Kevin was fine. I thought it was more an opportunity to wake up 18 guys and get ourselves back in the hockey game by doing what we have to do in terms of managing the puck, and maybe give yourself to play 5-on-5 hockey or better.

I wanted to get a checking line out against the [Scott] Gomez line. I thought that if I could do that, we could probably play our first two lines and maybe manufacture some offense.

If we're going to win this series anyway, with or without Jagr, we have to have all hands on deck. If we give ourselves a chance 5-on-5, we'll get exactly what we're looking for. If we don't, it's short.

I learned a highly valuable lesson in Vancouver about European players. You have to give your stars . . . the latitude to do extraordinary things.

This team has got itself on the brink. We've got to lock in or we're out of here. We don't want anyone to look at our regular season as a complete illusion.

I didn't think we were real sharp, real crisp (early in the game), and if we weren't careful, we might have beaten ourselves tonight. But we did hang in there and we did pay attention to details that can win you games and ultimately got ourselves a nice lead.