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"He had six shots on net, but he probably had 12 opportunities and missed his shots. I might have to get him to see an optometrist or something, see if he can find the net for him."

"Maybe we mis-read our skills a little bit. People who keep trying to get a different result from doing the same thing aren’t very smart."

During Pat Quinn’s Maple Leaf era, I never saw him look or sound as defeated as he did following Edmonton’s 4-1 loss in San Jose Saturday night. (The clip is edited for length on the Oilers’ website, so the full effect is lost.) Quinn was almost always defiant during the tough times in Toronto; always an "I’ll show you!" response to any doubt, one of the intriguing things about covering him. It was really jarring to see him like that.

"All teams pre-scout and they know that they can jump our side man because he's just going to stand still or try to make the pretty little play without moving. And he's no threat to shoot, so he's nothing, he's a passer. And none of our side guys are big guys. If he's going to stand still and he's not big enough to win a fight for the puck and never shoots, you … pretty much nullify that play. We have to get moving and we have to be a threat to shoot."

"They're hard to swallow but we have to come back and keep working on it. We're going to get there, but boy, the pain that's going along with it is not a likeable thing."

"His play has dramatically improved, especially his positional play. A lot of times he would get anxious to carry the puck, and he's good at it, but he would slow us down sometimes when he had an opportunity to move it. He's been moving it quickly lately, and I think he's benefiting from that because he spends less time with it on his stick, gets less attention and we get out of trouble faster. He's been quite good, both him and (Ladislav) Smid have been quite good.

We're going to try to keep him playing like that. He's been our best guy from the start of the season and he keeps hungry for it, which is what good athletes do, keep hungry for that success. We hope he keeps that up.

"The other night we outchanced Chicago at the end of the game. What's the score? Did it look bad? Did we give three open net goals? Did we screw up right on the doorstep where we do? Did we beat ourselves again? Yes"
-- Pat Quinn, severely underimpressed with Saturday night's game

I thought that he's been very, very good. This is what happens with coaches, you admire talent and skill, and you see the potential for upside, you don't know how it's going to go and get there and when that skill is going to become the full player. Then a guy comes in who hadn't made your team and he's doing all of the little things a lot better than maybe some of the skill guys. And that's kind of what's happened here. He's been more respectable about his offense, he's chipped in a little bit there. He's not a big skill guy, he's not one of the ones you'd find on the list over here, but he doesn't miss his assignments, he's responsible defensively, he's chipped in a little bit on the offense, and suddenly you start saying when you're putting your lines together you say "Oh, maybe, maybe that's a guy that's gotta play".

We are the turn over queens.