• “There was too much pressure for Varlamov to start in New York, so I wanted to see him in game 2, and see how he does.  We had a lot of faith in him at that point.”
• Is there a lot of pressure on Varlamov?  “He’s so quiet, I don’t know if it’s affecting him; he has a good poker face, seems very calm.  Quite frankly, I haven’t talked to him. But our goalie coach talked to him and says he’s OK.”
• What has Chris Clark’s impact been on the team?  “He was completely positive despite being out of the lineup for most of two years.  He really stayed involved with the team.  I didn’t know what he was going to bring to the last game, but I thought he played a really good game.  Nobody works as hard as Chris to stay in game shape.  The guys as a whole were really pleased to see him back.  He was the perfect influx of energy for game 7.”
• “Our goal isn’t to win the first round; our goal is to win all the rounds.  We have to play a lot better if we’re going to win.”
• “We didn’t play the New York Islanders, we played the New York Rangers, one of the top defensive teams in the league.  You don’t expect guys to average a lot of points per game.  That was the best 7-game stretch we had since I’ve been here; we did everything right except score points.”
• Regarding Mike Green’s efforts in the first round:  “I don’t expect him to score every game.  He was great.  If Chris Pronger had done that, they would have lauded him as the MVP of the series.”
• How were you able to coach, with Game 5 being so loud?  “Instruction is pretty difficult, other than screaming at them.  For line changes, you gotta tap them and make sure they’re looking at you, and the other coaches repeat what I’m saying because it’s so hard to hear.”
• What about Tom Poti?  “He’s the one defenseman who has a lot of experience.  He’s played in a lot of tough buildings.  He’s stepped up his game tremendously in the playoffs as we knew he could; he’s playing up to the potential I thought he’d be playing at the whole year.”