'I LOVE THE CITY'

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ON HIS LINE WITH #28 and #19:

"I felt really comfortable playing with those two guys (Lindholm and Tkachuk) they're both really smart, talented hockey players. They've done a great job in this league for a while now. It was great to play with Chucky, I've never had the opportunity to do that for the first five, six years with this team. But whether I was playing with Chucky, Lindy or Mony (Sean Monahan), you need to find a line that you're comfortable with and can create chemistry with and take it from there. That's how it felt when we got put together for the few games there."

ON TEAM BEING 'A CONTENDER':

"We definitely are. I feel comfortable with the guys in our locker-room. If we did a few things different early on in the year, we'd be in the playoffs right now. That's not the way it went and that's unfortunate, but I feel really comfortable with all the guys in the locker-room. They work really hard, love to come to the rink and prepare, and we've got a good group of guys in the locker-room that I love playing with. For me personally, it eats away at me just as much as my first season after that second round exit that when you lose, you're done. You didn't reach that end goal that you wanted to as a team. ... I want to play well and I want to help this team win a cup eventually and that's something I'm really looking forward to in the future."

THE KEY FOR NEXT SEASON:

"We can't win two and then lose two throughout the year. We've have to go out and win three, win four, maybe lose one, then win three, four, five more. You can't have long losing slumps and then try to play catchup all season. There's a lot of work that we have to do here, but I see the guys in our locker-room and I see a really good group in there that we can accomplish that."