The special teams came alive for both teams, but only one was going to be able to succeed in the shootout. The Columbus Blue Jackets came out ahead 3-2, and the team had a lot to say postgame about the dramatic win.
John Tortorella
On the 48 shots taken by the Blue Jackets: "I gotta watch the game, but I like our mindset. We spent the past couple of days talking about that we have to shoot the puck more. We can certainly see they were thinking about that tonight."
On how he selected the players for the shootout: "After you get through three or four, it's a flip a coin. I'm catching crap from my general manager using Hanni (Markus Hannikainen), but I looked at Hanni, and he was, you look at those guys and some just bury their head like this on the ice, and they don't want to look at you. I asked Hanni 'can you do it?' and he says 'yep' and I wanted to give him a chance."
On the power play: "Yeah, again, I am not going to talk about the power play. It was nice to score a couple of goals."
On Nick Foligno's leadership: "Scores a goal for us, has some hits. I thought he did a good job protecting pucks. I gotta look at the video and watch his whole game, but I try to give him as much opportunity as he could tonight.
Nick Foligno
On scoring his first power play goal: "Just happy, it was a big goal. 1-0 game and obviously I haven't been on the score sheet much. Just felt like I was doing a lot of the right things out there and you know making a difference offensively, so yeah it's a little bit more excitement than normal."
On Panthers' goaltender James Reimer: "He made some good saves. I mean he had that one point blank on Andy (Josh Anderson). I mean I think it just hits him. Andy just rifles it at him and some other good ones too.
On the power play in general: "It just shows how important they are to the game. We need those goals, and it's nice to see them going in and the right things happening on the power play and the momentum we're gaining from it and not losing it. That's really important going forward."
Boone Jenner
On where he is offensively: "I don't know, it's tough to say. I'm just working away, and I think I am creating chances. I think I have been good in that aspect."
On the team allowing a late power play goal late in the third period: "It happens, you obviously don't want it to happen. Bounces like that are gonna happen. So its a good job staying with it. We had a couple of chances in overtime and then stuck with it."
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