Interview With The Coach, “Battochio played outstanding on Friday . . .”

In his regular post-w/e interview on the TEAM 1200/Dean Brown and Gord Wilson, Killer had following to say:

On the winning w/e: It was something we needed. It was good for a lot of things, and confidence is the biggest thing.

On one win being bigger than others: Probably Peterborough. For us to get over the hump and beat them and get the four pointer is the most satisfying for me.

On Battochio: Battochio played outstanding on Friday and yesterday. There’s no doubt you don’t win without great goaltending. Danny personifies more courage and intestinal fortitude and abilities. And he’s a leader in the room because they know full well what he has had to go through, to battle, to get where he is.

On leadership: We’re getting great leadership out of Brad Staubitz and VanderVeeken. And Jarram talks it up on the bench. They’ve helped inside because basically we were a quiet team.

On the stretch: The tough part for us is staying healthy. One of our problems is that we don’t have a lot of depth up front. All of a sudden you don’t have the depth and it shows. For example you lose Akeson, he was a leader and muscle. Lawrance moved up and now he’s hurt. Mancari’s out. I get mad sometimes because if you get involved in a fight, that takes one of the leaders out of the line up.

On Mancari’s suspension: Well, I don’t think we’ll find out ’til probably Wednesday. We sent the tape today and it wouldn’t arrive ’til tomorrow. I’d say Wednesday or Thursday we’ll know. Whether it’s two or three, I’m hoping they see it that way. It’s definitely going to be a two game suspension for third man in.

On the health of team: Akeson is injured. Lawrance is out, complained of feeling light-headed after the fight. Reid is going for x-rays on his thumb. I haven’t heard anything about Reid yet.

On the road trip: We’re going to leave early on Thursday. We’ll have a nice dinner and relax Thursday night. Hopefully this will give us some more energy.

On the other teams in conference: I feel bad for Brad Selwood up in Oshawa because it’s not the type of year they were hoping for. They’re looking towards the future. The other teams - from one to eight - it’s a scramble, and it will probably go down to the last week. Home ice won’t be decided until the last week. Everyone plays everyone.