Brad Richards Quotes (54 Quotes)

There are no excuses not to win, this is the playoffs for us. You don't ever want to say it was OK when we lost the game, but I'm not going to beat myself up or question how we've been playing of late. We're going to keep our head high and keep pushing the way we've been going of late.

It was probably the worst loss of the season. Not just the result but the way we played, we were undisciplined. It was good to regroup and bounce back.

It shouldn't be like this. We know what to do and what to do to make it happen. We are all sick of hearing about it and talking about it. We have to do it. We have to win the battles. We are talented enough to win the puck and hold the puck.

This is what you saw two years ago in the 2003-04 Stanley Cup championship season. We kept finding ways to win. That's what we did tonight. We just found a way.

That can't infiltrate your room, it can't get into people's heads. If one person doesn't believe, this is not going to work. We've been loose, we've been secluded and having a good time. Everyone has been hanging out. This is so much fun to be part of the playoffs and we know how much fun it is for two months. We are all together having fun and we are just going to try to keep battling.

We haven't had too many weeks where we felt good and confident. It's been up and down and up and down and up and down all year. This is the time of year where confidence starts building and that's what we want to do. We're still not there yet. It might look great and it is better, but it's a lot of hard work.

They all play hard and they play harder against Canada. We're not going to take that game off and pretend it's a practice.

No disrespect to Italy or Germany, but it's going to get harder as we go. That's what we're doing, we're trying to get better every day.

Even compared to football it seems people are more interested in us.

We plan on picking it a notch. We have to. I don't think either team has played its best game yet.

We're not down. We're still loose. We look at it as an opportunity to even the series.

We've talked, not numbers, today a little bit. But I haven't sat down yet with Pat Morris to go over all that. But just so that we are ready to start talking when both sides feel that it's necessary. I'll meet with Pat here soon. I want to be here, I'd love a long-term deal but that's the only thing that I've really thought about. I love this organization and this would be ideal.

We've never been the eighth seed, obviously. It's going to be different. We're not going to worry about what happened two years ago. We're just going to worry about our team now.

That's three shutouts against quality teams that are in the playoffs. It proves to ourselves that we are a good hockey team. I think we started forgetting that a little bit.

When you are in, you are in, it doesn't matter. It took a little while longer than expected, but we are in.

There was a reason we didn't want a salary cap that low, especially for our team. We're going to have live with it. We've already lost one of the best goalies in the world which we could have signed without a cap and now we don't know what's going to happen with our Hart Trophy winner.

We can control our own destiny, especially playing Atlanta twice more and Florida three more times, those teams are the closest to us outside a playoff spot.

Canada is Canada. We all talk about how we could have two teams and we probably could. We all know the next three months of the NHL season will tell the tale.

We just got along great. It put you as part of a team. You needed everybody you had. That sometimes gets lost today.

I have no idea what is going to happen. That's next summer. I'm contracted to play this year and I'm just happy to get back on the ice. All that stuff has to play itself out. We'll see what next summer brings.

The goal deflated us, but we didn't grab a hold of ourselves we went the other way and it snowballed on us. It's a time of the game where we have to help Johnny out and get back in the game, and we didn't do that tonight and that's why it went that way. It's not good enough right now.

They are very aggressive. Teams are going to know that I play back there, I'm sure they'll put more pressure on me. Today at practice I skated up front so I think we're looking to take a little pressure off that situation. But I'm comfortable in both spots.

In the NHL these days, you don't get surprised by too much. When we went and got Cory Stillman , you could kind of see it coming that something might not work out. We still had hopes that they would get both of them signed -- that would've been really good. That's the business of hockey right now, and other teams go through the same thing every year.

It's special to even be mentioned with such great players. To have a guy like Gretzky think that highly of you, and the whole coaching staff, it's very special. I guess you get rewarded for success and hard work. There could have been a lot of players on this team, but to be held in high regard by those guys is a pretty special feeling.

Marty got criticized for all the wrong reasons. Marty always cared. Marty was still Marty inside.

We found a way ... that's what we've been doing. We've found ways to win, and this is the time of year you have to do it.

I know this sounds like a cliche, but we've got to keep it simple. We've got to play an up-and-down game and make sure that we're going northsouth. I know that the team we're facing is going to try to go wide on us, but we're just going to have to deal with that.

We've done this before where we've played a couple (good) games and gone into a lull again. (But) I think we're slowly getting a little bit more arrogance, a little more confidence. We still have a long ways to go ... but it's something we haven't had in a long time.

We were sloppy from the start. That's why we were down 4-1. We put together a very good third but they've got a great goalie and we just ran out of time.

I don't want to say that we have their number, ... They're a good team and they can beat anybody any night.

It's been an anxious time, for sure, and they're all very happy and very proud.

It's pretty obvious why we didn't get two points. I saw some saves out there that you just shake your head at. He made a couple on me that were ridiculous.

We all know what to do. We've all been together long enough to know what to do and what makes the power play work. We're just not doing it. It's the obvious thing and I'm sick of it. We're all sick of hearing it.

Those two games we have to grab a hold of it. It's not the end of the world yet. We just have to make sure we nip it right away.

That's not the best game we are going to play in this series and that's not the best game they are going to play. We didn't get the result, but we feel very loose, we feel very confident. Things happen. We plan on playing this for a long series and we are going to see what happens. Nothing is finished, nothing is over. We wanted to win one up here and we have a chance to do that tonight.

There were a lot of bouncing pucks, but I don't think we were that sharp. Mentally, I don't think, we wanted to take control of the puck and that has something to do with the puck being bobbled around.

We're still a bit loose. It's a great opportunity to even the series and turn it into a best-of-three. That's all we want to do now.

We're good enough to win anywhere. We had a 2-2 tie in the third and we didn't get it done.

It's been one of those years. We feel now that finally we got in, we can start over here hopefully and try to do something.

We shot ourselves in the foot to start out. They played their best period of the series in the first. I just think we have to worry about ourselves. We have to come out a lot better.

You can release all the oil you want from the SPR, but to make gas, you need refineries.

It's been unbelievable how Jay has handled this summer. There were not a whole lot of people outside the organization that thought he could get it all done. But he stayed steady and got done what he needed to do.

We (went) just a little bit back to where we were before this run. We started the game pretty good, but as the game went on, we were just waiting and hoping. We got off what (we do well). Don't know why. But that's what happens a 2-1 loss.

It's desperation. We know we've dug ourselves a pretty big hole. We weren't trying to get out of it. We were just floating along. The last three games, for sure, were a big step.

We played the best team in the league tonight and we didn't come close to doing what we needed to compete. No disrespect to them, but we're a good hockey team, too. We just weren't tonight.

This was not a step backward. If we play like that every night, we're going to win 80 percent of our games.

We've been playing better hockey of late at home. It's been a lot better than it was at the start of the year. We've been more consistent. We still haven't played a lot of full 60 minutes yet, but we're going to keep working on that.

When you've had a good team for that many years, the pressure will mount. There's only so many teams that can win, so it's not like they're bad players. But they're like everyone else - they want to win this thing.

We've had a tough time playing a full 60 minutes against them. There's been a couple of times where they played some pretty good games. They're not a bad team at all. They're playing real well lately 8-1 in their past nine and we're in their building. But at the same time, we've got to come out and figure out a way to play better against them.

We've got to come to work and try to figure out how to take control of a game with our power play. Until we do that it's going to be a dogfight every night.