MTL@TOR: Quotes of the night

TORONTO - The Canadiens were downed 5-4 in overtime by the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena.

Following the game, forwards Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin and Tomas Tatar met the media.
Head coach Claude Julien also fielded questions from reporters.
Here are a few highlights from their Zoom-based Q&A:
Anderson had a memorable Habs debut with a pair goals against Toronto, but that certainly wasn't his focus following a tough defeat on road ice:
It's not about me, but I think as a team we felt pretty good coming into tonight. I think we were the better team. We talked about it before the game, staying out of the box with these guys because that's where they get momentum and they did tonight. I think anybody watching the game would say we were the better team out there, but we're not going to forget this one, come out next time and play better.

While the result was disappointing, the Burlington, ON native still relished his first taste of the Canadiens-Maple Leafs rivalry:
Anytime you get a chance to come home, obviously it's marked on the calendar. To start the season off in Toronto is something pretty special. I had a lot of family and friends watching the game tonight. We obviously wanted to get the two points, but at the end here we just have to move on here, forget about this and move on.

Anderson's line with Drouin and Nick Suzuki was firing on all cylinders production-wise, and Drouin believes the trio has tremendous potential:
I think it was an excellent first game. We saw the speed of Josh Anderson. He's big and fast. I think he complements Nick and I really well. I think we'll make a great line if we continue playing that way.

While the Canadiens appeared a little rusty at times, Drouin was still pleased with the squad's overall performance:
It was our first game. We had to get our legs going and get our timing back. It's different from playing intra-squad games. There's a lot of hitting. I think we played a good first game. There was that bad bounce on the fourth Maple Leafs goal and a few goals against when we were short-handed, but it was a good first game for our team.

For his part, Tatar was impressed with the play of Alexander Romanov, who made his NHL debut and turned plenty of heads:
I think he battles really hard. He's moving the puck very well, even on our second power play unit. This kid is a good hockey player. Too bad we couldn't win that one for our new guys, but I think Romy was really good.

Like the rest of the group, though, Tatar was disappointed with the way things played out after the Canadiens were leading 3-1:
It was a tough bounce when you battle that hard for a goal, and the next you know such an unlucky thing happens and they tie the game. I think we were loose for a few minutes, but then we worked hard again. The game goes to 3-on-3 overtime in the first game of the season, it's very tough. There were a lot of good chances on both sides. It could have gone either way.

The Drouin-Suzuki-Anderson line also caught Julien's attention as well, and with good reason:
They had a really good training camp. You saw the chemistry right from the start. It showed tonight. I hope we just saw a small sample. We hope they'll get even better as the season continues.

Asked to evaluate his club's effort, Julien responded:
It's easy to critique the small mistakes, but there were still a lot of good things that happened. The Suzuki line was good. Anderson had a strong game. Romanov handled himself well. Our goalie was excellent. At the end of the day, it was our lack of discipline that hurt us. We'll build on this performance and try to improve in the situations that we struggled with.