The following quotes have been transcribed by the Philadelphia Flyers public relations department. We can’t guarantee their complete accuracy because we didn’t write them ourselves, but we provide them as a post-game service.
Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger
Q: Which was more impressive: that the goaltender could concentrate when the game gets out of hand or the fact your defense played half the game with five guys?
“I think him being young helps. He understands, he’s pretty relaxed back there and understands, kind of lets the game come to him a little bit, obviously in the third, a lot of power plays on both sides. He came up with a number of good stops there to keep it 6-1.”
Q: Back-to-back wins are big, came up with some big points here?
“Yeah, I think all week with the exception of the Columbus game. We obviously wanted to rebound from that game and try to get our identity back. We did that against Buffalo and then again yesterday against Pittsburgh, and here tonight. A lot better on the discipline front and moving forward, that’s going to be important for us.”
Q: The power play got two big goals, it seemed things were going well tonight and special teams was as well?
“We were skating good tonight. We were getting to the net and pucks were getting to the net. As we all know, most goalies don’t like traffic and don’t like guys driving to the net. Kind of feeling that, you know. Nodes drove the net hard there, I think [Darroll Powe] did a couple times, [Claude Giroux] did on [Jeff Carter’s] first or second goal. We had traffic in front, I think, on both of my goals. That’s a great part of our game, is getting that traffic in front and battling for those loose pucks.”
Q: How are you doing as far as the knee each game getting stronger each game, how has it been for you?
“It’s been OK. It’s hit or miss obviously. Some days you feel better than others. Depending upon the game and the ice conditions, the amount of time on ice. There’s a lot of things that kind of go into it. We’re trying to manage it and hopefully get it better with each week, month.”
Q: Can you say what was said between you and DiPietro out there at the end?
“I’ll let him tell you.”
Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro
Q: The Flyers’ were getting traffic and pucks to the net. What was the key for them?
“They are a talented offensive bunch. They always have a net presence. They made a couple quick bang-bang plays in front of the net. Obviously, [Chris] Pronger was firing it. That was just a disappointing loss.”
Q: Was tonight just an off night for you?
“It wasn’t a good night.”
Q: Did you feel all right? I know [trainer] Garrett [Timms] came out at one point.
“He just came out to say hi.”
Q: That was obviously an emotional game. Did you not like what was going on out there? I know [Daniel] Carcillo, I’m not sure what happened on that face-off out there.
“When you lose three in a row, four in a row now, hopefully get something sparked up and turn this thing around.”
Q: Is that a situation where you wanted to be in the game and battle through, or would you welcome the mental relief of getting pulled?
“It doesn’t matter how many goals you let in, you never quit on your teammates. They have to go out there and play every shift of the game, and I’m no different.”
Q: In terms of what happened, in terms of some of the emotion out there, there was a lot of frustration about what happened the last couple nights.
“It’s a long season. You’re never as good as you think you are. You’re never as bad as you think you are. There’s no time to panic, now. We have a lot of games left. We just need to come to the rink, and play with that confidence that we had at the beginning of the season. Things aren’t going to go your way all the time. You just need to be able to bounce back.”
Q: How long does it take for you to get past a night like tonight?
“Probably will take me about a month to 18 weeks. This is one of those ones, that sucks. The bus ride home is going to suck. Tomorrow morning when I wake up is going to suck. Until you get a chance to get back on the ice and redeem yourself, it eats at you. It’s not something that you hold on to. You got to take the positives to work on; work on the negatives, obviously and get back to work Monday. There’s no time to rest. This is what makes the NHL, the NHL, it’s a grind. You come up here and everything is going right, then you play 12 out of 15 on the road. You got to expect some peaks and valleys, but we’ve definitely got to get back to winning games.”
Q: Did [Chris] Pronger try and talk you out of that?
“Yeah he didn’t want me going after [Danny] Briere. I was just looking for somebody except him, to be honest.”
Flyers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky
Q: How did you manage to stay focused in a game like this?
“It’s hard to stay focused in such a long game and maintain concentration when the game continues for so long. In the end, you just play.”
Q: Did you want to fight anybody out there?
No, I didn’t want to hit anyone.
Q: This is your third straight start now. Do you feel like you’re getting in more of a rhythm now that you’ve been able to get some consecutive playtime?
“I’m very happy that we continue to win. It’s great and we have to keep it up.”
Flyers left wing Daniel Carcillo
Q: What happened with that melee right at the end with you and Danny?
“He was talking to Danny and I don’t know what they were saying but I knew something was going to happen so I just went in there and hit him.”
Q: Were you taking Danny’s place?
“Pretty much, yeah. Rather be me than Danny Briere, right?”
Q: You don’t want to get Boston guys pissed off, do you?
“Who?”
Q: DiPietro, you don’t want to get a guy like that pissed off do you?
“(laugh) I don’t know.”
Q: When was the last time a goalie went after you?
“Never. It would have been nice to fight him though.”
Q: He’s a big guy.
“He is? I’m sure I’d be able to handle myself.”
Q: What did he [DiPietro] say to you?
“He said he wanted to go. He was asking the ref to let him go. He told Pronger that he wanted to get some frustration out. It would have been nice to get loose but the linesman had a good grip on me.”
Q: Danny can you comment on everyone getting in on the mix, especially the defense tonight?
“Yeah, it was a good team effort. We got out to a real good lead there in the first. We came out skating, we came out hitting, and everything fell into place.”
Q: Your thoughts on the penalty shot? I’ve never seen one called that far out before.
“I mean he took away a scoring opportunity, but it was on a breakaway so I think it was a good call.”
Q: The broadcasters were saying that they’ve never seen a goaltender as quick as Bobrovsky is night to night, what’s your assessment of him?
“It’s pretty frustrating because it’s pretty hard to score in practice. I’ve never seen anything like him. He’s quick, young, focused, and looks really poised back there like he’s been doing it for years. It’s good for him that he’s helping us get wins early on in the year.”
Flyers center Danny Briere
Q: What was it like on the ice, it seemed like every play something was going on?
“Yeah, I mean there was, I think. When you get embarrassed like that, obviously there’s lot of frustration. They obviously didn’t like that, they had to respond some way, somehow. That was one way to do it, with their fists, finishing their checks, and that’s what happened. I thought the refs did a pretty good job of controlling the game. It’s going to happen, games like that when one team goes up quite a bit on the other one.”
Q: Were you ever thrown out of a game before?
“Yeah.”
Q: So this is nothing new to you.
“No, it’s happened a few times. I can’t remember, Edmonton, when I was in Buffalo, when I was a Sabre. As a Coyote as well.”
Q: Have you ever seen a goalie so willing to look for a fight?
“Like I said, frustration was part of the game. Things were not going his way obviously with pucks finding the back of the net. If I were in his skates I probably would have tried to do the same thing. It’s just a game of hockey, we’re all competitive. I can’t say I was very surprised.”
Q: How encouraging was it to get three goals from the defense tonight?
“That’s one of the good things; our shots from the point were getting through. Our guys in front of the net did a very good job, so that’s encouraging. We knew with guys like Kimmo and Prongs, especially back there, you know at some point things are going to start going in.”
Q: How about your goalie, have you seen someone so quick from post to post?
“He’s up there among the best I’ve seen. I’ve had the chance to play with some good goalies but he’s, as far as quickness, he’s up there. Obviously, he’s young, we don’t want to put too much pressure on him but things are looking up if he keeps it going. He could turn out to be something special but like I said, don’t want to get too excited too quick. Let’s give him the chance to play more games before that. It’s fun to watch.”
Q: Did DiPietro say something to you?
“Yeah, he was mad because we were two on Gillies in front of the net a few face-offs before. All I was trying to do was hold his arm because he was trying to hit Coburn. We didn’t want anybody fighting Gillies, we wanted him to leave him on the ice. All I was trying to do was hold his arm to protect Coburn a little bit and Wilson called me a few expletive words and didn’t appreciate what I was doing. In the face-off before he did the same thing to me. He came over with his stick, had me in a head lock, so I didn’t know what he was doing, I just wanted to keep my hands high and try to protect myself.”
Islanders right wing Trent Hunter
Q: How frustrating was tonight’s game?
“It’s very frustrating. You know, we come out of the gates flying and now have kind of hit this wall and its something we can’t let slide and just say it’s going to fix itself. We’re the only guys who can fix it, the guys in the room and we’ve got to start playing through each other and playing with a little more fire and come out of the gates flying.”
Q: The league has really cracked down on these head shots, are you concerned they might take a look at this?
“It’s out of my control, like I said, you’re never out there trying to hurt a guy. You know, you hate to see when a guy does get hurt and you know, I was just trying to finish my check.”
Q: Can you talk about the way they came out, overall, and the game, it was a tough one for you guys tonight. And then about Briere, and how it turned around for them?
“We know that they always come out flying in their building and they came out skating hard and were able to create some opportunities. We’ve got to be ready, we have to be better than that, we just can’t sit back and say, “Oh well they’re going to come flying out of the gates”, we got to push back.”
Q: A lot of what happened tonight, how much was it just frustration about the way things kind of went for this team the last weeks?
“The guys are definitely frustrated but we can’t let that dictate the way we play. We’ve got to stick to our systems and can’t blame it on losing streaks or being frustrated. You’ve got to find a way to win, and we’ve got to find a way to get back on track.”
Q: How was it playing in the second night of back to backs?
“In some ways it’s even easier because yesterday I was playing hockey and today I was already in a rhythm.”
Flyers Head Coach Peter Laviolette
Q: Peter, I’m curious about your goaltender. It’s a route, there are all these penalties, there is stretches where he’s not seeing the puck because they’re not doing anything with it. It seemed that he had concentration the entire night, which is unusual for a rookie goalie in a game like this.
“Yeah he’s been sharp. I’ve said that from day one. Since I’ve seen him he’s had a lot of really good days for us. I thought he played terrific last night and wanted to get him back in there just really based on that. He looked really good and seeing him in a back to back situation, I thought he responded very well. He was quick again. Your right; there was times when there wasn’t a lot going on and then all the sudden he had to not only make a save but a really good save. He’s got that quickness to his game with his legs down low and able to recover to bale out our team of a really bad situation.”
Q: You have been working on getting point shots through and tonight they got through. Pretty much a product of working hard in front?
“Yeah I think those things have been coming. Some were on the power play. And I said the power play has looked…at the end it kind of got away, we were using different people but with this group it’s been four or five games now where I think the guys feel comfortable out there and are back into some kind of a rhythm where at the beginning of the year it just wasn’t there for us. I take responsibility for that. We were trying different people in different places and we should have just cut to the chase and got the two groups. I think we learned now that we are more comfortable with it.”
Q: After the game on Monday night you guys responded with back to back wins this week. Can you talk about the week that you have had… *(Could not understand what he said but it was basically talk about the week you have had.)*
“You take out the Columbus game and I’ve liked the way we have played, even the Anaheim loss. I said that night that our guys played hard. We threw a bunch at the net but we just didn’t get the results we were looking for. But if you play that way, you are going to win a bunch of hockey games. I thought our guys have found some consistency with their game and tonight I thought we came out the right way. Right off the bat we were throwing pucks at the net in the offensive zone and on top of it. We got some good results tonight from that attack and it’s been consistent game to game, taking Columbus out if it.”
Q: You played half the game with five defensemen. They looked pretty sharp. You have to be impressed with that.
“Yeah they were good. I thought our defensemen played a strong game tonight. Like you said, there wasn’t a lot of time they were in there but when they were in there, there was something that we had to defend that was breaking down. Probably not what you want, having to play five defensemen half the game after playing the night before but I thought we spread the minutes around pretty good and we were able to get out of it.”
Q: Talk about having Dan [Carcillo] out there late on the power play. Was that a matter of trying to keep things from getting out of hand?
“No there are a lot of guys who can do the dirty work. Darroll Powe is out there, Blair Betts was out there, guys that just have to sit there and block shot after shot after shot on the penalty kill or guys that have to fight and scrap so maybe put them out on the power play and see if they can get a power play goal.”
New York Islanders coach Scott Gordon
Q. Do you think there were a lot of emotions spilling over there at the end
A. “There’s only so much a player is going to take, Trevor Gillies goes into a scrum and gets shoved and gets six minutes and their guy gets nothing, so you know what the guys stuck up for each other and it’s good to see.”
Q. Did you consider this an off night?
A. “Well three of the goals I don’t know how much you could have done anything about, you know I don’t think we played well in front of them either. We were behind the eight ball on the first goal they got, I thought we started to come back and then we had a shift and got stuck in our zone and from there it wasn’t, from my side, very good.”
Q. What made you decide to leave him (Rick Dipietro) in the game?
A. “Well he’s got to fight through it, you know Rolly (Dwayne Roloson) played last night and we’ve got some time off. You know I don’t think with five on three, anything is going to change by putting Rolly in the game, I mean we were shorthanded for awhile there, and if it was just one single power play , but at that point it wasn’t a question of all being Ricky’s fault.”
Q. Why did Garrett Timms (trainer) come out in the first period, just to check on Dipietro?
“Yeah, we just wanted to check on him, initially he looked like something was wrong and bothering him, but it just turned out to be a shot to his helmet.”
Q. Were the emotions that spilled over just from the frustrations of the last few games?
A. “I don’t think anything had to do with our last few games, our guys just get tired. If Trent Hunter makes a shoulder to shoulder hit, and in doing so barely grazes the other player, he gets a five minute major, you just get tired of the calls going against you, we’re down six to one , and they had enough.”
Q. They did a pretty good job of getting traffic in front of the net, when they do that as an offensive how dangerous can that be?
A. “I mean Jeff Carter’s playing on, I guess their third line, I don’t think too many teams that have a 50 goal scorer on their third line. They all have speed, they have size, their strong, I mean they’re a good team, there’s no question about it.”
