2-1

Mikael Backlund on the comeback:

"We played Flames hockey right there, that’s how we played most of preseason, and that’s how we wanted to play. We talked about the first, we weren’t satisfied, so that was the way we can play."

On his group's relentless attitude:

"There’s no quit. We believe in ourselves and we’re going to fight until the end. No matter who the opponent is, we’re going to go out and try to win games."

"We played Flames hockey right there"

Dan Vladar on regaining his composure:

"After the first, as a goalie you just come in and have nothing to lose, so you just battle through it. I’m happy the guys stepped up, they played an unbelievable 40 minutes. We deserved to win, and we did. We’re happy, but a learning lesson for myself, and I’m pretty sure for the group too, (that) first period can’t happen again."

"We deserved to win and we did"

Connor Zary on the message after the first:

"We saw one of our guys go down, I think that’s always tough and puts you in the back seat a little bit, and makes you a little worried. After that, after we came in and regrouped, and just talked about if we get back to our gameplan 5-on-5, we’d be fine. I think we saw a lot of what we have in this dressing room, going into that second and into the third, and kind of just rattling off shift by shift, and building from that."

On his group's resilience:

"I think that’s the mentality we have to have all year. We’re going to go down a bit, we’re going to get knocked down, but we’re always going to keep coming back. I just think little things like that, it almost helps us moving forward."

"We’re always going to keep coming back"

MacKenzie Weegar on the night overall:

"That was a lot of stuff going on. Nice goal, obviously, from Zar. There’s a lot to take in. The first period obviously got a bit chaotic. Few things to take away from that, obviously we’ll learn from that. The game got away from us a little bit, they’ve got a good powerplay, but I also liked a lot of things about that, too, we’re sticking together. That’s really what we are this year, we’re a team that’s coming together."

On the wild comeback:

"That’s one way to start the year. A lot of back-and-forth in the third. I really liked how we responded. We just played the right way, we didn’t really do anything special, we were on top of them. That’s one way to start the year, it was exciting, I hope the fans enjoyed it."

"That’s really what we are this year, we’re a team that’s coming together"

Ryan Huska on the message after the first period:

"It was more of just ‘We’re fine, stay out of the penalty box’ type thing, and start playing our game. When you looked at our first period, I felt like we played a panicked period, we didn’t have a lot of composure and it resulted in all the powerplays. I’m really happy that they stuck with it, didn’t go away, and we found a way to get a couple points."

On the difference in his team's game after period one:

"I think we just started to play a little bit more responsibly, we had numbers above the puck. I think the composure started to creep back into our game once we scored that second goal. It was an entertaining game, it just kinda took off from there."

On the lessons learned from the comeback win:

"I hope a lot, and I hope they recognize one period is not how we’re going to play to have success, and the other periods, if we can eliminate a few mistakes that we made, (were) pretty good periods of hockey from us, so we’d like to see them kind of replicate that going forward. It gives us a little bit of ammo, too. If you do things the right way, you give yourself an opportunity to have success."

"If you do things the right way, you give yourself an opportunity to have success"

Related Content