Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team’s 6-4 loss to the Boston Bruins on Wednesday night, leveling the series at 2-2.
On the team’s performance:
I thought we had real good energy tonight. I didn’t think we had the kind of brain all the time that we wanted. We turned the puck over and made two real big mistakes on the penalty kill that I thought we ended up giving freebies on. But I thought we had good energy and for periods of the game, I thought we played real good. But we had too many turnovers in the first period trying to play too high-octane instead of just looking after the puck and playing right like we’ve been playing. But I thought we had good energy. In three of the four games, we’ve had real good energy and did lots of good things. We just got in our own way a little bit here tonight.
On whether David Pastrnak being shifted down to the second line changed the matchups for the Leafs at all:
Not really. I thought we were set up good for that, to be honest with you. I wasn’t concerned with that one bit. I thought Willy’s line was very good tonight. It had lots of o-zone play and lots of opportunities. It didn’t, as the game went on, matter whether I played Matty or him against them. I thought our matchups were fine. That, to me, wasn’t it. We just made some mistakes. We pinched when we shouldn’t have. We gave up some opportunities we didn’t need to give up that we hadn’t been doing.
On the Bruins’ success on the power play and what’s going wrong on the penalty kill:
Well, they’ve got real good players, let’s not kid ourselves. But those two goals tonight… I mean, we covered it this morning and we didn’t look after it. We’ve got to fix it. The bottom line is we can’t give up those power play goals. Those were just freebies, those two. Not that they didn’t make plays or anything like that, but we weren’t in the spots we were supposed to be in.
In the end, you’ve got to do what you’re supposed to do. If their scheme is better or their player executes, then albeit, but you’ve got do what you’re supposed to do.
On the team killing at 60-some odd percent in the playoffs the past three first rounds:
I don’t know, I think we’ve had a pretty good penalty kill since we’ve been here. Pretty good. But it isn’t good enough right now. The good thing about it is the series isn’t over, so we don’t have to live with that number. We can still fix it.
