Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team’s 4-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night.
On finding a way to lose despite generating plenty of opportunities and carrying the play:
We had lots of opportunity, obviously, but we got impatient. We had two pinches with no F3 that cost us two goals. I mean, we were carrying play and had lots of opportunity, as you know. But, in the end, you’ve still got to play right. If you make those mistakes and they capitalize…
You’ve got to give Anderson credit. He got the pull last night. Proud guy. He came back and played real well. He didn’t stop the ones when he didn’t see it, but other than that, he stopped everything and cleaned up a bunch that he didn’t see.
You’ve got to give them credit. It’s back to back nights in our building. I thought we had good pressure on them and they found a way to win the game. That’s what you do when you’re on the road. You just find a way to win the game.
As far as us: You can’t be impatient. You’ve got to play right.
On whether this is a game that is a teaching moment in the process of learning how to win:
Obviously, I’m not showing them right now, but I mean, no question about it, we can’t… in my opinion, two nights in a row where we were in a great position to win the game. Good players for us made big mistakes that, in the end, you’d love to have back. You win together and you lose together. But there are things we’ve got to fix in order to win every night. That’s the goal: You want to win every night.
On how the team performed overall the last two games despite key mistakes, and where the team is at halfway through the season:
I thought we skated good and played good. We had lots of energy and did lots of really good things in both games. In the other night when we lost, the team came from behind. I think we outshot them 14-4 in the third, and I thought we did a lot of good things, and Leo alone could’ve had three in the third.
You could say the same about tonight. We still found a way to give up goals and make mistakes. You’ve got to fix that. Otherwise, we’re going to be disappointed. That’s the bottom line. You’ve got to learn how to play right and you’ve got to be patient enough to stick with it. Everybody has got to be all in or you leave disappointed.
On the approach in the second half of the season coming out of the break:
It’s real simple. If you get prepared for the day you are living, that’s the most important day. The rest are gone. You can’t deal with them. It’s just like hockey. The next game is the most important one. It’s the hardest one because it’s the one we’re playing. That’s how we’ll approach it.
On Morgan Rielly’s performance:
I thought he was really, really good, and he’d probably like to have the mistake back.
