When you look at a team like Ottawa, to me that's a good gauge on your team and individuals. They still have the heaviest team in battles and competitiveness.

When you haven't won, it isn't going to be a masterpiece when you try to get the thing back. We took some steps today but we have work to do. You get on the wrong side of things and it's not one thing that goes wrong, it's a lot. We made some steps today to really help ourselves.

We had a team that had a high payroll and we were able to pare it down,

I don't think anybody was looking for the penalties. I said it before ... the first team that adjusts is going to be the winner. You end up with a ton of scoring chances, a ton of special teams and you're going to have to get better and you're going to have to adjust. Whining about it isn't going to do anything. It's not going to go away.

Even when things get a little hairy like they did in the second period, we gathered ourselves and did a great job.

When I look at Simon, I see the same player I've seen for two years. But now he plays with a center man who is a playmaker. I see a guy who gets to the puck who never got to it when he was here previously. He gets a lot of goals off the rush, which he never used to get before.