I didn't like the way we played our game. The second period killed us. A lot it was due to face-offs. It started there. Structurally, we didn't play intelligently and that bothered me. When you do that against a good team like Atlanta, they will tear you apart.

Paul does not feel pressure. He keeps his emotions in check. He thinks and prepares for the game very intelligently. It was a storybook ending with him winning the shootout against his old team.

Witt played against Joe Thornton a lot in Washington, and we've got a physical guy in (Shea) Weber. I think our defense is definitely better suited than it was at the start of the year. Having Joe Thornton go against the defense we started the year with might have been a little mismatch.

It's good for our team to be able to come into Detroit and play like that against an extremely good team. I can remember the first and second - and even the third and fourth - years of this franchise, we really had no belief that we could come in here and win.

They cycle well against anybody. You look at their top six forwards, they're big men. They can wear you down. It's hard to get it back once they start cycling. It takes a lot of energy to get the puck back sometimes. It takes away a lot of your offense.