Ron Wilson Quotes (148 Quotes)

They finished higher than us in the standings, they earned home-ice and you never can forget that. If we take our foot off the gas and allow them to start to control the play, they can quickly turn the series around and get home-ice again.

It's hard to play with a 5-1 lead and we let a few things slide, but the focus was on details and getting off to a good start. We knew if we got off to a fast start we could make it easier on ourselves.

This road trip, I think, gives us a lot of confidence. They were all tough games.

We had a decent first period and then we came out and made soft plays, miss- read two on three situations and next thing you know we are down 2-0.

That's as loud an opening night as I've ever heard, anywhere. I think they're really going to enjoy the new NHL with the speed and the emphasis on offense. I think it's going to be a more fun game to watch. It's a fun game to coach, especially with the weapons we have.

There is plenty of time. You want the two points in regulation, but we kept battling all night long. We just couldn't find a way to get that extra point earlier.

We were just way too casual the whole second period. We never worked hard enough to deserve anything the rest of the period. And they took advantage of every silly little mistake we made. We got what we deserved.

We thought they might be a little weary, especially this time of year, and psychologically they can go up or down. You want to jump a team like that as quickly as you can, and we had a lot of energy.

I didn't expect us to win 15 in a row going down the stretch. If we're going to lose, I'd rather lose like this and have everybody's attention in practice (Friday) instead of letting one slip away late and come out of it feeling OK.

That's the key to the game, keep the hope alive.

It was kind of old-time hockey.

We just didn't have the energy level we needed to do the job and it was pretty obvious early on. The only thing I was hoping for was their energy level would sink because it was their third game in four nights, too.

The best thing we can do is win all our games, then you don't even have to bother. Our focus right now has to be on Colorado, but those two games against Vancouver right now are huge as well as the game in L.A. It's the L.A. and Vancouver games that seem to have the most importance.

We're a team that's pretty resilient. We showed that this year, and now, I mean, I would've loved to have won both games in Nashville. We've got to try and get a split.

This was their third game in four nights. It's not like we're spring chickens right now -- we've been playing a lot of hockey -- but they didn't have the same zip that they normally have. And that's why I think we were able to carry the play.

I'm happy we spent all day (Tuesday) working on our power play. They've got great special teams. Fortunately, we had those opportunities, because we didn't look much better than we did in Phoenix to be honest.

This was the fastest exhibition game I've ever seen. It was faster than some regular-season and even some playoff games. That doesn't always translate into goals, but the transition, the up and back, is fun.

This was the opposite of the last game. They had five guys missing, and tonight it looked like we did, too. Five or six guys missing. You need a complete team effort to beat a team like Detroit, especially here, and we didn't get it. So we'll just throw it away and move on the next one.

There aren't very many guys who would even try to make that pass let alone execute it.

I questioned one call, 'Why aren't you guys calling the right stuff' It was good enough for a bench penalty. We haven't had a bench penalty all year. We can't control what the referee decides to call. We're not fouling people and we're (still) getting calls. That's not our team's fault, it's that simple. That's the freaky thing of it.

That shot he took was a cannon. It was on his stick and into the net, unbelievable. Matt Carle continues to improve, to be the type of player that raises a lot of eyebrows.

He understands when you're a player in that position and we've got a player like Joe where all the attention seems to be on him, it's an opportunity for him to really step up and help the team.

They scored first but I didn't see the team flinch. We were ready to play from the beginning of the game.

There was only one D back. Maybe it was a tired, mental mistake.

You wait for somebody like that to mature. He's still not there to my satisfaction defensively 100 percent all of the time, but he's getting closer.

The young guys with the way they're competing, they're really hungry, and that's what you need at this point in the season. Not guys who are afraid to fail, but guys that go out there and compete really hard.

That was huge, to respond to some adversity. We're going to face this kind of stuff when we're on the road, and it's great for our confidence, to be able to win that kind of game.

I don't think that's a big part of the game right now. It's about power plays and penalty kills, it's not about fighting. And it's a little different if the tough guy can play. ... I'm not going to knock some of these other guys who can play only three minutes and if you ignore them they're totally useless.

You just never know what a preseason means. Is it an illusion or reality I truly believe we're a good team and I think if we've gotten anything out of the preseason, it's the process you go about, and winning will take care of itself. Our players understand that and they're focused on doing things right.

I never would have thought when I first came to the Sharks a couple years ago that Cheech was going to be a 50-goal scorer. I thought we were looking at a great third-line grinder with some upside for scoring.

It's definitely half-full. I'm not happy with the way we played in the first half of the game. But we took control, had a number of scoring opportunities. Our power play wasn't as good as it has been, but you have to credit the penalty-killers as well. They did a great job.

We responded to adversity and that's important because we're going to face this kind of stuff when we're on the road.

Patty had one of his best games of the season.

I really don't care who we play, and I'm being perfectly honest. The way we're playing right now we're confident.

Each one of them wants to score so bad, they go to the net hard and they live to see the red light go on. That's what's common amongst them all.

There's no momentum from two years ago. There's no carry-over. We had to start from scratch.

They're simple mistakes to correct, however inexcusable to make because they're simple positioning failures. And a couple times you lose, whether it's a battle in the corner or on the third goal a giveaway, moments like that at the end you look back as being the turning point.

Obviously you want to make the playoffs as a first priority, but along the way you want to finish as high as you can. This road trip gives us a lot of confidence, because they were all tough games.

It certainly helped us to get back the focus we needed. We were set up on the wrong side of the ice, and we obviously want to get the puck in Joe's hands.

For a while there, I thought we were looking for ways to lose. I'm just glad we found a way to win.

Physically, he's fine right now and his movements are sharp and crisp, but again, getting bumped into or the traffic issues continues to be a distraction for him.

About halfway through the game, we lost our energy. We were all over them in the first period and we just didn't have the energy to do what we needed to do to keep them in trouble.

You can already see that Patty is freed up a little more. We did give up a lot to get Joe, but this is a trade that's going to give a lot of people an opportunity to shine and do things they haven't done. He's everything I thought he was.

It's kind of like a mustang or stallion that you have to break -- you see all this potential but it's kind of wild. I think he is still a work in progress, but he's certainly showed a lot of great signs the last five or six games he's played.

In the third period of back-to-back games, I don't know if they really had the energy to take advantage of the power play. We talked about if we pushed the pace, there's a good chance we'll draw penalties tonight.

Whenever we play L.A., we look at their stats and they're one of the most penalized teams in the league. They play hard all the time, right on the edge. So you've got to expect to get power plays. We lost a little bit of our discipline in the third period

We expected that in the first period and I thought we responded. I just didn't think that would signal the flat second period we had. We were awful.

McLaren goes to the net and gets tackled and if that's not interference and this little thing is interference Give me a break.

I wasn't sure how that was going to be. I thought we'd be like a lot of other teams, killing 10 or 11 penalties a night, and that hasn't been the case at all.

He's been shying away from taking pucks, going wide and taking to the net and he did that a few times tonight. For some reason he spent most of the first couple months not being involved and being on the outside. To his credit, he got the job done tonight.