Nick Vitucci

Huge. This is a relief. This is excitement. It's just a culmination of 72 games that this team has just grown and matured so much. What a nice reward we got tonight.

I just hope they beat each other up. I hope it goes three games and we have a weary hockey team to play.

I've got nothing. I'm out of words right now. In 75 games we did not do this. They just have a couple guys that get under our skin and we were running around taking penalties. It's frustrating.

Maybe this is good. It knocked us down a bit. Maybe we're back to reality a bit.

Consistency has been a problem for us, especially on the road. But we played 50 minutes of good hockey tonight and that's not always enough, but it was tonight.

We've been playing great as a team. Everyone has contributed. If one line wasn't playing well another one would step up and be the hero.

We relied on one man MacIntyre to hold us in a hockey game on Friday in the first period and we relied on him again tonight. We were 1-1 after one, but it could have been 4 or 5-1. It is frustrating because we are better than that.

That's playoff hockey on Feb. 1. It was a fitting end to a great hockey game. Both goaltenders were phenomenal and there was just really nice hockey being played out there.

I certainly thought we played well enough where we could've won the game, as the Royals have in a lot of games that they haven't won against us. That's what's fun about this series. But we made a couple key mistakes in the first period that resulted in pucks in our net, and you can't do that against that hockey team.

That's hockey players - he played through it and didn't have a second thought about it.

He was solid. When you only have three shots against you in one period, it can be hard on you mentally. I thought he gave us a chance to win. He stopped everything he should have stopped and he made a handful of good saves to keep us in the game.

That sounds great. I'm very happy. It's been a long time coming. It's well deserved.

I was a goalie for a long time and I stood in there and took my lumps until I was asked to get out of the net.

When times are tough and points are hard to come by, we need individuals to step up to be heroes. Tonight we had a lot of guys who were heroes.

It was excitement, but there was relief, too. We battled and fought so hard. After the season we will reflect on the title. But the most important thing right now is that we have five days off before we play again. So we can rest our weary bones.

We've certainly worked hard to put ourselves in that position. The next three games will dictate whether we have home-ice advantage or win a division title. It's nice to be in that position.

Sometimes when you're pressing, you squeeze the stick too hard and instead of a goal you have a handful of sawdust. A big team effort and victory erases all of that. It's nice to get off this little slide we were on. Our mindset will be so much different. They know how hard things have been and it's nice to see them leave the rink with a well-deserved smile.

Some people think these guys are just hockey players, rough and tough guys. But they also have lives and aspirations away from hockey. He is a perfect example of that. One day he's sitting in front of an impressive group of people and two days later he is fighting in front of another group of people.

It's the exact opposite of our losing streak when we couldn't buy one.

We have an opportunity to redeem ourselves. Hopefully we'll put a stop to this.

Part of that stretch where we were a mediocre hockey team was because we were getting mediocre goaltending. They weren't getting the big saves when we needed them. Sometimes you need those heroic saves to steal a game. Bernd and Drew are now giving us that consistently.

It went right through the net. The ref said that the net bulged but he wasn't sure whether it was a stick that caused it or not. Their goaltender told our players it went right through the net. That's par for the course the way our luck has been going.

It was real big and hard earned. That was a tough couple of games that we had to play here. I am happy with my team. We kept working hard. It was a good two points for us tonight.

We needed to close the door there. That goal Pittman's woke up the crowd. We seem to play well with our backs against the wall. We play well under pressure.

They need to talk about how far this team can go if we can control our emotions and talk about what is on the line.