Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team blew a 2-0 lead in the third period and lost 3-2 to the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime.
On whether there is frustration in the room after another blown game:
I think it should be, shouldn’t it? I thought we did lots of good things. Let’s be honest — their goalie was unreal in the third and made some big saves. But we were in a situation to control [the game]. Turnover in our own zone on the one. A shorthanded goal against. Any way you look at it, when it happens once…
You know, when we lost to Ottawa — If I’m not mistaken; I don’t know the order — and we were ahead and lost the game, I thought we played pretty well. You do it a second time and suddenly now it gets in your head. There is no reason to let things get to your head. We went through a spell where we aren’t as good as we can be. You’ve got to find a way to dig out. That’s what we’ve got to do tomorrow. We’ve got to get our head right and compete right.
But I thought we had lots of good things going today. I thought we had a pretty good game and looked like we were really coming out of it, and then we’re right back to where we were. So, a good point on the road and you always like to get points. Let’s give the guys credit for doing that, but we’ve got to do a better job.
On whether the recent blown leads are a psychological thing:
I don’t see that. We saw the one go in, and then we’re on the power play and we’ve got a chance to get one right back. We’ve got a pretty good power play; a pretty good ranking in the league. And then it goes in. And then, I think, at that point, you’re thinking, “Oh, my God.” We got ourselves in a good spot to win in overtime. Matty and Willy were in right away, and to me, both 2-on-1s [against] we didn’t play real good. We didn’t give our goalie a good opportunity.
On Mitch Marner making critical mistakes two games in a row and the need to shake it off:
I think the big thing — when you’re 20, it is different than when you’re 30. In saying that, there is going to be a game two days from now. We should all walk out of here feeling terrible. Once we get through that, let’s get up in the morning. Let’s go to practice. We’re in a great spot in the league. We like our team. Let’s play the best we can.
On the decision to rotate Connor Brown up next to Auston Matthews and William Nylander down to line four:
I just didn’t like what was happening. I thought that line was getting dominated. I mean, they’re playing against real good players. I thought he was ultra-competitive and I thought he was helping us. I thought The Goat had a good game for us, too. We used him a fair bit and I thought he played solid. What we tried to do is get the player that were playing the hardest in the right spots to help us. That’s what we did.
On Morgan Rielly’s status after banging up his hand:
What we’ll do is he’ll get checked out. I haven’t talked to him since that. He’ll get checked out. We had to be careful with him down the stretch and we’ll see what that is and we’ll know more tomorrow.
