“We’ve got a lot of good character in our locker room. These are good people. These are good players. They believe and they care. I truly believe they’re going to step up for us and hopefully find ways for us to win games for us at the start.

“Then you add Sid and Geno [Malkin] and you go, ‘Hmm, this is a pretty darn good team here.’ These guys know what’s at stake. They know we have to win games early in the year. I’m confident that we will.”

-Ron Hextall, GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Mike DeFabo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more from Hextall.