TOR@MTL: Quotes of the night

MONTREAL - The Canadiens suffered a 4-2 loss at the hands of the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night at the Bell Centre.

Following the contest, forwards Corey Perry, Joel Armia and Josh Anderson spoke with reporters, along with head coach Claude Julien.
Here are a few highlights from their respective Zoom chats with the media:
While the Canadiens peppered Maple Leafs goaltender Frederik Andersen with 35 shots, Perry insists they could have been far more aggressive in terms of making things extra difficult for him:
I think he saw most of the shots, but they played a solid defensive game. You've got to give them credit when they play well. We can be better at limiting our turnovers and playing that game down low, getting to the front of the net and crashing the front of the net because every goal, you see where they were scored tonight in that five, 10-foot area of the crease. You have to go there.

As for the overall intensity level of the group, Perry believes they can definitely take things up a notch moving forward:
I think we can still play with more intensity and a little bit quicker. I think we're looking for that pass right now and it's not there, so we just have to get back to a little grind and a little mucking. There's going to be ups and downs throughout the season. You've just got to be able to handle it.
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Two of the Maple Leafs' goals were scored in 4-on-4 situations, but Armia wasn't about to read anything into that shortly after the final buzzer:
I think it shouldn't make any difference. Both teams have the same amount of guys on the ice. Maybe there's just more room on the ice, but it's the same for both teams. It shouldn't be anything too difficult.

The 27-year-old Finn was asked about his first taste of game action since January 21 when he suffered a concussion in Vancouver. After logging 15:25 of ice time, he offered up a positive self-evaluation:
I felt pretty good. I surprised myself with how good I felt. I think my legs were moving and I was good on the battles, too, so I felt good.
For his part, Anderson did his best to succinctly explain why things went wrong under 4-on-4 conditions:
They move around in the offensive zone pretty well, but we're going to have to look at some tape, see what they did and make some corrections.

Nevertheless, Anderson believes the Canadiens did deliver a solid overall effort:
I thought we started the right way tonight. I thought we were physical on their defensemen and on their top players. But again, we just came up short. It's a long year. It's going to be a long series against these guys. There's going to be a lot of good hockey.

It should come as no surprise that Julien was disappointed with the way the Maple Leafs scored two quick goals only 42 seconds apart early in the third period:
Those were mistakes. We doubled our coverage on a player during the second 4-on-4 goal. We had one player who didn't take his man in front of the net on the third Toronto goal. Those are mental mistakes that we must correct.

As for preventing Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner from lighting the lamp, that was little consolation for the veteran bench boss:
We didn't do well because we didn't win. The goal is to win the game. You have to do good work against every player. We made costly mistakes and that's why we lost.