The winning streak was not meant to be. After winning the previous two games the Jackets fell to the Maple Leafs 6-3, despite out shooting Toronto 57-28.
Here is the post-game reaction from John Tortorella, Jack Johnson and Nick Foligno
John Tortorella
On the team battling and their aggressive play style: “Were just playing, we’ve played good games for a while now, tonight we couldn’t solve (Frederik) Anderson…we gave up 15 scoring chances, we had 30 plus, I like the way were playing…we just have a good flow offensively, the next step is to finish, past couple games we have, tonight we had a number of different chances even when we were down, [Boone Jenner] had some good chances there to tie the game… we move on and get ready for our next game.
On all the shots and the shooting mentality: “We’ve talked about it for while with the struggle to score goals, we have a mindset of shooting the puck, not so much always for scoring goals but for creating our forecheck, it’s something we felt was missing in our game for a little while as far as not spending enough zone time, so we have really encouraged and done a lot of work with video and in practice as far as anticipating and getting pucks to the net as best we can. You may not score but you’ll certainly get some zone time and I think that’s helped us as we’ve moved along.
Jack Johnson
On the teams compete level, putting up 57 shots: “It’s just that time of year you can’t give up, the way the league is right now, it’s a crazy league, a two goal lead isn’t safe, we had a lot of confidence going into the third period, we thought if we stuck with it things would go our way, but even though it didn’t we not going to let it get us down and approach the next game the same way.
On the teams confidence level : “Guys are creating a little bit more offensively, trying to make plays in the offensive zone, hanging onto pucks, all those things lead to more shots on net, and I also think were not passing up shots, looking for that extra play that might be a highlight reel play, but a lot of times those aren’t there, the other team is in the NHL too. If you get a shot, you got to take it.
Nick Foligno
On the number of shots: When you’re shooting the puck it means you’re thinking offense and you’re thinking be aggressive. It works well for our team. You look at our team we dominate a lot of games, we just got to find a way to make sure we don’t get over zealous trying to create offense where it costs us and tonight it did a little bit. I hope that doesn’t stop... We play like that against a lot of teams it’s going to be dangerous.
On having a game stolen from them: “I hate saying that, cause results are what matters but yeah I really felt like we deserved a better fate today and maybe that’s how they felt last game we played here and we came back on them… We got to find a way to get wins and string them together and tonight we didn’t get it done.
On the riskiness of always attacking: “It’s a small risk buts a risk against a team that can exploit it like Toronto. It’s a team that likes to play off transition, so you just have to be a little bit more aware of a team that’s playing like that and tonight it cost us a couple of times.
On the record three straight games of 50 shots and if this is sustainable: “I hope so, I don’t see why not, I don’t foresee us changing anything we’re doing, we’re playing really good hockey. I hope the shots keep going up and up and up..It’s the old saying the more shots you put on net the more chances you have to score...good things are going to come and they have the past couple of games just tonight we didn’t get the job done. Three goals on the road you got to find a way to win that game and we didn’t.
