Brad Shaw Quotations

What they've done for us lately is when we've had a couple of shifts where we haven't done things well and lost momentum, they've been a great line to regain that momentum or at least get it turned around. You know what you're going to get for the most part every shift.

After a truly good meal, an outstanding cigar is still the most satisfying after-dinner activity that doesn't involve two human beings.

Miro Jr. probably needs a goal today, doesn't he?

Mentally, the last couple of games, we were all aware of the situation. I don't think it changes a thing. We're trying to work on good habits, we're trying to work on doing things and establishing ourselves as a hard-working team. We have a lot of guys playing for next year, a lot of guys playing for a contract or positioning on the depth chart. We have a lot of guys with a lot to play for. So I don't know if it changes anything for us.

Mentally and physically, I didn't think we were sharp.

Maybe tomorrow, it might feel a little better. But right now, there's a pretty bad taste in the mouth. It is a point, but it's tough when you had two that late in the game.

Ricky played great. The last 30 minutes he was the best player on the ice.

I didn't get much sleep last night. It was tough knowing you had a part in getting out of here a guy who gave you a chance to be an assistant coach at this level.

I'd like to maintain the team we have and see what we can do with it. I think we needed to be closer than seven points away to realistically keep this team together.

I'd like to maintain the team we have and see if we can do it, but it's really not my call. I really think we probably needed to be closer than seven points to really show that we can take this team farther than where it is right now.

Certainly that's the best Yashin has looked in a long time.

If something comes out of it long-term, that's why we're in the business. We're in the business to see how good we can get as coaches, to see what level we can get at for as long as we can.

He made some key saves at big times. I thought he was outstanding.

He's a special hockey player. Early in his career, he looked like this. I don't know what happened in a few of his middle years, but certainly this year, he's found the love of the game again. We stood around and watched him make a lot of plays. We gave him too much respect and too much room.

His offensive skills have never been in question. I'm looking for him to play a responsible game. I'm not looking for anything special with him.

He's gonna have to wait for an opportunity.

He's been our best player all year and carried us through that stretch where he kept our hopes alive. It was kind of the one thing he hadn't done all year for us or we hadn't done for him.

Hopefully this is what he needs, a little shot in the arm. He needs to find a way to get success and hard work is a great start.

We have to, as players and as coaches, do a better job of preparing guys to play. We were not ready physically or mentally. We didn't seem to win many puck battles tonight.

He was playing his best hockey of the year. It is a hole and it's a lot of minutes that need to get spread around. Your top-minute guy is the hardest guy to lose.

He didn't see that shot. It's not his fault.

I think it comes down to desperation. I really don't understand some of the efforts we're getting from some of the guys when we're supposed to be trying to make a push to get into the playoffs. It's astonishing.

I think you saw two teams that, yeah, don't have a ton of confidence right now.

I thought we paid the price a little harsher than maybe we would have some other nights. I thought we carried the play for the most part.

I think we recognize we need close to 90 points to have a chance. With 13 games left, we'll have to win a lion's share of them.

I think we recognize we need close to 90 points to have a chance. Not getting two points tonight hurts, but it's not devastating.

I think we recognized we need close to 90 points to have a shot at the playoffs. With 13 games left we have to win a lions share of those. Not getting two points tonight hurts. It's not devastating, but it is a blow to our chances.

I think we have holes we still need to fill work-ethic wise. Power play is one of them.

I think we can play better in front of him. No, I know we can play better.

I thought we were a fairly easy team to play against early on. We took a back seat to their passion.

Jason had two big goals. It was nice to see a smile on his face after the game. It's a big relief for him, and adds another weapon to our arsenal.

Some of our recent games, it's been our young guys who have been our shining stars.

I think Rick puts a lot of pressure on himself anyway and I think that's one of the reasons he hasn't been as consistent as he'd like. It's something that he's focused on lately.

I think everybody should take a trip up that elevator once in their life.

I think he's got to, at some point, learn how to play long segments of games and learn how to win when you don't feel 100 percent. In the playoffs, if you want to win one or two rounds, you have to go 10, 15 games in a row and find ways to win when everything isn't just right.

I think he was surprised at how fast the game was at this level. I don't think there's ever been a doubt he can score goals and handle the puck, but I think it took him a little while to incorporate more speed into his game.

I thought he made some great saves. I thought he got frustrated on the first power-play goal by them. And we don't really pick him up. He battled so hard, I think it gets frustrating.

I thought in the last 30 minutes he was the best player on the ice. I thought his rebound control was great. I thought his moving of the puck was outstanding. He made probably seven or eight key saves for us down in the last 25-30 minutes.

We have to start believing. (Our standings points deficit) now seems manageable.

We do need to get him in there eventually.

You always want your best players on the ice. He's proven he can win games and be a factor in games.

York's line has played outstanding. They're the flag bearers for us. Every other forward was iffy. They'd have a good shift, then a bad shift. We never generated any momentum.

We're up against teams that have a little more belief in their game right now. We have to overcome that by outworking these guys.

We have a lot of confidence in Bruno and Jeremy. Our approach for the Atlanta game does not change from the previous four - let's do everything in our power to get the win.

We have a lot of confidence in Bruno and Jeremy.

We have worked hard. It's just the application of what we're trying to do.

We had enough guys do enough good things. It's not going to be good enough on Thursday against the Rangers, but tonight it was good enough.

We made it hard on ourselves. I thought we stopped playing there for a while.

Well, status quo wasn't working. For whatever reason, we weren't getting the response we thought we would from the players. I try and explain myself, not just telling them what we're doing but why we're doing it and why it's going to help us long-term.

What I think was missing this season was the team-first mentality. Some nights our defensive work was good, on others, our offense was good. But we need 20 guys to put the team ahead of individual accolades, and I don't think we had that throughout the season.

This roller-coaster thing doesn't work. We had only a handful of guys who played to expectations and gave to the team.

To tell you the truth, I'm going to kind of miss them.

Without Zhitnik in there it left a hole. We were kind of putting pairs together and trying to see what worked. It's a bad team to be trying to do that against.

We need to be ready to play. (This loss) puts a lot of heat on us over the next few games.

We seemed tentative. It did surprise me. I thought we were ready to go. We didn't compete as hard as we should have.

We wanted to come out skating. We did, but didn't get rewarded for it. We generated a lot of chances, but just didn't put them in the net.

We feel we can do it. We feel that we've got a lot of firepower on this team and teams can underestimate us at this point . . . We've all got a little bit to prove.

We feel like we probably have to get to the 90s. But we can't win 10 out of 12 games in one night.

Every role we've tried him out in, he's excelled. He's just playing, by far, the best hockey I've seen him play.

It was almost too much for my brain to handle. It was a crazy day. I tip my hat to the players. It isn't easy playing in that environment.

It was almost too much for my brain to handle.

The short-handed goal really killed us. We were struggling on the power play and when you're not scoring and the other team scores on (the short-handed play), it is a big shot in the arm for their confidence.

Sometimes it's better to take 30 minutes out of your day and talk about something other than hockey.

A different voice sometimes is a good way to get the point across a little clearer.

Once you've played in the NHL, I think you get a little misunderstood sometimes. These guys, with the salaries involved now and the way they get treated, people can lose perspective that these guys are human, too. Unfortunately, the job they've chosen, you don't get to have a bad day. It helps that I played in this league; it gives you a legitimacy right away ... But I don't know if there's that much advantage to it.

Any team would miss valuable players like Z and Ash. We're treating today's news the same way we approached last week when we moved some veterans for prospects. This is another opportunity for very talented young players to step up.

As a team, we played our most desperate hockey.

You need to do whatever you can do to make sure that puck doesn't go in the net.

This guy plays beyond his years. He has poise and awareness with the puck that he certainly doesn't look like a first-year player.

They use the new rules as well as any unit that you play against in this league. Their skill is so high and their body position, with Jagr, himself, he's a big man and when he has the puck it takes almost a man the same size and strength level to get it off because the rules inhibit the plays you used to be able to use on guys like that.

It's kind of been the way it's gone: we make a mistake and we pay for it dearly. Too bad. We had a lot of guys play good hockey tonight.

It's a tall order when you've hovered around .500 all year to suddenly start thinking about running the table. But if you can't believe you can do it, you're certainly never going to accomplish it.

It was a tremendous effort by Rick. He was unbelievable.

It says a lot about him as an athlete, as a man and as a professional.

It might not be the role he envisions. But the more he embraces this role, the more successful he's going to be.

It might be time to see what he does. He made some great saves in the third period. He works extremely hard in practice and he deserves a shot.

It's a point, but it's tough when you had two that late in the game. That's been the way it's gone. We make a mistake and pay for it dearly.

It's probably the most fantastic, unusual promotion I've seen at a casino.

That's a consideration. It might be time for him to get a start.

It's like jumping on a treadmill when it's going eight miles an hour. When he got off, it was going at three.

It looked like what we pictured from this team at the start of the season. The difference is believing in ourselves. We saw a lot of good signs.

It was a crazy day. I tip my hat to the players. It isn't easy playing in that environment. ... It's a great opportunity for me. The experience I'm going to go through here no matter what happens will help me in my hockey career.

They worked to get into those shooting lanes, they worked to get a body part or a stick in front of the shots. It's how they've had success. They have a ton of skill, but they also work as hard as any team we've seen this year.

At this time of year, it's totally unacceptable to get outworked. I thought that's what happened, especially the first 20 minutes.

That's exactly who we didn't want to have carry it down the ice on a 2-on-1.

That's a lot of skill, a lot of speed and a lot of hockey smarts all on one line. They mesh pretty well together and they're the type of line that should be dangerous every night.

Around the league, we've opened some eyes with what we've done.

If you don't have success early, sometimes the momentum can switch over to the penalty killers in a hurry. And they fed off that and the building fed off that. I thought it was tough for us to settle down and relax ... It was a chance to gain momentum and we lost that chance.

I just thought they were kind of sleep-walking through the first five or 10 minutes. There were a few things we really wanted to focus on. One of them was driving the net and it's hard to do when someone's going 75 or 85 percent speed effort. I want to make it a habit to practice that way and sort of raise the bar a little bit in that area.

I heard Forsberg's coming back. They've been decimated with injuries. It's another great challenge for us.

I heard a couple of 'Oh, nos' on the bench the way the season has gone. So that was a big momentum builder for us.

In the second period, it was pretty good for us. We probably played as well as we can as a hockey team and didn't get rewarded quite as much as we thought.

I don't know if we skated through some of the scoring areas as hard as we could have. I think a little more commitment and a little more desire around the net, a little more urgency, maybe would have helped us tonight.

I didn't think we were ready to play. We got away from things that gave us success the other night. We gave up chances that they didn't have to work very hard for.

I don't think he ever showed what he can do on the ice. Part of that is our fault. We didn't put him into the right role and motivate him the right way to get him to play his best. That's the frustrating part.

I don't think from the outset that we had our heads screwed on straight. I thought we didn't treat the opponent with enough respect. . . . It was just a disappointing effort.

You can win any game with goaltending like that. The last two games, and from the Olympics on he's played outstanding hockey.

All he was interested in was sports and we had a difficult time getting him to read. Little girls have an advantage because there are a lot of books for them at that age to choose from. It's not that great for boys.

The individual puck battles that we were losing earlier this season, we won our share tonight.

(The goal) at the end of the second really took a lot of wind out of the sails. The timing of it was really tough.