Morning Hits: Devils, Ryan, Maatta, Drouin and Hamrlik
  • Pierre LeBrun of ESPN: Lou Lamoriello on the Devils,

    “You’ve always heard me say that when you have success, you have your best players consistently playing the best, and that’s what we need to have on a consistent basis,” Lamoriello said. “Not one on one night and the other on another night; it has to be consistent.”

    “There’s no question we brought in four, five new people. Sometimes it takes time even though you don’t like to admit it,” the Devils GM said. “But I don’t look for excuses. We’ve had time to get them in, and they have to respond. They’re all quality people and quality players. If it takes a little more time, so be it. But we can’t dwell on it right now. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, we just have to do what we need to do to get back on track.”

    Senators coach Paul MacLean on moving Bobby Ryan off Jason Spezza’s line.

    “All along we said we wanted to be patient and allow them to develop chemistry, but if it doesn’t appear to be there, you don’t want to force it to happen either,” MacLean said. “Maybe we’ll go back to it further down the road. Right now, I think we’ll leave Bobby with Turris and MacAthur and Spezza with Conacher and Michalek, because we seem to be a dangerous team.”

  • Dave Molinari: The Penguins don’t plan on returning defenseman Olli Maatta back to junior after nine games. Doesn’t guarantee that he’ll be in the NHL all season though.
  • Mike Morreale: Lightning GM Steve Yzerman on their decision to return Jonathan Drouin back to junior: “The way we’re structured now; we feel we made right long term decision for our team and Jonathan”
  • Roman Jedlicka: Roman Hamrlik will officially retire from hockey at a press conference next week in Montreal.