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He said it: Coaches and players comment after Stars' 7-4 loss to Ottawa Tuesday

Stars Head Coach Lindy Ruff

On the team's costly mistakes:

"We played last year's hockey and got last year's results. We played individual hockey, gave some pucks away and got what we deserved. The key part for me is going to be getting this group refocused and moving past this. I think sometimes when you focus on trying to make the fancier play, you get a bad result and we got some bad results tonight. It started with the first goal. Our defense had some big mistakes. John (Klingberg) might have had his roughest night of the year. Overall, our defense made some big mistakes, we could have had two or three more goals scored against us. We could have had two goals at the end of the game scored against us."

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On the status of Kari Lehtonen:

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"He'll be evaluated tomorrow."

On making the change in goal:

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"I was just trying to slow things down. Maybe fuel a little spark for us. Most of those goals had nothing to do with our goaltender. It was like having a shootout in our building. Let's just have breakaway after breakaway in alone. The goals had nothing to do with our goaltending and that change had nothing to do with our goaltender playing poorly. It was just to try to switch the direction and get a little bit of a spark and a little bit of desperation out of the team."

On tonight's line juggling:

"When you come out of a power play or penalty kill, you're going to have some different combinations. I gave Val (Nichushkin) a chance to pair up with Seguin and Benn because I thought he'd been playing pretty well so I wanted to see what he could do. Then I went back to Sharp in the third. In the first period, I think we had one scoring chance. I thought I'd just take a look."

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On talking to the team after the game:

"I was embarrassed for the game. We've focused on one thing and that's playing a better brand of hockey and we got away from it. We made too many big mistakes and we were too careless with the puck. We tried too many individual plays and that cost us dearly. We tried high risk and we got low reward."

Stars Captain Jamie Benn

On the turnovers tonight:

"We were just not mentally sharp. It was pretty embarrassing. We gave them pretty much all their goals. It was just bad turnovers and costly mistakes."

On what it means that the team was still able to battle back:

"We tried to stay in the game. Like I said, we could have generated a lot more scoring chances and kept a lot more out of our net. Overall, it was just an embarrassing night."

On looking ahead to Friday's game:

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"It's not going to be a fun couple of days here I'm sure. We have a lot of work to do. We haven't done much yet. We've had a good first quarter here, but we have a lot of work to do. We definitely can't take nights off in this League."

Stars Defenseman John Klingberg

On how the turnovers impacted tonight's game:

"It was what they scored on. There were a lot of turnovers. It was really embarrassing. They could have scored two or three goals more, but the goalies played up on those turnovers. It's a little embarrassing."

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On how the team moves on from a loss like this:

"We have to get back at it tomorrow at practice. We need to just start over, play better defensively and take care of the puck more. We have to have better focus, even in practice. That's something we have to do."

On this game as a wake-up call:

"Yeah, I think so. We let them score seven goals in our building. That's not something we're proud of and it's not going to happen again. That can be a lesson and we have to stay more focused."

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Stars Forward Patrick Sharp

On the turnovers being too costly for the game:

"I don't think scoring goals or offense is going to be a problem in this room. We've proven that goals are going to come all through the lineup. We've been successful because we've been good on our own end and we've been good defensively. Tonight, we weren't. We can't be happy with that performance, especially on home ice. We'll regroup and look forward to having a big weekend."

On Ottawa did to make it difficult to move the puck:

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"They're a good team. They've got a lot of guys that can score, but I think we're more concerned with how we played and the mistakes that we made. There are no excuses. We know we can be better and we plan on doing that going forward."

On disappointment in puck management:

"Thinking about tonight's game, we could have made better decisions with the puck; myself included. As I mentioned, offense isn't a problem. That's going to come. When we're playing hard away from the puck, when we're skating and protecting our own end, that's when we're a good team and that when we create offense."

On shaking off the loss:

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"Try to turn the page as quickly as we can. There's a lot we can learn from this game. It's an ugly score. We aren't happy with the way we played; but we'll watch video, we'll learn from our mistakes and gear up. It doesn't get any easier, as we know. The season moves along here; games get tighter and teams get tougher to play against. We got off to a good start, but we need to improve every week."

Senators Head Coach Dave Cameron

On tonight's game:

"Entertaining game. Just a little disappointed when we were up 5-1 that we let off a little bit and gave them some opportunities. When their big guns get them, they bury them. Two-to-one game we were leading and Andy [Craig Anderson] made two huge saves, and then at the end he made a huge save. So, although we scored seven goals we got good goaltending. Exciting game. Would have liked to close it out a little better, but we'll take the two points."

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On what he said during the timeout:

"Just relax and play hockey. Get back to making plays. It was an opportunity to see who wants to play there. Who wants the puck. Just an opportunity to maybe take some deep breaths and get back at it."

On what players impressed him tonight other than Craig Anderson:

"I thought the [Jean-Gabriel] Pageau line and the [Mika] Zibanejad line were both good. I tried to get them, once we got rolling, against the [Jamie] Benn line and I thought we battled really, really well."

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On if this team will get a confidence boost from this win:

"Well, I think winning builds confidence. Like I said, if we didn't let that 5-1 lead slip a little bit I'd be real excited. Two points are good, and we'll take that, but we still have some work to do."

Senators Forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau

On the game:

"I think we played a good game. The first two periods we played well and stayed on the game plan. I think we learned in the third that when you play against one of the best teams in the league, you can't back down. I think it helped us that [Craig Anderson] made the big save when we needed it. The last save he made before [Mike] Hoffman scored, I think that changed the game."

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On the short-handed-goal:

"Curtis [Lazar] blocked the shot and gave me the chance to go on a breakaway. The guy was back-checking pretty fast. I was just trying to get a shot on the net and it went in so I'm happy."

On the Alex Chiasson pass:

"We knew he was familiar with this barn so that probably helped him to calculate his pass there."

Senators Goaltender Craig Anderson

On the high scoring game:

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"I'm just glad we got out to the lead. We knew going in they had a really good offense and you can never count them out because they have a lot of skill and gifted players and they showed that in the third [period] pushing back really hard against us."

On his save against Jamie Benn that led to the empty net goal:

"It was the difference between 6-5 and 7-4, but for me I made the initial save through traffic off my pad and it bounced off to the left side of me and I saw their guy coming down and I just tried to dive over there and make him make a good shot and just got fortunate that he buried it right into my chest and we were able to capitalize on the way out."

On their defensive game tonight:

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"I think overall it was pretty good. [Of] The goals they did get, maybe one was from a zone play so I thought defensively in our own zone we were really good. They had a short-handed goal where we had a mind lapse when [Jamie] Benn got off on a breakaway and their defenseman made a nice saucer pass to get it to him and then he made a really nice play on the net, but overall I thought our defensive play was excellent and that was the reason why we had some success in the offensive zone because we weren't playing in our end as much."