The Ottawa Senators and Florida Panthers don’t like each other.
The two teams set the high-water mark last season when they combined for 166 penalty minutes in a game on April 6. On Monday, they topped that number with 167 PIMs in a 5-0 Panthers win.
After the game members of both teams had lots to say. Here is a roundup of the best sound bites.
D.J. Smith, Senators coach
“Well we weren’t ready to play at the start and that’s on me… It took us to probably the nine-minute mark of the first until we got real competitive. Five-on-five we were fine but we couldn’t kill a penalty tonight.”
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Question: Did your team show a lack of maturity tonight?
“Yeah that’s fair. I just thought at 3-0, we came out with some really good shifts. We were aggressive, we were in the game. Lots of game left. And then we take a five-minute major and it takes you right out of the game.”
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“They’re real aggressive and we just didn’t make the plays… We had a chance to make a couple of plays to score and settle it down and we didn’t. At the end of the day their power play is three for three and in the NHL if you don’t kill penalties, you’re going to lose most nights… Then in the third period, you still have so much clock left. And as a group, you can’t self implode like that and start taking penalties, you’re not going to win… definitely we’ve got to be smarter than that.”
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“As the head coach you realize you’re throwing away an opportunity. You have to just keep playing. I don’t know what went on between periods but the final, I don’t know whatever it was after we took the five-minute major, you don’t give yourself a chance to win and you can’t play like that in the NHL.”
Paul Maurice, Panthers coach
“It’s just a hockey game. You can’t play fight in the game and both teams want to win, and you get a little snarly. That was fun, it was good.”
“That’s mild. We only got to about 167 minutes there, it’s got to get to the 250s before it gets too squirrely. Sometimes hockey can get like that, that’s part of why the game so great. Because it’s graceful and beautiful and physical and angry all at the same time. It’s probably good for both teams, you get to make it part of the story of your year.”
Brady Tkachuk, Senators captain
“I just think, for us, there are times where we stick up for one another and that’s something to be proud of and it speaks a lot about the guys in the room. We’ve got each other’s backs and no matter what the situation, we care about each other, we care about winning, we care about doing things the right way. And when there’s an opportunity to have somebody’s back, guys are always there for them.”
“I don’t think it’s bad to play with emotion. When this group plays with emotion we’re a tough team to beat. I think we rely on our emotion, it shows that we care.”
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Question: What are the thoughts for you when you see Zack MacEwen go after your brother?
“It’s a business. Of course I love him, every other game I hope he has the best game of his life. Whenever we play each other it’s all about winning so what happens in the game, all that personal family stuff gets put aside… I’ll always have my teammates’ backs and the family stuff gets put aside for the game.”
Claude Giroux, Senators forward
“More than half the team was out of the game. I want to win hockey games, we need to, I don’t know, it’s really tough to say right now because a lot of things happened tonight. It’s frustrating because we know we can be better. We definitely need to figure things out.
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Question: What kind of things do you say to the team after a game like this, as a leader, to just reset?
“That’s one thing we’re going to have to talk about, either tonight or tomorrow. Cool down and figure it out. Because if we want to win hockey games we need to be way better than this.”
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“We need to find a way to be more consistent. We have some good games, we have some good periods but the good teams find a way to play a full game. Right now we’re not doing that.”