18 Quotes by Mark Eaton

We finished up the last couple weeks playing some of our best hockey of the year, especially defensively, and the old cliche 'Defense wins championships,' that's an important part of our game.

We tried to learn from our mistakes (Monday). Their success comes from their defensemen shooting the puck and the guy in front not allowing the goalie to catch the puck cleanly. If they shot the puck, we wanted it to be from the outside or the boards.

We feel like we're in a pretty good spot right now, but we still want to work our way up. There's still almost a third of the season left to play and there's a lot of teams lumped together so we know that we can't afford any long stretch of losses or we could be on the outside looking in.

The thing that makes it difficult is that every team in this league has a lot of pride. If you see that a team has beaten you the last three or four games, a sense of pride takes over and you say, 'Enough is enough.' It's like what we did earlier this season against Los Angeles.

After nine years I think it's time to give someone else the chance.

It was fun and it brought back good memories. I probably hadn't swung a bat in five years and I'd never used a wooden bat.

It shows you right there what kind of a player he is and what kind of heart he has. That's what playoffs are all about ? even though you've already been through a long season, all the aches and pains seem to go away. You know the Cup is just 16 wins away.

It's such a competitive league that you can't turn it on and off like a switch. You want to stay on top, stay in playoff mode and stay in high gear. You don't want to have to get up again after taking a week or week-and-a-half off.

The losing is coming at a bad time. We have to figure out a way to win games. It doesn't have to be pretty, but we have to win.