Mike Babcock addressed the media after his team’s 4-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, dropping the Leafs to 15-8-0 on the season.
On playing a good road game despite the result:
I thought tonight might’ve been as good of a road game as we played in a while, to be honest with you. When you look at the series with them, it probably ended the way it should’ve. They should’ve won in our building and we probably should’ve won in here. That’s the way it goes.
I thought our guys skated good and moved the puck. We turned the puck over on the first goal and on their fourth goal. You can’t do that, but the bottom line is, we played heavy and we played fast. We did lots of good things.
We’ve got to take the energy into tomorrow night. Obviously, Philly played today which is nice. Now they’re sitting home watching our game and waiting for us, but we’ll get re-energized and ready for tomorrow.
On getting a good effort out of all four lines:
I mean, the Tavares line dominated the game, obviously. I thought we had everybody on board tonight. I said we had that turnover right away, and then after that, I thought we really took control of the game and played really, really well. But we didn’t score and they did. That is the way it goes sometimes.
On whether it’s frustrating to lose a game the team controlled by and large:
When you win a game and you steal it, you don’t think like that, do you? I mean, these things happen. I liked the way we played. If you do good things, the process normally evens itself out. I thought tonight’s game was a real good bounce back from the game in Carolina. We didn’t get what we wanted, which was the two points, but in saying all of that, the process was good and the work ethic was good. We did a lot of positive things.
On the team’s struggles on the power play, including a shorthanded goal against:
I thought that right there… the shorthanded goal — it was four on four, we never really got organized, we tried to jam it in, and then we took our big group off and put our second group on. We couldn’t even get organized. That was something we’ve got to do a better job of. But we know that and understand that. You can’t just get chances. You need to get goals.
