20211114_vladar_tkachuk

DAN VLADAR ON FIRST NHL SHUTOUT:

ON MAKING SECOND STRAIGHT START:

"Surprised? It's my job to be ready for every single game. I was trying to enjoy it and give our team a chance to win. I think it was a great team effort and can't get too high from here. We have another big game in two days and we've got to keep it rolling."

MATTHEW TKACHUK ON CHAT WITH BRADY:

"It was the first time I saw him with the 'C' on and were just laughing about that. Deep down, he knows I still make the calls back home - we still live together in the summer - but he can be the captain for his team. He's got me on that. But he knows who the captain is back home.
"It's probably my mom, honestly (laughs).
"But between me and him, he knows who it is."

"I'm going to get it framed"

ON FACING DEPLETED SENS:

"We probably made that mistake against San Jose, looking too much ahead of them. But I think that was a tough lesson learned. When you're facing a team like that, they work harder than when they have all their top guys in, all their regulars in. They worked hard tonight, but I thought we were smarter, had the puck more, played in their zone more, played solid defensively in front of Dan. He was there, bailing us out when we had issues there. … We knew if we looked past these guys, we would have the same result that Pittsburgh had last night."

ON GETTING BACK IN THE WIN COLUMN:

"I thought everybody played solid in general. It was one of those momentum-type games for this road trip. The way the first two went, we had to get this one. That middle-ish game, we really needed to get the win to help propel us on the rest of this trip - to give us some life and not be playing catch-up the rest of this trip."

DARRYL SUTTER ON GIVING VLADAR THE START:

"Two-fold. At some point, he's got to play back to backs. It's really important to get that because you never know what will happen as the season progresses with everything that's been on. Also, we have to freshen Marky up. Like we talked about before the trip, if we could get him the first game - and then get Vladdy the next two - that would set the rest of the trip up."

"This was a real good gut-check for our team"

ON THE OVERALL TEAM PERFORMANCE:

"I thought it was really hard for our team. It's four (games) in six days, you know? It's a tough schedule right now and I said it the last time, when we were in that real tough part of it, your toughest opponent is that. So, how did we play? We were physically engaged in it. Those two games, Montreal and Toronto, they're hard games. They take a lot out of your team, besides the travel. They're hard games to play. So, this was a real gut-check for our team and they did a really good job. Mentally, they were probably not as sharp as they needed to be, but physically, they were really good."