We weren’t as ready as we should be. If we take ’em, we’ve got to kill penalties. They had pretty much the whole first period in power plays, and they earned that.

We were literally one shot away, one second away from winning the Stanley Cup.

Ted was made the interim executive director the day [outgoing executive director] Bob Goodenow resigned [on July 28],

They’re a good team, they’re fast and we knew they would be. We’ve got to match that and unfortunately we didn’t.

It’s always a shock, you never expect these things. All the guys, we wish them well. We know they’re very good players and great teammates. It’s part of hockey and we respect the players that...

I take pride in it and I do think about it. It’s hard to put in words, but [watching black hockey players when I was growing up] made me feel it was possible. So knowing...

We were terrible in front of (Boucher). It wasn’t even close to the style of game we want to play all the way around. It was a terrible game. We were very sloppy. Our strength...

Learning to play in big games, Game 7 and Game 6, all of it is a whole different level. It’s different hockey, it’s great hockey. On the other side of it, we were that close...

It was a big boost,

In that area there’s a lot to live up to — what a machine Gelly was,

Kipper was good on that one. I was trying to go five hole and he closed it down pretty good.

It’s not just the saves he makes, it’s the timing of them too. He is easily the No. 1 reason why we’re fighting for the top of the division.

We got ourselves in penalty trouble tonight. I think we had five penalties in the third period. In a tie game, it’s hard to get offense.

There are some similarities. It’s just the feeling. It didn’t feel great then [when Canada got off to a 1-1-1 start] and it doesn’t feel great now. But the confidence is still there.

This is amazing to me, I don’t get it. No one on my team phoned me to express any displeasure with Ted’s hiring, I can tell you that.

That’s unacceptable. We know that in our room,

It’s the toughest loss by a thousand times. It’s a very good season and I’m so proud of everybody but that hurts more than anything else I’ve been a part of.

I’m very, very excited. Tony Amonte is a natural goal scorer with his speed and playing against him for so many years, knowing that, especially in the new NHL, where speed is going to matter...

It’s going to be a great battle. Both are improved, both are quick, both like to play physical.

But we know it’s going to be tough, nobody in our room is getting ahead of it.

It has a lot of implications in the division. We can be five up on Colorado with three games in hand or we can be three down, so it could be a big difference.

Its a big win and it feels good, but we know we need to get better and we know it’s going to get tougher.

I’m excited to continue my career with the Flames and help this team finish what we started in the 2004 playoffs,

I think confidence it a big part of everybody’s game. I think the last six games or so, I’ve just been feeling better and as a group, we’ve been creating more scoring chances, and it’s...

I’ll have to work on some breakaway moves. I think there’s going to be more two-on-ones and more breakaways. It should be fun to watch though.

What’s important is to keep going but yeah, we’re thinking we want to clinch. But then we want the division. Those are exciting things, for sure, and they’re in our sight.

We got ourselves into penalty trouble. They had five in the third period, or something like that, and two five-on-threes. You can’t give any team that many chances.

It’s been a tough couple of days, but they showed up today and were upbeat and feeling good and that rubs off on all of us. We talked about that last night, we’ve got to...

Everybody thinks about it a bit. You try not to. This year it seems a little bit quieter around our place, which is good with us.

They’ve always been pretty quick and we probably made them look quicker,

I don’t think he ever beat me [in practice], not once.

We’ll learn and adjust from that game. Teams are too good around the league. You can’t start like that.

There’s some grunting. The challenge is how fast you go from that tuck to that full position.

The last couple of minutes they broke it open,

We don’t know the exact secret, it’s about sticking with it and staying positive. It’s not just being in front, we had legitimate chances in front of the net, we had two-on-ones.

I think it’s great. You can just see he’s competing. I thought he gave us a boost. We scored pretty shortly after that.

We got some great power-play opportunities and fortunately we were able to put it in. Those can be big momentum shifts one way or the other whether you get one or not.

We’re right near the bottom of the league in offense and as forwards, we take it personally. If you look around the room, every single one of us has more to give and wants to...

We do think we’re going to be a really competitive club and we want to be one of the top clubs, but we know it’s not going to be easy, … We’re not going to...

He’s a top D-man in the league. He obviously was a pretty big boost out there for them.

It’s going to bea great battle, no question. I’m really looking forward to it. Even though we weren’t two of the top teams, they were always some pretty good battles. And I think this year...

I really like the position of our team, … We’re a young team that has a young core that’s still intact and now we’re one of those teams that’s going to benefit from having free...

I think definitely all the way around the league there’s more parity. The movement throughout the league has been exciting to watch as a player and a fan.

That one wasn’t so funny because he got hurt.

[In exchange for the cap, the players get more control over their rights and a pension three times larger than the one under the previous deal and easier to attain.] Before, our rights were we...

We knew they’d raise their game. They’re one of the top teams in the conference and we didn’t match them after they started coming.

In our last couple of games, we’ve just been a bit sloppier than what our game is and we’ve given up way too many goals. We’ve got to get back to doing what we do...

I’m sure he didn’t want that, either. He was in there battling. Personally, I had a bunch there in the first I’d love to have back.

We didn’t like the way we woke up this morning and saw they had jumped ahead of us. That’s what makes these back-to-backs so much fun is if you lose, you get a chance to...

They were more desperate than us off the start and we didn’t match it. It was that first period where we were very flat and they were good. They got out ahead of us and...