from Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch,

Q. Do you feel like you’ve got a team in that dressing room that can compete?

A. Yeah, absolutely. I still believe in this team. It’s the same team that went 19-5-5 last year, with the addition of a couple of good, young players (Ryan Murray, Boone Jenner) that we’ve added. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to do the same things as last year. But the biggest difference right now is that last year’s team was playing together, was competing hard every night. We were a hard team to play against, playing defensively a really tight game, smart, doing all the little things right. Right now it’s not there. This league is too good. You can’t have that. You can’t expect to go out and play like we did against Edmonton in the first period and expect good results. I’m not even talking about the goals, or the 7-0, but the way we came out of the gate in the first period. It was just unacceptable.

Q. Is this in any way a coaching issue?

A. No. (chuckles) We still have the same coaches we had last year, and they had the team playing very disciplined, very hard-working. It’s up to the players to look in the mirror and see if they can play the game the same way they did last year. It’s about the individual.

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