Ron Wilson Quotations

Obviously you want to make the playoffs as a first priority, but along the way you want to finish as high as you can. This road trip gives us a lot of confidence, because they were all tough games.

Obviously making the playoffs is your first priority, but along the way you want to finish as high as you can.

Obviously it's great for Cheech, but the key is to win the game and he ends up with another game-winner.

Obviously, it was an ugly scene. But I support (Parker) 100 percent.

Now what he's got to do is put himself in a position to shoot more. He's always looking to pass. You have to be a threat out there to shoot and pass, it makes it that much harder to defend against.

I didn't like the way we were giving up goals in the third period. We need to show more poise, but our offense was there as it has been for the last three games.

I didn't like either one of those goals. I've seen this happen before, the floodgates open so I stepped in to try and stop it.

If they come back and assume that everything's going to be hunky-dory, I think they're mistaken.

We needed a kick in the pants. When you?re going like that, almost a third of the way into the season, something has to happen, and it has to happen quick.

We made an awful play up the ice. It was a bad pass. You know they have four guys on the ice, we have five. You should be able to find someone open and execute a good pass, and we didn't.

We're just going to have to dig down and find the energy and play with a sense of urgency that we need. It's as simple as that.

McLaren goes to the net and gets tackled and if that's not interference and this little thing is interference? Give me a break.

We were casual and they made us pay for it.

Guys have missed being with this team. That's the greatest thing, to get back together and start having fun again with your teammates.

I am very excited about the opportunity to defend the United States' title during a tournament as prestigious as the World Cup of Hockey, which features the best players our sport has to offer. I look forward to working with USA Hockey to assemble another potential championship team.

Fortunately for us, with their having back-to-back games, I don't know if they really had the energy to take advantage.

I don't want to accuse somebody of not doing their job. We're certainly going to look into that.

Basically you can't fear failure. We've got to go out there and be ready and play on the edge. We're going to need everybody ready to compete.

What I'm proud about, 5-on-5, when it mattered most, they couldn't get anything going. They did not score one even-strength goal in (their) building and they were the best home team in the league. That has to be a real confidence boost for our team, especially our defense.

We've done really well against Dallas. That would be a great match-up. Almost every game goes to overtime.

We've got to make sure we're focused and on-board with our penalty kill because we're playing a team right now that takes a lot of penalties and manages to get a lot of power plays.

He was on top of his game in all five. Last season, if you look, he had a lot of points but he had them in 3-4 games. This time it's been spread out and he's been a dominant player just about every shift. He's on the right side of the puck all the time.

He was great whenever we did break down. He made three or four great saves.

We looked like we didn't have much energy tonight. As the game wore on, they maintained their energy, and ours had been sapped about halfway through the game.

He didn't look at all like it was his second game in the NHL.

He understands when you're a player in that position and we've got a player like Joe where all the attention seems to be on him, it's an opportunity for him to really step up and help the team.

He's going to play a lot more on the point because we need somebody back there who is willing to take charge and make hard plays, hard snappy passes. And I thought he did a really good job. It's going to take time to get other people comfortable in the other positions, but I'm going to stick with it.

There aren't very many guys who would even try to make that pass let alone execute it.

He's been shying away from taking pucks, going wide and taking to the net and he did that a few times tonight. For some reason he spent most of the first couple months not being involved and being on the outside. To his credit, he got the job done tonight.

He's got good intentions. But I know he's probably rubbed some people the wrong way.

He's got no fear. He'll stand his ground at the blue line all day. We need more guys like that.

He's going to be a 35-40 goals scorer.

He's going to be a stud. You can just see it. He's excited to be at the rink every day. He does everything at the fastest tempo that he possibly can and God does he pound the puck. He's leading our team in shots in the preseason by a wide margin. It isn't like he's Bobby Orr leading the attack, he gets it at the point, he pounds it and he hits the net. Good things happen when you are doing that.

He never came around much when I came to Storm Lake. Then I cornered him one day and asked him to. I ended up learning a lot from Harold, including the fact he might have been one of the first paid chiefs at a volunteer department in the state of Iowa.

We took a couple of bad penalties at the end and it cost us big-time.

We took two bad penalties that put us in the hole there.

That certainly helped turn things around, we had a great last three or four minutes in the period.

Physically, he's fine right now and his movements are sharp and crisp, but again, getting bumped into or the traffic issues continues to be a distraction for him.

Patty did a great job of reading the play and jumping in when he could.

Patty had one of his best games of the season.

Patty had one of his best games of the year on both sides of the puck. He was very focused throughout.

Patty played a great game. He was taking the puck to the net, and he was a force. I think he got excited when he saw he was going to be on the point on the power play.

I will not win a game tonight to lose the next eight games. I will lose a game tonight to win the next eight games, if that makes any sense.

I think that first shot that Joe clanked off the pipe might have shaken them up a little bit. He provided a spark, but for the first time in a while we got a couple of breaks early in the game.

People are fearing him now, and that's what you want to see with Joe. He's a man on a mission. . . . Even though he's not getting points, he's totally controlling the game.

I think this is as open a year as ever in the NHL for a number of teams to win the Cup. The most important reason is because the rules aren't going to change in the post-season. It will be the same hockey, called by the same rules.

It actually gave us a chance to stop the goal from being counted. But it's just one of those things.

Our goalie kept us in the game early. We started out a little slow in the first period, but once we got our legs, we were OK. It's a wake-up call when your goalie has to constantly bail you out.

Our goal is to run the table here. The toughest game is always the next one you're going to play.

I wish it wasn't like this, but it sure seems like it's going to come down to the last game.

I think he's a lot more ready offensively than he was, but I still get on him about defensive lapses. There's a little bit Riverboat Gambler, which makes him effective offensively so you don't want to squash that too much. But you try to make him understand how the scoreboard works and the clock and how you have to make smart plays.

I think that's a definite reflection on the opportunities for business growth in the High Desert. I don't think the High Desert is a secret anymore.

I thought he could score 40 this year, and now he's there. He's exceeding all my expectations as far as I'm concerned.

It certainly helped us to get back the focus we needed. We were set up on the wrong side of the ice, and we obviously want to get the puck in Joe's hands.

We need a complete team effort in order to beat a team like Detroit, especially here and we didn't get it. We'll just throw it away and move on to the next game. If you're going to have one of these games on the road trip, I'd sooner have it against Detroit than somebody else.

Tremendous play by Joe. That play was unbelievable. He's leading the league by about 20 assists. He makes plays every night.

You know, Gary Bettman was here today, so... hello!?! It doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a sportswriter to figure out what that means.

We were just way too casual the whole second period. We never worked hard enough to deserve anything the rest of the period. And they took advantage of every silly little mistake we made. We got what we deserved.

We didn't come here to win just one round. That's not why we played so hard down the stretch. We want to continue to improve. We want a shot at the Cup, simple. We've got to wait, see who we play, prepare and go at them equally as hard.

We just didn't have the energy level we needed to do the job and it was pretty obvious early on. The only thing I was hoping for was their energy level would sink because it was their third game in four nights, too.

We just didn't have the energy to get anything going. It was a struggle all night. We weren't generating any shots, especially in the third period.

Most impressive to me about the group is how they've grasped the rules and played disciplined. Hopefully that gives us a bit of a head start that our guys have understood what the rules are right off the bat.

You can already see that Patty is freed up a little more. We did give up a lot to get Joe, but this is a trade that's going to give a lot of people an opportunity to shine and do things they haven't done. He's everything I thought he was.

You just never know what a preseason means. Is it an illusion or reality? I truly believe we're a good team and I think if we've gotten anything out of the preseason, it's the process you go about, and winning will take care of itself. Our players understand that and they're focused on doing things right.

That's the positive, we're not going in thinking it's automatic. We're going to have to work for those wins.

We got the upper hand quick, they did a lot of complaining and the next thing you know, we have five penalties in a row against us and it threw us off our rhythm. From that point on, you never knew what was going to be a penalty.

We found a way to get it done.

We had too many casual moments. As we were getting power plays, especially in the second period, we just didn't bear down. It was sloppy. It was just like we were on our own plan.

We gave up only 14 shots. We've seem to have found our rhythm. We thought they'd come out harder at the beginning, but we had more air in our tires than they did.

We made a poor play on the power play and they took advantage. We could have quit, but we didn't.

We dominated the game for 35 minutes and we should have been up 4-, 5-, or 6-0. We talked before the game if we hit a bump in the road, we'd just bury it and move on.

We were more aggressive and did what we had to do. We played with a lot more sense of urgency on our penalty kill than we did the other night for some reason.

We were more aggressive and played with a lot more sense of urgency. Everything seemed to work, and we're going to have to be ready to make adjustments on the fly in the next game.

We've got teams we have to beat, those teams that are behind us. They've all given us a hard time at various points this year.

We handed two points away. That's a shame. We had the puck on our stick and didn't get the puck out of our zone. When stuff like that happens at this point of the season, it's inexcusable. But we'll bounce back.

We finally had 18 skaters totally committed. The last two games, I couldn't say that.

That's the key to the game, keep the hope alive.

That was not a good call. . . . That's what (expletive) you off. You've got a great hockey game going and you get put down on a questionable call.

That was huge, to respond to some adversity. We're going to face this kind of stuff when we're on the road, and it's great for our confidence, to be able to win that kind of game.

The extra couple of days certainly help the coaching staff. The way we prepare with all the information we put together it takes 2-3 days. This gives us enough time to be prepared.

We've still got a lot of work ahead of us, but we're going into games now feeling a little bit different knowing we've gotten somewhere and we're totally in control of our own destiny.

We're 3-0 and scored 15 goals since we picked up Thornton. It's kind of nice, the things you were hoping would happen with the trade have.

We didn't want to start with a 2-0 hole, and we talked about how to avoid that, but we found ourselves in that position. Fortunately, our power play was clicking tonight and got the job done.

We didn't want to tempt fate and have a close game because we thought they would come at us. We seemed to have a lot more jump, more air in our tires than they did.

We deserved what we got in the second period.

We desperately need the space. Our high school, especially, is severely crowded at this point and has been for years. We've known this for a long time.

You look up and see 40 shots against, but I don't really remember too many of them being grade-A chances. The shots were from the outside, the defense did a great job and our forwards competed like heck.

You look up and see 40 shots against, but I don't remember too many great chances.

We're not even close to worn out. If we were worn out, the schedule would have killed us, and it didn't. We're a young team, and these guys are excited. They're all fired up. When you get on a roll like this, you storm into the playoffs.

We had some guys were probably already sitting on the plane ready to go home and that's not what we needed in a game like this. Now we've got to find a way to get back points we absolutely need.

We're a team that's pretty resilient. We showed that this year, and now, I mean, I would've loved to have won both games in Nashville. We've got to try and get a split.

We had an opportunity to jump on a loose puck in our end and we didn't. Then we got a little tired in the end and didn't know what was going on around us.

We had a number of chances and he made some great saves in traffic. I think we generated six, seven scoring chances. You can't ask for more than that.

We can't sit back and expect Joe to score three or four goals and we jump on his back. He has to do his job and we have to do our job.

We were sharp right from the get-go. We talked about that at length before the game about being ready and keeping it simple.

There comes a point when we have to have some people step up and play as well as you can. That's a lack of trust if you're trying to do too much. If one guy tries to play 1-on-1 hockey, that's telling your teammates they aren't good enough.

There comes a point where we have to have some people step up and play as well as they can and make sure that their teammates aren't trying to do too much. And you have to respect people around you. That's a lack of trust if you don't think other people can do the job that you try to do too much.

This road trip, I think, gives us a lot of confidence. They were all tough games.

We thought they might be a little weary, especially this time of year, and psychologically they can go up or down. You want to jump a team like that as quickly as you can, and we had a lot of energy.

We're not paying attention. Our defense has to stay back and we only had one in position. They picked us apart. A tired mental mistake was made at that point, not looking and not understanding or seeing what you've got off a rush.