–The Ottawa Sun‘s Bruce Garrioch writes about the game (link), with Nick Foligno summarizing the final play, “(David) Rundblad makes an outstanding play, he keeps it in and then makes a beautiful pass to Alfie, and Alfie makes a nice shot on net for a rebound, and I was there to put the puck in the net. We definitely have a knack for winning in dramatic fashion this year. It was pretty nice to get that one.” Jason Spezza adds, “We’ve got to close those games out, that’s not how we want to end them, but we showed great character and it feels good to get that win.”
—The Ottawa Sun‘s Don Brennan’s Cheapseats article (link) includes David Rundblad talking about his buddy Mika Zibanejad leaving, “We shared a (hotel) room for 1½ months [mostly spent on PlayStation]. Yeah, I will (miss him) a little bit. But all the guys on the team are really nice, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.” Brennan suggests Rundblad won’t be going to Binghamton, but Paul MacLean wouldn’t say it definitively, “David has worked on his defensive game and he’s been a real good player for us. If he continues to improve and play the way he’s playing, there’s really no reason to make any change to his status.”
-I haven’t referenced Rundblad‘s blog for awhile because I had a dead link, but it does continue (link). His October 26th entry includes hopes that he gets some powerplay time (commenting that it’s a matter of Gonchar and Karlsson never come off the ice). He answers a series of questions (October 17th), which includes him saying that his adjustment to North America has been helped by all the Swedes; he also mentions how hard it is to eat properly living in a hotel; he says the difference between Skelleftea coach Anders Forsberg and Paul MacLean is that the former emphasizes offensive creativity while the latter focuses on defensive responsibility (he believes the reason behind that is the kind of team each coaches); he says his goal is to play in as many games as possible; he says the main difference on the smaller surface is moving his feet more and moving the puck quicker (he adds in another answer that he’s been told to play more aggressively one-on-one); he mentions hanging out with Stephane Da Costa and Jared Cowen because they are also living in hotels. Rundblad has a lot of patience–he got asked some odd questions.
-Joy Lindsay posted a ton of comments from Kurt Kleinendorst (link). It’s worth reading them all through, but the highlight: “Well, I think you take a look, our personalities, our individual personalities, are kind of quiet. I guess if I could say … how would you characterize your time? I would characterize this group as, for the most part, being quiet. And if you transfer that over to hockey, quiet isn’t necessarily good. So what we’re doing in practice is, we’re trying to take quiet players and make them loud. That’s probably the best analogy I can make for you. I mean, we’re trying to teach guys how hard they have to work every day to be good at pro hockey. And right now, some of them, it’s just not their nature. So we’re basically trying to break them and get them to understand that this is the way you need to play if you’re going to be a good pro player. You’ve got to shoot, you’ve got to be hard on pucks, you’ve got to be in the battle, you’ve got to be engaged — you can’t be soft to play against. Soft in hockey doesn’t work anymore. And that’s kind of, that’s the best way for me to put it right now. I don’t like that word soft because people translate that to kind of, being pansies. That’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t know that, I just think that we’re a little bit quiet, is probably the best word to use. And we need to be loud. And we were loud on Saturday. And we were quiet on Friday.”
-Joy Lindsay also posted player quotes (link), including thoughts from obviously Josh Godfrey: “Ah, you know, I’m learning a lot. A little bit different system than I’m used to with the Capitals, obviously, but I think things are really coming into place.” And “Obviously, I had an assist in the game, but I was overall happy with how I played, and I think Coach was pretty happy, so hopefully I can keep it going this weekend.” And “Obviously, I went down there to Elmira for two weeks to get some games in, and that worked out for the best. I got to play a ton when I went down there. But obviously, I would have liked to play exhibition games here and got the games out of the way and begun the season here. But I’m happy the way it worked out. I’m here now, and hopefully I’m here to stay.”
-Binghamton and Elmira are in action tonight; no morning skate for Binghamton because of a problem with the arena’s compressors (as per Joy Lindsay).
-A bit off topic, but Sports Illustrated‘s Stu Hackel looks if the New York Islanders will move to Quebec (link). He writes “Some will hear Bettman’s words [mentioning staying in Nassau or moving to two other locations in New York] and detect that he’s at a loss to see where this is going, but he can be an extremely influential figure in matters of franchise locations and new arenas.” Bettman says he doesn’t believe the Islanders will leave New York, but given the agreement that locks Wang into staying there for another three years it’s an easy question to deflect right now.
eyeonthesens 