Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team’s 3-2 overtime win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night.
On the team’s “challenging” start:
That’s a nice way of putting it. They were fast, we were slow. They skated us into the ground. It looked like Toews and Kane still thought they should be the best players and we were just learning how to play. And then I thought we dug in and got playing better. Obviously, a big win for our hockey club. I don’t think it was pretty, but we found a way to get it done.
On the new-look lines:
Who did I like… I liked Kapanen. He had good speed. I thought Leo and him together were fine. I thought Naz’s group [with Marner and Marleau]… Patty Marleau really skated. I thought that line was pretty good for us. I didn’t think we were clicking on all cylinders by any means, but in saying that, you’ve got to find ways to win games, and we did today.
On nine straight games that have been one-goal games save for empty netters:
That’s the way it is every night. We’ve got to get used to it. I still feel like we can play way better. I think we can play way harder from the start of the game to the end. We’re playing a real good Dallas team tomorrow. It’s going to take a big effort to win, but we need that from the group.
On Travis Dermott’s game and the performance of the defense:
I thought we had a tough period on the backend to start, to say the least. Couldn’t handle them. At home, when we’ve had the matchups, him and Carrick got to play with Matthews and got to stand at the offensive blue line and shoot pucks. We talked about how great it is. Here tonight, you had to handle people on the cycle and they were going all over the place. You didn’t know where your guy was — it looked like that early for our young guys, but they got their game together, grabbed their nerves and played better.
On the pairings shuffle on defense:
I mean, [we needed] someone to talk to someone and settle everyone down. We were just chasing it around in our zone.
On the process of learning how to play with a young team:
It’s learning how to play. It’s learning how to compete. Jonathan Toews played against Matthews tonight. Jonathan Toews had the puck the whole time in the first 30 minutes. Obviously, he’s a veteran player and Matthews is a good player, but Toews knows how to play. It takes you a while to learn how to play in this league and play right and face the puck and get used to playing against good players.
Q does a real good job here, obviously, to get the most out of his group. It’s no different for our group. We’ve just got to keep getting better.
On whether there was any explanation for the 2-2 goal standing despite apparent interference on Frederik Andersen:
Yeah…
