Ernie Hartlieb Quotations

From one year to the next, Chris has improved so much. You could see it in the playoffs last year. His big thing is his skating. He's such a great skater that he can play forward and defense. And he's got the best hands on the team, stick-handling wise.

We can catch (Gwinnett). It's this road trip that's going to be the defining point. Either we'll catch up or they'll pull farther ahead of us.

He's a strong little bugger. He doesn't back down from anybody. He likes to throw big hits. We're happy he's with us. He's played every role that you can think of. Hopefully, he keeps playing like he is.

He's getting it iced up and everything so it's frozen before the game. Then he goes out and plays on it. Our D is having a rough year.

That was the theme this morning, this afternoon and before the game: second place is on the line here. (Tuesday) we had an opportunity to catch some points on Gwinnett because they lost. So we got our points tonight. We'll take it.

Every game is like a playoff game right now. This road trip is a grind, especially coming down the stretch. The guys have played so many games on the road already.

They're going to be hungry coming in here, especially playing against Neilson. I'm sure they really want to beat us because we've beat them every time this season and they definitely want to beat Neilson.

I told him that if he plays good in Fresno, it's going to be great for him. Every NHL and (American Hockey League) scout is going to be there, so it's a good chance for him to get called up to the AHL. He deserves that opportunity.

It's sore. I'm definitely not 100 percent, but they need me out there.

It's been great. We started off a little shaky. We had two good practices after that and that got us back to form.

Intensity is the key. They're going to come out hitting. We've got to match their hitting. There are going to be some ugly goals around the net. That's how we have to score ? crashing the net.