John Tortorella Playing Quotations

He did well. Obviously with a young guy like that, if you're not going to be able to get him the minutes, you want him to continue playing (in the minors).

Johnny has been spitting bullets at me since he's been here because he thinks he should be playing more. We had decided he was ready to take over the No. 1 spot. Then he screwed up.

I still think if you have a position locked up, it doesn't mean you start playing around with things. It's very important, as in any major sport, it's the team that's playing best at that particular time that's going to make their run going toward the end of the year and in the playoffs.

I think the room has really responded. No disrespect to Andy, but this team is worrying about playing better and they're playing very well.

I thought parts of the game we played very well, but other parts we were brain-dead. Even in the second period when it was 3-1 I thought we weren't playing badly, but we put ourselves in a bad spot with too many penalties.

It all starts with our desperation level. We're playing with desperation.

We're playing a pretty good hockey team and Ottawa deserves credit. I've never seen a team that is so opportunistic. You make a mistake and they make it end up in the net. They make you pay. If we're going to win this game, we have to be at our best.

Everybody is chipping in and we're playing very well at this point in time as a team. That's the most important thing. To win consistently in this league, you need to play as a team and that's the way we've been doing it the last little bit.

To me it makes no sense that this league, with six games, to come off something like that and allow some teams a few more days than other teams to start it again, it just baffles me. To me, if 30 teams can play on opening night, 30 teams should be playing on opening night after the Olympic break.

Both teams really look forward to playing against one another.

I just don't like playing (Burke) back-to-back at this point in the season, so Johnny went in.

You can't find your big guys playing against probably one of the best teams right now, guess what's going to happen. We can't have guys lying in the weeds - our best players - in games against the best teams in the league. They need to be front and centre, and they're not.

It's simply about playing as hard as you can and being a tough team to play against. Through 20 men right on through to our goaltender, I thought there was a ton of desperation and fight.

It's (stinking garbage). The (stinking) guy should be playing in the (stinking) East Coast Hockey League and he takes out a (stinking) National Hockey League (player). He'll get suspended, but who (stinking) cares? Everybody wants him on the (stinking) ice anyway. It's (stinking garbage).

A big part of the power play is getting to the middle of the ice with the puck and not just playing on the wall, playing along the boards where (opponents) can be aggressive.