Ken Hitchcock

I've seen our fans just will us in playoff games. I think home-ice is something you need. It's very important. It's real difficult when you constantly have to win road games in the playoffs.

Our whole season has to be about quality and not quantity. Were going to have games like (Wednesday) and were going to have to get used to it. But it snowballed for us. We started taking too many penalties. We were all over the map.

If it's working, then we'll stay with it. If not, we'll move (combinations around) and, quite frankly, in the first five games we do want to see other combinations either during games or during practices.

We had a lot of things that we did very well tonight. But to give up the two goals (in the third period) was really disappointing.

Can I give you that on Friday

When you're starting to play catch-up, you have to open up the game and sometimes you come back and sometimes you give up more.

When you're playing against teams who are wounded bears or desperate, they're looking for a reason to play and when you give them a reason, they keep going.

You give skilled players that many power plays and eventually you are going to get some people tired and that is what happened. We made a couple of tired decisions at the end.

He scored so many big goals for me in Dallas. It was frightening how many big goals he scored. The '98 and '99 seasons, he had comeback goals, clinching goals, important goals. That was it. Not the goals he scored, but the importance of the goals he scored.

We gave up two shorthanded goals, both off scoring chances of our own, and when you've got young players back there, those are mistakes that are going to happen. We'll get better with it.

Good players score those goals. Guys like you or I, they'd be in the stands.

When you look at a team like Ottawa, to me that's a good gauge on your team and individuals. They still have the heaviest team in battles and competitiveness.

Touch wood were in pretty good shape. We have six guys who are playing pretty good as a group for the most part and we have a seventh guy (Jones) who is playing 30 minutes a game with the Phantoms who was here with us before getting ready to join us in the playoffs. So we have seven. Its a good mix.

Robert has gone through the natural growth of a good goalie,

That's who he is. That's the way he plays. He's got a really big heart, good skill level, but it's his heart and his competitiveness that he carries with him. What's interesting for me is, the game was on the line and he was the best player on the ice. That speaks volumes for a 20-year-old player.

That is probably one of the best periods of hockey we've played in this building.

We played a heck of a hockey game. We played about as well as we've played on the road all year. We fought, we clawed.

You don't want to start out next weekend trying to find your hockey game.

(It means) exactly nothing. You cant read anything (into it). Hes trying to play hockey. But, hes certainly not a player in this series.

I think we were overwhelmed the first 10 minutes. That's my responsibility. We were embarrassed, embarrassed by the way we performed and embarrassed by the way we finished the hockey game.

We're trying to play catch-up far too often, and that's a hard way to play hockey.

This was as dead as we've been in a month. I don't remember us playing this poorly. We had no work ethic. Their workers controlled the hockey game. Our goaltender was outstanding, but when you go on the road and allow almost 50 shots on goal, it's not good.

I know about playing back-to-backs, and they're up there waiting for us. Whatever happens in that game, if we play the right way, we'll feel good about it. You don't want to start next weekend trying to find your hockey game.

That's a dangerous play in hockey when you're checking the player with the puck and he checks you. The checking player doesn't suspect that and he's not ready for it. I think you see a lot of injuries when that type of play happens.

He has an honest appraisal of himself. He's hard on himself and he's demanding of himself. That's what makes special players. You talk to anybody who is a special player in the league... They put more pressure on themselves than anybody else does.