Ken Hitchcock Quotes (213 Quotes)

We've been guilty of that all year. There's a time when you've got to put your foot on the other team's throat. We let off. We're guilty of that at home. Not on the road, but we're guilty of that at home.

If our team was loaded and had everybody in it and we were making the mistakes we're making now, you'd have a very upset coaching staff. But there's big picture stuff going on and we've got to keep it realistic.

I think everyone is hoping physical play will be allowed. Our team is built that way. You cannot play in an emotional setting without getting physical. Over 82 (regular-season) nights, there are times it's hard to get physical. But when your focus is on playing the same team every second night, it's hard not to get physical.

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.

Yeah, I think a lot of guys did. The Olympics was a lot of hockey with not a lot of breaks. I think a lot of guys had no energy. We just had to wait until the tank filled up, and it's starting to fill up.

I have a better idea of what to do with Hatcher (this) morning.

I can just tell you on record that whatever happens, we need and want Wayne there. He is our leader. He got us through some tough times in '02 and we expect him to get us through some tough times in '06.

We want him to want the puck, to skate with the puck and find people open with the puck. Hopefully, he can do it. He's shown flashes where he takes off and goes, and sometimes he backs off and becomes conservative.

If you can't get ready for the best team in the league, you're in trouble. They've taken on all comers this year and they've really eaten up some teams. I don't know whether it's the fear of getting embarrassed, but we've got a lot of competitive guys and we love to play in these type of games.

It's just bad luck. We feel like we might as well get it done now. If we wait 25 games and he's sore, he won't get a chance to play (healthy) down the line.

We talked this summer, and the one thing I told him is you find out pretty quickly you have to put a lot of fingers in dikes. You spend a great deal of your time just fixing everyday problems. That's kind of what a coach is, a problem solver.

We knew what was at stake here. We need to win these games if we are going to improve.

The first period hurt us a lot. We mounted a comeback in the second, but couldn't score.

It's a big hit. He's a veteran presence with a big voice in the locker room. He says the right thing at the right time, so probably our two biggest voices (in the locker room) are not in right now.

I thought we went in fits and starts. We went in peaks and valleys during the game and we made good plays and we made soft plays, and I think that over time we are going to have to get firmer in those areas.

He was absolutely dominant, ... He controlled the tempo and played a wonderful hockey game. A lot of guys did.

Yeah, a little bit. Especially where he was with all the skates. But we had to put him through this because we can't move him from non-competitive drills and then all of the sudden walk him into a game, which is real competitive and have him say he can't go. We've had too many of those where we lose a guy after the first period.

For whatever reason for three years, we've had this type of schedule where we've played this Florida swing before. It's given us a real opportunity to do some team-building things. It's been a good thing.

Were going to have to make some adjustments. We honestly dont know how this is going to work for us until we play some exhibition games.

We want first badly. As hard as we've worked, we've earned that right. At one time, before we were decimated by injuries, we were first overall in points. Today and Friday are points we must have.

I know our club was really focused on that with the changes we made to our roster. Our depth is more on the skilled side than it was on the role-playing side.

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.

Brian is a player who has made the best of a situation where he had to wait to get picked up by a team. Hes come in and made a contribution on and off the ice. Im really happy for him, because hes found a home here and has a good niche on our team.

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.

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

We played great yesterday (Saturday in a 4-3 loss to the Rangers), didn't get rewarded and came back and we had a flat start. They took advantage of our mistakes today.

It certainly wasn't based on anybody's poor play and that's what made it such a difficult decision.

I've coached against Peter and he'll take numbers and get even in due time. You won't hear anything about it, until you see a body laid out on the ice and you'll wonder how that happened.

His leadership for me has come because he's confident. He's a good player in the league now and he thinks he has a good feel for the game, which he does. He's been in the big games against elite opponents, which means he is a guy who has matured.

If Jon had the attitude he has now he would have been a 30-goal scorer. He was unable to sustain the level of play necessary to keep him in the lineup.

He's earned a right to be a prime time player for us. (Sim) has just come out and earned his spot.

It would be nice to get Peter back, but we can't have doubt in our game.

I thought the defeat by the Devils was the first time we didn't grit it out like we had. If it was another team, maybe we could have won. But it was New Jersey, and they negated a lot of our scoring opportunities. We didn't have the second or third effort offensively that we've had in the past.

Could I give you that on Friday night We have to win our home games and take care of business there.

I've always found that veteran players play significant roles in playoffs because they know what the level is like. And over a short period of time they can get themselves to that level because they know it's a two-month season.

My opinion is that this (game) is a good wake-up call. We weren't prepared to pay the price (tonight).

We made some great strides last year, but there's another level out there. I think it's a group effort to get to the next level. We don't need one thing from one player, we just need a little bit more from every player. We are capable of taking the next step as a group, but it's just a little bit more from every player.

We just had an emotional week, and I think yesterday's loss took quite a bit out of us. We hit three goal posts, and we seemed to not have the energy, especially offensively, to do the things we needed to do.

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.

This is the state were in right now. We played great yesterday and didn't get rewarded. We had a flat start to this game. Montreal took advantage and scored 5-on-3. They took advantage of our mistakes. We have to regroup. We have to get some healthy guys back in our lineup. We didn't play our best game today. We have some things we have to talk about in the next 48 hours.

We thought he was done for a long time. There was a lot of anger. But we've learned not to let our emotions get the best of us.

We are fighting through a lot of adversity. We lost a couple more guys and guys are digging in.

There are times during the season when you have to review. It was very, very productive. We don't have those type of meetings very often, but when we feel like our team isn't playing well, we do.

If I lived in Washington, I would pay whatever the season ticket was to watch this kid play. He's a special player, a unique player who comes around once every 10 years.

If his neck responds to the treatment like we think it will, then he'll be available for us (today).

I don't think that stuff is relevant because some of them were overtime losses. I worry about the response after a win. My major focus is, how do we respond after a big game We have had lots of big wins but we have not always responded well.

We had nine first-year players against Montreal. We practiced with 15 players today. Everybody knows our situation. We're limping. Still, we're only one point out of first place.

We've had to overcome adversity the whole season.

We're halfway through the trip and still have a lot of games left, and then we come home with no rest before we get Colorado. We're like a lot of teams. We have a tough month of January ahead of us because of the Olympics.

We had such a terrific start to the game. And to me, as soon as Peter went out, our whole energy just dropped right off the cliff. Our energy went right down the tubes. That's the second time that's happened and that's got to change.