After going 4-2 while away from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area for 10 days, the Penguins were back at practice this morning at the Coal Street Rink, preparing for a Wednesday trip to Syracuse: their last road game before a home game this weekend against Norfolk on Saturday.
During the course of the road trip, I talked to several players on the team and got a sense of what the road trip meant for them. Not only gaining crucial points against teams near them in the standings, but a look at getting the guys together on the road and getting on the same page heading down the stretch. Quickly, here are some thoughts from the guys on their road trip:
"It was exciting for me. I haven't played here since high school so coming back to Maine was awesome. Not that there's added pressure, but you always want to perform well, especially when there's going to be a lot of people there watching you. It was awesome to get the two points." - Brian Dumoulin on returning to his home state after March 9th's OT win over Portland.
"We knew coming into this game we had to come out strong and I think we did that. We got into some penalty trouble in the 2nd but it was a good moral victory for the boys: come back and score a few goals, four goals on the board is nice, and to win in overtime is always exciting. A little melee at the end is always fun to get the boys together." - Trevor Smith on the game and melee that ensued on March 9th at Portland.
"These are the wins that build championship teams. We just got to get the momentum off this and keep going." - Chad Kolarik on Sunday's win over Manchester.
"It was just a situation where guys are hungry to be able to win. It took a complete team effort to do it." - Head Coach John Hynes on the win against Manchester (3/10).
"To come back from down 2-0 (last Saturday in Portland) we showed a lot of resielence. It was a long trip but we're glad to go home with 4 out of 6. Out of six games we felt like we only played one bad one, battled hard throughout, played alot of teams that were around us and we felt like we did a good job of getting points." - Joey Mormina on March 16th's come from behind victory.
"I think our game bodes well on the road. The style we're trying to get to and the keys we're focusing on are more implemented on the road than they are at home and I think we did a great job on this trip. We battled back in some games to get some big points and we are in a race." - Warren Peters' thoughts on the road trip.Everyone was present on the ice for the Pens this morning for the exception of Phil Dupuis and Tom Kuhnhackl (out for season).
Lines at today's practice:
Holzapfel - Smith - Kolarik
Collins - Gibbons - Megna
Payerl - Peters - Thompson
Farnahm - Sill - Uher/MacIntyre
Reese - Dumoulin
Mormina - Grant
Morrow/Wild - Samuelsson
Zatkoff - Thiessen
0 comments:
Post a Comment