Say What - 'We Feed Off It'

Hanifin on what two wins in California would mean:

"It’d be huge; we’ve been playing some really good hockey as of late and it’s heading in the right direction. Christmas break is obviously that marking point that most teams look at to see where they’re at, so if we can get over .500 and closer to that wild card spot, it’s a good position for us."

On what the team has been doing better defensively of late:

"We haven’t been giving up too much off the rush, even if you look at last game, Florida’s a really fast transition team. I think a lot of that just comes from the back-checking from our forwards, just the compete and hard work. There are going to be mistakes here and there with the structure in the D zone, but I think just the work ethic has been huge for us."

Kadri on how he's learned to deal with ebbs and flows in his game:

"I used to be very impatient and it certainly gets really frustrating, but as time goes on, you understand that once you’re in a bit of a hole, you can’t continue to dig that hole, you’ve got to find some way out of it. There are certain things you can do over the course of a game to maybe buy yourself a lucky bounce here and there, then you’re off to the races."

On his team's play in the defensive zone:

"Marky’s a brick wall back there and we’ve got some great goaltenders, but the defencemen still take initiative to sell out, and make those key blocks, because you never know. One of those could be a seeing-eye shot, end up in the back of the net, and change the momentum of the game. Things like that, as players, we acknowledge (them), and we feed off it."

Tanev on how his shot-blocking skill has evolved:

"Early on in my career I got hurt quite a bit, broke my leg a couple times. It’s a lot with the trainers, they’ve helped me out, figuring out where I need protection, the type of protection that’s helpful. Over the last number of years, that’s helped a lot."

On what reaching the .500 mark ahead of the holidays would mean:

"It’s been a goal for a while, we’ve gotten to .500 and then we lose a couple games, that’s something that would be awesome. Moreso, our goal is just to get closer to that wild card, we have two big games, if we win both that’d put us in a great position to be able to track down some teams ahead of us."

Huska on the importance of the upcoming road trip:

"I think it’s important. We have to keep finding ways to win games, and our job now is to try to chase the teams down that are in front of us. By doing that, it’ll allow us to get to the .500 mark; our play over the last little while has been improved, so we just have to make sure we keep that for these two games before Christmas."

On his group's willingness to block shots:

"If you want to be a team that wins at the important time of the year, you have to have guys that are committed to (sacrificing) for their teammates. It’s a real big thing with the way some of these guys shoot nowadays. The balance is, if you’re blocking a lot of shots, you don’t have the puck enough. When you look at our game against Florida, we were spending too much time in our own zone. You like the structure that we had, but we’ve got to do a better job of once we get the puck, we have to complete our next play to get out. I don’t think you can rely on the shot-blocking consistently, but there’s certain times in the game where you have to have it, and our guys have done a real good job over the last little while, being willing to eat pucks for their teammates."