Ken Hitchcock
Ken Hitchcock
Kenneth S. Hitchcock, nicknamed "Hitch", is an NHL hockey coach and pro scout, currently coaching the St. Louis Blues. He has also served as head coach of the NHL's Dallas Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, and Columbus Blue Jackets. He coached the Stars to a Stanley Cup victory in 1999...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth17 December 1951
CityEdmonton, Canada
curious defining excited games message next series whether
I am excited and curious to see how we respond. In games 5, 6 and 7, you get a defining message on what you are going to be down the road, whether it's the next series or whatever.
constantly difficult fans games playoff road seen win
I've seen our fans just will us in playoff games. I think home-ice is something you need. It's very important. It's real difficult when you constantly have to win road games in the playoffs.
either five games move quite stay
If it's working, then we'll stay with it. If not, we'll move (combinations around) and, quite frankly, in the first five games we do want to see other combinations either during games or during practices.
games quality season taking
Our whole season has to be about quality and not quantity. We?re going to have games like (Wednesday) and we?re going to have to get used to it. But it snowballed for us. We started taking too many penalties. We were all over the map.
bad chance games might wait
It's just bad luck. We feel like we might as well get it done now. If we wait 25 games and he's sore, he won't get a chance to play (healthy) down the line.
beating games inside loose lose people practice time
Beating people one-on-one, getting to loose pucks, those are all the things you lose if you get this much time off. And that's why we're scrimmaging at practice. We're having little games inside of the practice themselves.
carter couple games kids plate played richards took
Oh, yeah. These kids are 20 years old and it's a lot to put on their plate right off the bat. This is a whole other level, and it took them a couple games to get into it. But Carter and Richards really played well (in Game 3).
bizarre
It was a really hard, really bizarre game.
category lead league nature
It's the nature of our season. We're in first place in one category. We lead the league in the unfortunate category of injuries.
plus
It's huge. He's a point-a-game guy, a big-time plus player.
pulled saw sore talking
He has a sore groin. I saw him talking to the trainers so I pulled him out.
checking checks dangerous hockey injuries player puck ready suspect type
That's a dangerous play in hockey when you're checking the player with the puck and he checks you. The checking player doesn't suspect that and he's not ready for it. I think you see a lot of injuries when that type of play happens.
bizarre hard
That was a hard, bizarre game. It was really hard and it was really, really bizarre.
dealing eight fire game giving good level penalties period rules seven team third took
It's still not good enough. We know the rules and we took two penalties in the third period that we can't take, not when the game is on the line. You're just dealing with an unbelievable level of fire when you're giving a team like that six, seven or eight penalties.