Say What - 'We Have To Play Better'

Coach Huska on the 3-1 loss:

“I thought it was a slow start for us. The first 15 minutes or so, they were the better team. Which is a little bit to be expected when we're in a back-to-back, and then I thought we steadily got better as the night went along. At the end of the day, the lack of little execution on the offensive side of it with our puck-handling around the net probably cost us the game tonight.”

On the ‘sloppiness’ from his group offensively:

“I think it was consistent throughout. You look at the chances we had, the finish wasn't there. Whether it's missing the net or a puck bounces over a stick, that's the execution I felt was missing tonight. Not the work ethic.”

On a tough time creating offence:

“I think it's just having a little more confidence in your ability to make plays when they're there and bearing down. To me, that's pretty much it. There are certain people that we need to execute on a nightly basis. Some of them, some of them aren't there yet.”

Lindholm on having a slow start:

“Obviously, the first 10, 15 minutes was tough. Didn't skate well enough, but after that, I thought we played some pretty good hockey. Marky played unbelievable and made some big stops. There's stuff we can work on - turnovers and so on - but we fought hard and Marky was unbelievable.

“We weren't going at all (at the start). They were all over us and we didn't skate enough. We were slow out there. But after that, we fought hard and Marky made some big stops and kept us in the game.”

Backlund on the Jackets coming out hard:

“They put on a lot of pressure. They have a lot of fast forwards and we knew that going in, but I thought we were a little more sloppy than we have been in the past. But give them a lot of credit. They put a lot of pressure on us and were hard on us all night.”

On settling into the game:

“We played a little better, had some looks on the PP. Then it was a little back and forth in the second and pushed a little but in the third. Still... So far, probably, our worst game of the trip. We know we have to play better and we have to find a way to turn this around for Sunday to make it a good trip.”

On the boost from Lindholm’s shorthanded goal:

“I thought we got some energy from that and thought we put some pressure on them. It just wasn't quite there. We were missing that last little extra bite and push around the net.”