Brendan Witt Quotes (17 Quotes)

We haven't gotten off to good starts, so that's important for us to do in both games. We want to come home on a good, positive note. L.A. is struggling, but is still a good hockey team. And San Jose, with Thornton in the lineup, that makes them even more dangerous offensively. The good thing for us is we've seen Thornton a lot, so we know his strengths and weaknesses.

Times have changed. It's time to move on. This labor problem hurt both sides, it hurt the game, but now we've got to move forward.

He's so calm, sometimes I wonder if he even has a pulse.

The more time and space he has, the more he can make plays. You have to take that away from him, try to shut him down. But he's really good. It's also going to take a whole checking line and four or five guys doing their jobs.

We didn't play last year, but they're still the Stanley Cup champions. It's a good test every time we play them.

Things could change, but I've gotten some positive feedback. I'd like to come back, and we'll talk when the time is right.

It's going to take time and patience with this group to believe in the system. We've got to keep working at it until we perfect it. You have to know your responsibilities. If you make one bad read, the whole thing falls apart.

It shocked me. I thought we had it all locked up. We dodged a bullet.

There's a lot of jobs open. More than any other camp I can remember. When I came up, there was only one.

There's a good young group, but it's going to take time to mold them into NHL defensemen. But that's part of learning. I went through it. Other coaches are going to put out the top lines against the more inexperienced defensemen. But in a way that's good, because then they get some experience.

There's no sense dwelling on it. We're only three games in. We have to learn from it and move forward. We spent too much time in the box, and the Thrashers capitalized on it. They have a good power play unit. Once you go down three, four up and you're still going in the penalty box, it becomes an epidemic and we end up embarrassing ourselves.

It helped him to go to the minors. He went down, worked on his game and got his confidence. In his rookie year, he was a little gun-shy. It was all new for him, but now he's comfortable. . . . We have a good chemistry.

The game was played one way for 100 years or more, and now they are changing it.

Everyone needs some time to get used to the rule changes. We arrived late today so we didn't get briefed. The officials came in after the second period and discussed it with us it was supposed to be before. You can't clutch and grab anymore.

I think you've got to turn the cheek when you get punched in the head, and hopefully officials can control that. This is where you have to be very disciplined and swallow your pride.

I've heard Toronto all year through the media. But either way, I don't have a choice in the matter.

The refs are under a microscope. So we can't blame them.