“(Faceoffs) will improve with the guys getting stronger. That will improve with the guys working on it because we were pretty specific about it in the exit meetings with those centremen.”

“In the exit meeting, I’m sitting there with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and he’s getting big, he’s getting strong. He’s 6’1 and he’s almost 200 pounds. That will come. He knows that will have to come in his repertoire. That will come. I can see him becoming a man.”

“Part of that falls on us. We have to be on top of these guys to make sure they practice it and part of it falls on them.”

“He was our third leading scorer – he gets a lot of touches. I like his cycle game in his own way. He creates space in his own way because he’s quick and he’s smart.”

“I know there are some board work issues that he’s been better at. I know there have been some flashes in his game that I really like from a power perspective. That’s not something you usually associate with Ebs. I saw something in his game that I haven’t seen but he didn’t do it consistently.”

“He’s a very skilled player and I know there were some things from his game that were under the spotlight in a negative fashion, but he’s a guy who’s in the playoffs for the first time. He was our third leading scorer. We have to be careful with how we evaluate him.”

“It is their first time in the playoffs and it’s a different animal. We saw some people thrive, we saw others muddle along, we saw guys struggle. We have to be careful how we evaluate.”

“I know there’s been a lot, during the course of the playoffs, written about those two and I think unfairly but I understand the position everyone is taking because they’re not producing.”

“Over the years I’ve seen people get into the playoffs and, like “holy cow” this is something completely different and they figure it out. Going forward they’re meaningful contributors. I saw it on a number of occasions in Boston.”

“From 30,000 feet – roster wise – we built this team to take it out of the division. You saw two relatively heavy teams that we played against and we played with a certain heaviness. In that definition of heaviness, I put in faceoffs because that’s about strength. We have to improve in that.”

“We saw (Leon) without Connor and we saw him with Connor. I still don’t have the answer. My instinct knows where he should be at some point but I can’t tell you that he’ll be at that spot to start. We need to figure that out.”

“I want to give our coach the ability to flip-flop because it changes the tempo of the game and can change the nature of the game. Unfortunately, that means pushing Nuge to a lower third line. I’m not saying it’s unfair to Nuge because he’s a team guy, and that’s one thing he stressed in his exit meetings, but in the ideal world, it would be nice to have set centres and a big centre like Leon as your centre and not your wing.”

“This is about versatility, and as far as team building it means getting a guy that can play the wing and play centre.”

“Nothing has really changed in our approach to building this team… We’re still going to be patient.”

“Everyone has issues in the sense that they’re going to lose somebody.”

“Everyone knows who is most vulnerable and we’re in the middle of the pack.”

“We’re going to lose a player that we’d prefer to keep… The guys that we might lose, there’s a little more meaning to them for me based on our success that we had.”