Ron Wilson Time Quotations

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'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.

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.

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.

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 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.

You have to confront the things that happened the year before. To stick your head in the sand is the wrong approach. We need to figure out what went wrong and why it went wrong, then address those issues and move on. It's been fun for me to have a full training camp and to have some time and patience in the preseason without being under the microscope of winning and losing.

This is an important time of the year and that's always the test - can you maintain what you're doing that's so successful in spite of being behind or not being able to cash in?

I'm happy with that. I don't know why, if it's just fluky we caught teams at the right time or what.

If you look at the guys who left and add up the goals they scored, it really wasn't very many. They provided leadership and stability in the room, and now it's time for other guys to have that responsibility, because they're mature enough to handle it.

That is the first time its ever happened for this franchise. Since we picked up Joe (Thornton), we've had one of the most dangerous power plays in the league.

Darryl can say all he wants that it has no impact on him, but there will be some emotional ties. I know how I felt the year, two years after every time we played against Anaheim (a team that let Wilson go as coach). I wanted to beat them bad. You're always going to think about being let go.

He's a horse. The more you play him, the better he gets. If we were in first place, it would be a different story, but we're not. I'll do everything I can to get ourselves in position to make the playoffs and, according to how the game goes, manage his ice time that way.