Lots of Quotes

Sorry for another delay in posting; it's a busy time of year. Here are the remaining quotes from my interviews for my notebook and for my preview that will run in tomorrow's Times:

Ryan Salvis on the past weekend:

"Obviously, any time you go on a three game in three night road trip, it’s going to be tough, but you still want to get those six points. Going up against Texas, they’re a good team…first game on the road trip, I think we all could have all given a better effort. But getting one on the way back, hopefully we can go with that one and use that as momentum for the next 13 games. Just a little bit of momentum. We’ve got 13 regular season games left and then playoffs, and it just matters if you’re hot going into the playoffs so hopefully we can feed off that win and down the stretch just keep building on it."

His complete thoughts on his current confidence level:

"I think first and foremost, it’s a confidence thing. Coach has shown a lot of confidence and trust in me, and that relates directly on the ice with me having confidence and with my linemates and the defensemen having confidence in me. In the game against Texas, we couldn’t really get anything going, and a couple nice passes by Jaye opened up the ice for me. Like I said, when other players on the team have confidence in you and they give you the puck, you want to do something with it. I think it’s a confidence thing right now, and things are going well, I guess."

On the coming weekend:
"I think all three are must-wins. You look at Rio, they’re right on our tail, and even Arizona has come along in the last month, month and a half. I think six points are definitely up for grab, and we’re definitely capable of getting six points. We just have to prepare for every game, and you don’t really have to think of it as three in three. We’re old enough, and we’re in good enough shape that we can play three in three. We’ve done it, this is probably the fifth time this year, so we just have to take every game one step at a time, one period at a time, and hopefully at the end of nine periods, we get six points."

On giving up on the division title:

"I think that with the history that Laredo has, we always expect to win the division and win a championship. But right now, we’re just focused on ourselves; we’re not focused on what Texas is doing. We just have to focus on our own destiny and win as many games as we can down the stretch to put ourselves in a good position for playoffs."

Darryl Smith on the road trip:

"We would have liked to go 5-for-5, but the game in Texas we didn’t really start off the way we wanted to, and it came back to bite us. Coming out 3-2 is alright, but obviously we can get better and want to be the best we can be going into the playoffs."

On the division title:

"I don’t think we’ve given up on it. We’re just trying to focus more on our game. We know it’s a big deficit right now, but we want to close the gap as much as we can. Obviously the season’s still not over, so there’s still a chance."

On personnel:

"It’s pretty easy to play with (Cullaton), and he always finds me out in the open. I’m sure once those guys come back, they’ll help the team, too, so it’s pretty exciting to get them back and see what happens."

Coach Ruskowski on momentum from the last win:

"As a coach, you always hope so, but sometimes it’s a false pretense. If we’re in a good mood, we might just take that for granted even though we didn’t play the way we should this weekend. Winning one game is good and to have everyone be on the bus…we hope the players understand that when you win, everything is good, you’re happy, you sleep well, your appetite’s there. When you don’t win, maybe your stomach hurts, you don’t want to go out because you’re embarrassed of losing for your home crowd in Laredo; it’s a bad feeling, and I hate that feeling, so obviously we want to win more than we lose. It was funny because as the guys were coming on the bus, I saw Goupil come on the bus, and I don’t know why, but he came to me, and I said, ‘You know what, winning is a lot better than losing.’ He looked up at me and said, ‘I guess you’re right.’ And it’s true. The guys feel better about themselves, and I’m hoping this is momentum we can build on in the week coming up here."

On Salvis:

"When he first got here, I obviously didn’t know his capabilities and his style of play. All I had to go by was what everyone else told me, that he was a good player, works hard…I looked at his number, and he had okay numbers, not great numbers. And I told him, ‘You know what, you’ll get ice time when I have confidence in you to play in those type of situations.’ He showed me. He showed me that he can play hard, he showed me that he can be physical. He’s scored some good goals, made nice assists, played good defense. Now, not just one game, but it has to take five, six, seven games for me to get confidence in a person. I’ve got confidence that he can do the job, and he really hasn’t let me down at all. There are times when I have to tell other players to pick it up, but very seldom do I have to tell Salvis to pick it up. He plays hard the majority of the time, and I’m happy with that effort, and I hope it continues to go around to everybody. You can work hard and not get anything done, or you can work hard and play smart and get a lot of things done, so we’ve got to work hard and play smart."

On Josh Bonar:

"Well, it’s still kind of a mystery to me. He just puts himself in situations where he can score, where he has the opportunity to score. I like that. He hasn’t been scoring on a regular basis, but he’s been making some nice plays and good shots and the goalie’s either making a nice save or he shoots it right at them. But hopefully, once he gets his confidence, I think he’ll be a factor, hopefully that he can get back to last year when he scored 21 goals for Rio Grande. I want him to get back in that mode, so hopefully if he scores it’ll take the pressure off everybody else, and then everybody else will start scoring on a regular basis."

On Mickey Gilchrist:

"He’s supposed to be flying in tomorrow, so we’ll try to get him established as quickly as possible, get his physical, make sure he’s proper health-wise, have a morning skate, see what he does, then throw him into the fire. No chance to really get adapted to the system, but good players don’t take long to get adapted to what they have to do."

On how Gilchrist will impact the team:

" As a coach, you’re always hoping the next move that you make is going to be the one that kind brings everything together and jels everybody together, and I’m hoping that this could be the case. Then you’re looking at Rick (Kozak) and Bobby Russell coming off the IR, so you’re hoping and you’re praying that things start to fall into place like a puzzle. Then finally, when the puzzle’s ready, it’s playoff time, and we can focus fully on the playoffs and do well there."

On Kozak and Russell's returns:

"Probably within two weeks. You know, what I really like about this is the maturity of both of them. I’m really happy. When we were on the road, they went to the gym to work out, they come in their sweats here and they just work hard skating-wise and keeping up their cardiovascular and keeping their weight down. I like that; without me having to tell them to do it, they do it on their own. I like that; I like their leadership and them doing it on their own without me having to worry about that because I have too much to worry about as it is."

On everyone's status for this weekend:

"I expect everybody to play…there’s a couple question marks, probably one question mark for sure, but other than that, everyone should play. I’d just rather see them in games than in practice. If they’re more healthy for their games, I’d rather not have them practice. They know the systems, all they have to do is make sure they’re mentally prepared to do that. Hopefully they’re healthy enough to play hard and play well, and it will be an advantage for us in the games, not in practice."

On Serge Dube, Adam Rivet and Steve Weidlich leaving Tuesday's practice early:
"They stayed for an hour. They had to get out because the Junior Diabetes has a luncheon today, and we’re going to go there. We’ve always supported them, and they’ve always been good to us, so we like to support that event. Very good people there, kind people who take time out of their lives to do the work for junior diabetes. Everybody who’s involved with charity, my hats are off to them because it takes a long time to put together, and we like to support them as much as we can."

On Jeff Bes:

"It’s kind of day to day and week to week to see how he feels and how things are going for him. It’s a long process.You have to be patient, and we’ll see what happens down the road. The cutoff point’s probably the last game of the season. We’ll see what he can do there; if he’s skating and doing things before then, he obviously has a chance to play. The thing I don’t want to do is rush him coming back in here so he can’t play for next year, too. We have to understand the severity of the operation and the injury, and we have to handle him with kid glove care."

On playing at the same level against all opponents:

"Never underestimate anybody. Play the game hard every shift of every period you play. That’s how it should be the whole season; no matter who you play, you play the game hard. We have to win. You don’t look at the stats; you look at your own personal self, and you have to know that you have to win. That’s the bottom line."

On today's practice lines (which included Erick Lizon as one of Smith's wings):

"It’s experimental. We may start with that, but of course, with our situation, we change up quite a bit. We’ll see how it works. If it works well, we’ll keep it; if it doesn’t work, we’ll change it up. I’m not the type of the guy who if something doesn’t work tries to keep whipping it until it does work. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work; we’ll put somebody else in those positions, see if the shoe fits."

On the defense needing to protect the goalie:

"It’s so important. So important. Our defense is really the backbone of our team. We’ve talked about this before; they’re just so important. If they play solid, good hockey and move the puck, the forwards play better and the goalies are more in tune to what’s going on. They’re kind of the backbone of my team; when they play well, the team plays well."

On this week's practices:

"We just went through the things that we lacked a little bit in the games on the road. We went through that, we just emphasized what we have to do. We changed a couple things up to be more effective, and we went through that again today to know that this is what we have to do. We change things up just to try to keep them mentally sharp and aware of what’s going on and try to keep the other team off-balance."

On Russell helping him run practices:

"He has at times. He goes for therapy in the morning, he and Jeff Bes, and he comes here, and he’s the kind of guy who works out hard and tells the guys what to do. If he has an idea, he’s not shy to tell me, and I’m not shy to listen. An old dog can learn new tricks, and I want to learn new tricks."

Hopefully all that can keep you busy for a while!

Yesterday's CHL Scores: Brahmas 6, IceRays 3; RiverKings 6, Jackalopes 4; Oilers 5, Eagles 4 (OT); Killer Bees 6, Sundogs 2.

Tonight's CHL Scores: Thunder 5, Oilers 2; Blazers 3, Mudbugs 2 (SO); Rage 7, Rush 1; Scorpions 5, Gorillas 4.

Last Night's NHL Scores: Flyers 4, Capitals 2; Ducks 3, Sabres 2; Bruins 6, Panthers 1; Thrashers 4, Avalanche 3; Senators 4, Hurricanes 2; Canadiens 3, Canucks 0; Kings 2, Wild 1 (SO); Predators 5, Blackhawks 3; Blues 2, Coyotes 1; Oilers 5, Lightning 3; Flames 4, Blue Jackets 1.

Tonight's NHL Scores: Flyers 2, Kings 0; Penguins 1, Islanders 0; Red Wings 4, Sharks 1; Maple Leafs 2, Rangers 1 (SO).