Brad Shaw Guys Quotations

Mentally, the last couple of games, we were all aware of the situation. I don't think it changes a thing. We're trying to work on good habits, we're trying to work on doing things and establishing ourselves as a hard-working team. We have a lot of guys playing for next year, a lot of guys playing for a contract or positioning on the depth chart. We have a lot of guys with a lot to play for. So I don't know if it changes anything for us.

We have to, as players and as coaches, do a better job of preparing guys to play. We were not ready physically or mentally. We didn't seem to win many puck battles tonight.

Some of our recent games, it's been our young guys who have been our shining stars.

I think it comes down to desperation. I really don't understand some of the efforts we're getting from some of the guys when we're supposed to be trying to make a push to get into the playoffs. It's astonishing.

We had enough guys do enough good things. It's not going to be good enough on Thursday against the Rangers, but tonight it was good enough.

What I think was missing this season was the team-first mentality. Some nights our defensive work was good, on others, our offense was good. But we need 20 guys to put the team ahead of individual accolades, and I don't think we had that throughout the season.

This roller-coaster thing doesn't work. We had only a handful of guys who played to expectations and gave to the team.

Once you've played in the NHL, I think you get a little misunderstood sometimes. These guys, with the salaries involved now and the way they get treated, people can lose perspective that these guys are human, too. Unfortunately, the job they've chosen, you don't get to have a bad day. It helps that I played in this league; it gives you a legitimacy right away ... But I don't know if there's that much advantage to it.

They use the new rules as well as any unit that you play against in this league. Their skill is so high and their body position, with Jagr, himself, he's a big man and when he has the puck it takes almost a man the same size and strength level to get it off because the rules inhibit the plays you used to be able to use on guys like that.

It's kind of been the way it's gone: we make a mistake and we pay for it dearly. Too bad. We had a lot of guys play good hockey tonight.