hard time with those that choose to turn and invite the hit, which they do, then fall down and grab their head. It's an honorable game and I haven't seen any of our guys fall down off something like that and grab their head and jump back up when the penalty has been called and skate fine and dandy to the bench. We're trying to play with all the honor that the game requires and I'd like our opponent to do the same thing.

We have to get Kevin going, get him rolling. I wouldn't mind giving him a chance to go back and play the Islanders. He had a tough game the last time he was there.

We lost, so we're not as good. The game could've gone any way at the end but the more experienced team prevailed.

We have to play fundamental, sound hockey, with him in or out of the lineup, quite frankly. And if we give ourselves a chance with whomever wears the colors to play five-on-five or better, we have a decent chance to win the game. Basically, we beat ourselves (in Game 1).

This is our team, injuries are part of the game and we'll press on regardless of who's in and who's out, but we believe and hope Jagr is fine. It was a big collision, but he's a big man, a strong guy, and I think he came out of it all right.

We've earned the privilege of feeling good about what we've done. But we have won nothing. We know we need our A-plus game in the playoffs, and now is the time that you make sure you're there when the time comes.

We talked about it as being a playoff-like game for us.

They play a complete game and they have their identity that they've recaptured because it wasn't there for them in the first half of the season. Obviously, as they found theirs, we kind of lost ours.

Absolutely unbelievable. This is a big, big game and Henrik goes in and nails it.

I guess they all do at this stage of their career, those that sort of have been able to illuminate themselves for a great rookie season. But we're talking about an icon in the game at that position. Let's just watch his career unfold and see where it takes him.