MTL@CGY: Quotes of the night

CALGARY - The Canadiens dropped their second straight game on Saturday night, falling 3-1 to the Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

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Following the contest, defenseman Jeff Petry, forward Nick Suzuki and interim head coach Dominique Ducharme spoke with reporters via Zoom.
Here are a few highlights from their respective chats:
Petry was asked why the Canadiens struggled early:
There's no excuse for the way we played in the first and a good chunk of the second. We should've been rested. We didn't practice Friday and we didn't have a morning skate. There's no excuse. They were coming hard and we were slow.

The veteran blueliner also talked about what makes Calgary so tough to play against:
They come hard. They play fast all over the ice. If you look at their game, when they don't have anything, it's a well-placed dump and they're right on top of us. Our struggle was our support. We kind of left guys hanging, whether you left your partner hanging when he's back for the puck, we were slow to support and get in position to break the puck out. We should've known that was coming based on our last game against them. They were skating all over and we didn't do a good job supporting each other. We spent a lot more time in our defensive zone than we should've.

Even though things didn't go as planned in Alberta, Suzuki says there's no reason to panic:
I wouldn't say there's a concern. I think it's just more of a disappointing feeling. We know we can be a good team. The points are going to matter a ton coming down the stretch and over the halfway mark, so we need to pick up points, we need wins, and it's got to come fast for us. We need to start building our game. We've just got to take it to the next step.

The 21-year-old pivot evaluated the team's collective effort on Saturday night as well:
We have to find a way to be better at the start. We had good energy coming to the rink. Guys were excited. Once the puck dropped, we were sitting back. They dominated us in the first period pretty well. If it wasn't for Carey, it could've been a lot worse. But as the game went on, I thought we did a good job of responding. Starting off with a bad 30 minutes, though, is going to cost you.

For his part, Ducharme wasn't pleased with his club's performance:
There's no reason to have a start like that. I felt that our guys were ready, but we weren't moving when we hit the ice. When you aren't moving your feet, you can't execute and you can't be in the right spots. You also can't take away time and space from the other team. We weren't moving our legs. It was better in the second half of the game, but we're capable of doing a lot better.

He also updated the status of forward Phillip Danault:
He got hurt during the game. It isn't anything serious, but I'd say that it prevented him from playing to his max.