John Tortorella Best Quotations

Our best players have to be better, and they know that. You can guys write it, I'm saying it and I'm not saying it in a negative way. They know the real world. Our best players have to be better for us to do the things we need to do in the last three games here.

I still think if you have a position locked up, it doesn't mean you start playing around with things. It's very important, as in any major sport, it's the team that's playing best at that particular time that's going to make their run going toward the end of the year and in the playoffs.

We're very pleased with that. That's the way it works. You give people opportunities and they try to make the best of it.

We'll do it the best way possible to make sure guys are physically able to go in this last quarter (of the season).

You look at a lot of the other studs in the league this is the time when your best players need to step up and Marty, certainly the past couple of nights, he has been our best player offensively. I don't want to single anybody out because I think we have played well as a team, but you have to give him a little bit of credit. His game is different than it was in the middle of the year.

Right now, we just have to focus on winning one game to prolong (the series). I guess that's the best way to put it ... we just want to prolong it.

Your best players need to be your best players and almost dominate games. Or your goaltending dominates a game. You just need some dominating performances, and if you're going to have dominating performances, it's going to come from your best guys. And if you sprinkle two or three of those in six games, and you find a way to win four or five games, that's when you start getting that swagger back.

As with 29 other teams, defense is always a concern. I know Jay is looking. We do have a budget, as all of the teams do, and we have to find the right piece. It may come up to the last day of the preseason to see if something is there. Maybe it doesn't. All we can do as a coaching staff and as a team is whoever is here when we open up against Boston, we are going to try to play under a strict team concept and do the best we can.

Still, our top two lines have to be our best lines. You can sense they're struggling, but they care. They know their roles. We just have to keep our edge and not give in.

I look at the Tucker incident. That was pretty much one-on-one and he whacked him twice, gets fined and plays the next game. Arty hasn't done anything like this. He just plays hard. That's all we want the league to understand. Yes, he sticks out because he skates, one of the best skaters in the league, and he's big and he's willing. We feel that is a tremendous asset for our team and the league for that type of play to be going on.

You can't find your big guys playing against probably one of the best teams right now, guess what's going to happen. We can't have guys lying in the weeds - our best players - in games against the best teams in the league. They need to be front and centre, and they're not.