Quotes from Ducks locker room after 4-2 loss to Kings

Visnovsky, Ducks defenseman (photo: Ikiri)

With both teams fighting for their playoff lives, Anaheim may have just seen their faint hopes of post-season play fall by the wayside. An early goal by Kings captain Dustin Brown, a pair from newly acquired Jeff Carter and Jonathan Quick in net was more than enough to shut down the Ducks offense.

You can't really fault the visiting team for trying though - they outshot LA 31-20, won the battle at the faceoff circle (52% vs 48%), plus were neck-and-neck with hits (29 to 31) and blocked shots (10 to 9). The difference was special teams, where the Kings picked up a pair of goals and the Ducks came away empty-handed.

And that was one of the key themes back in the locker room following their third loss of the season in LA...

Ryan Getzlaf on the overall game - "It’s a tough one. You know what, we’re pretty disappointed in this locker room, mostly with our effort. We weren’t as good as we needed to be to play tonight. They came out and played a strong game, and we didn’t respond the way we needed to, especially our special teams."

Getzlaf addresses if their playoff hopes gone - "No, we’re excited. We’re excited to play every night and excited to get back in this thing, and working hard to get there. We lost the special teams battle tonight, and that was the difference in the hockey game...There’s no doubt in here that we can still make this thing happen...Our group tonight has never stopped believing this whole time, and we’re not going to now."

Lubomir Visnovsky on the overall game - "Right now, we go like one, two wins, and two losses, and we go up and down. This is a very tough time for us. We need more wins. It’s hard to say something."