Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team’s 4-2 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday night, moving the team to 7-3-0 on the season.
On picking up a good win on the road against a good team:
It’s real simple for us: If you want to play right and you want to play hard, suddenly you look fast again. We’ve looked real slow the last few games and didn’t come out of our zone. Tonight, we looked fast.
The third period — we’ve still got to learn how to win. There is no reason to play in your own zone. You can still play in the offensive zone and keep your foot on the gas. That’ll come over time.
Big win for our team here tonight. We’ve got a day off tomorrow, and then we’ve got practice, and then we’ve got Winnipeg again. It’s nice to play the same good team twice in a row.
On how the team saw out the game, and the importance of the John Tavares 4-2 goal:
That was a huge goal for us, obviously. But it’s winning faceoffs. It’s stopping in the right spots. It’s staying composed so you keep attacking instead of backing up. Those are all things you learn how to do. When you’ve got a lot of kids, often it takes you a bit of time. But you learn over time.
I liked our effort tonight. I thought we competed. I thought we skated. I thought we worked. We hadn’t seen that in a couple of games, so it was good to see that back again. It is good for the guys to leave the rink feeling good.
On Nazem Kadri bumping the monkey off his back with his first of the year:
Ennis and Kadri — we get them off the schneid. Naz fired one off the bar there later. He is an important goal scorer for us. We need him to feel good. Their line is getting way better for us, obviously. They’re an important line for us. We expect them to play important minutes and we need him to score. He knows that. It’s good he stuck with it and kept working. Now they’ll start going in for him.
On getting an offensive contribution from the Frederik Gauthier-centered fourth line in limited minutes:
I mean, they didn’t play four lines, so it was tough getting your guys on the ice there. It’s just the way the game was. In saying that, obviously, Goat is a guy who started out of the lineup and finds a way to play every night. So he’s doing good stuff.
On Kasperi Kapanen’s play on the top line through ten games:
You’re expecting him to do it in a regular basis. It’s real clear. He understands. Good players do it every day and they keep getting better. They don’t get satisfied. They get hungrier. When you are around good players — Matthews and a real good veteran in Marleau — they keep you pretty even-keeled. We need him to be a good player for us. He has done a real nice job. He is scoring at a good rate on that line.
