Grabbing a point after being out shot 43-30 may feel like a small victory, but losing your first game after the All-Star break on home ice is a victory of no kind. Such is the case for the Columbus Blue Jackets after a shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild tonight.
John Tortorella kept it brief after a wild disappointing loss. Here's the team reaction from inside the locker room.
John Tortorella
On the team's poor second period performance: "[We] lost the battles, beginning of the second."
On continuing second period issues: "Gotta win more battles."
On the second goal for the Wild: "The problem is we have a guy change, which he shouldn't have done, and we have another guy just watching the play weak side."
Brandon Dubinsky
On his first game back: "It felt pretty good, I think better than I actually thought it was going to.
"[I'm] just happy to get back in the locker room, be on the bench, banter with the guys here in the dressing room."
Nick Foligno
On having everybody back on the Blue Jackets' top power play unit: "It felt good to have a lot of guys back. I thought [Dubinsky] was really noticeable tonight, the lines seemed to flow a lot better. We need that effort, we need that understanding of how we need to play."
Cam Atkinson
On the second period: "We took our foot off the gas pedal and just didn't battle."
On if the loss stings more now that they have two veterans back from injury: "[Dubinsky] hasn't played in a month and a half, this is my second game in a month, so it's gonna take some time just coming off break."
On the power play assist to Artemi Panarin: "I just wanted to slow the play down and get full control, and finally just gave it to [Seth Jones]. Jonesy slowed it down even more, kind of dragged one of their guys to him, and he gave it to me and I saw [Panarin] wide open. Hell of a shot by him."
