Mike Knuble Quotations

We need to move on to tomorrow and not dwell on this. We have two huge games coming up.

Of course it's a blow. He gave us a big emotional boost Saturday. He's a huge part of our offense and this was one of the biggest games of the year. It's not the kind of thing you want to hear after warm-up that your No. 1 center is not going to play. That being said, that's nothing new this season. We're used to different people being out. He's definitely missed when he's not there.

If we're guilty of anything, it's not getting all our pucks on goal. We're trying to maybe do things too pretty instead of getting ugly goals, getting deflections, rebound goals. Not tic-tac-toe goals around the net. That's not where we're going to be successful. We've got to try and score more dirty goals.

I don't know what the reason is. We want to keep it going through six games and hopefully change the tide in the seventh.

I think we're all in shock right now. It's really weird right now. We're all taken aback and a little bit in shock because it was done. It was over. Give the Devils credit for coming back when the game was on the line. They're rolling.

Our power play hasn't really done that well of late, but I think we should be proud of the difference we made.

I'm speechless, we're all in a little bit of shock right now.

I'm speechless. I don't know, it's weird right now. I think we were all taken aback.

We're all taken aback and a little bit in shock because it was done. It was over.

We had huge success against them the last time we played up there, because we made sure we didn't give up a whole lot through the middle and made them play on the outside. That made it hard for them to drive the net and be around the net.

We had a lot of shots but we didn't have a lot of great chances. They did a great job of keeping us to the outside. They've won a lot of games and here they are.

We're just going to try to win games and see what happens at the end. That's all we can do now.

Today was typical of what we did -- a goal late and a goal short.

We have to face the fact that we might be back here in a couple of weeks. This was all we could ask for.

We had some bounces going our way tonight. Of late, things have been clicking more on the power play.

As a player, this is a challenging time in the season and you want to step up.

That's kind of convenient to say, but we had a chance at first place. At this point we have to find motivation somehow, whether it's first place, whether it's a day off tomorrow, you've got to find motivation somehow. I'm not going to lie to you and say it wasn't a demanding week, but who doesn't have demanding weeks in their job... That's not an excuse.

This building was really jumping, the crowd was really into it.

They showed us where we need to get at. They?re priming for the playoffs and we might be waiting to throw the switch a little bit and we?re running out of time.

It's annoying as a group. Extremely annoying. The coaches wonder why, we wonder why, and everybody who watches us wonders why. That is what we have been trying to figure out all season. It's more of the same. You can say, 'when the playoffs get here, it's going to be different.' But it doesn't work like that. We have to get it going in here now.

It's all been kind of building up to the quarterfinals. The games were kind of 'easier' at the beginning. Now they're getting tougher. Tomorrow is going to be our biggest test so far.

It's frustrating that we had a chance to determine where we end up and now we have to wait to see what happens with other teams. We wanted to have a game like we did (Saturday), but it's tough. They have our number right now.

It's not a question of shutting him down, because you know he's going to get his shots. You just want to force him into terrible angles to give your goalie a chance. You can't put Jagr out there eight times on the power play and expect to kill it off every time.

It's not about wins or losses right now. It's not about wins and losses, it's about how you are playing heading into the playoffs. I think we all want to do better. I think we all feel frustrated when we don't play our best. Everyone leaves the rink disappointed.

Their checkers take a lot of pride in what they are doing. They relish the chance to do that.

I don't know if it was nerves or what, knowing this was an elimination game.

I don't know. I haven't had time to digest it. But we lost the home ice and that's going to be a huge factor. It's probably going to be a little harder.

The crowd was ready and they helped us get into it.