Dave Tippett Team Quotations

I'd like to go out and win by a big score. But I think these character-building games will help us down the line. The more you learn about your team in close games, the better you'll be down the stretch.

When you can't make plays under pressure and you're not willing to win 1-on-1 battles, then I guess that's the game. Then the bounces. I'd like to see how many bounces go to the team playing with more desperation. That's kind of the way it happened tonight.

We're going against a team where the whole game plan going in was to take advantage of our turnovers and soft mental play. We were pushing to take that mental play out of the equation, but there were too many times it came into it.

If we say we're all right and meet a team in the first round that's been hungry for the last month, that's a problem. We'll do our best to guard against that. At no point are we going to say we're going to back off.

We're obviously glad that it's nothing too serious with Mike, but we'll just see how he is Saturday. That's a decision we'll make at game time. We do have some healthy bodies around, so we're not going to take a chance with anybody and put anybody in a vulnerable situation. But that being said, we want to continue to play well as a team -- and he's a big part of our team.

He has done a great job as captain of our team this year. I think they are all hungry to prove they can get the job done.

Our guys have earned the right to be a good team and a tight team. We've played pretty well together all year, so they have confidence they can get the job done.

I think it's ultimately a team game that should be decided by a team. But during the season, you find a result and you just see the excitement it's given the fans and the players. It's been a nice jolt in the arm for us.

I thought our team played a very good team defensive game. Hatcher had a great year and we played very well in front of Marty, but you can't get numbers like that without having an unbelievable performance from your goaltender. Marty deserves a lot of credit for that. He's the guy who a lot of time dictates a lot of the equation as the last line of defense.

We needed for him to be good. We knew that fatigue was going to be a factor on our team and we needed him to give us a chance.

We got these guys three times in a week, you're going to get to know each other well. I like games like that. For our team right now, it's a good thing. You like putting your team in situations where they have to compete hard, because that's when they feel good about yourself. That's the kind of games you want going into the playoffs.

We were up against the top team in the Western Conference and we look at them as a measuring stick for us. We didn't get the result we wanted, but that just shows us that we still have some work to do.

That was one of those the players really grasped. We need some more like that from him, and our team will rally around that.

We're going to dress the best team we can. And if one of those young guys is in that mix, that's the way it's going to be.

That's just a trait of the new NHL. It's probably just more of a focus on this team because it hasn't been that way in the past. You could afford to have a $2 million defenseman sitting there, and you just can't do that now.

They're the top team in the Western Conference. They're the measuring stick. This shows how much we have to grow as a team.

Put yourself in my shoes. Your team played well and you're trying to make sure you play well again in Game 3. Do you pound it down when it did a lot of positive things? The intent was there, and we don't want to discourage that at all.

There's stuff to build on. We needed to clean up our play in a few areas, but that's a desperate team playing at home and we still were able to overcome that. The bottom line is you want to win these games, and we won. So the glass is half full right now.

You put a desperate team on the power play nine times in the first two periods, and you are going to get what you earn. The referees were a non-factor tonight. It was all us.

I really think the NHL is going to stick to its guns this time, and I think that's good. You don't want to allow an inferior team to take back an advantage they haven't earned.

Are they bad mistakes by the goalie? No. But are they goals that we expect Marty to stop? Yes. And that's the difference. We can be an average or below-average goalie and just wallow along, or we can we be a really good one and give our team a chance to win, and that's the responsibility we need Marty to take. And he's done it in the past, so it's not as if we're asking for something that we don't know is there.

The goal is to extend our lead. We've played well enough to do that. It's an indication that the team is coming around and playing the kind of hockey we need to play going down the stretch and into the playoffs.

The focus for our team is doing things right. We talked about habits ... That's not turning the puck over, that's not taking bad penalties, that's not giving outnumbered rushes. Those are habits you have to have in place going into the playoffs.

This organization came in and formed its own identity. Time goes on. People identify with this team more than hanging on to the North Stars' past.

We got rewarded for the good things we've been doing. It was nice to see the team come together a little bit. The third period kind of wrapped it all up.

This team has worked hard to get to this point in the season, and you have to give them a lot of credit for that. But I think we realize that this work is just the preliminary work you have to put in if you want to be successful in the playoffs.