Mats Sundin
Mats Sundin
Mats Johan Sundinis a Swedish former professional ice hockey player who played the majority of his career in the National Hockey League, retiring in 2009. Originally drafted first overall in 1989, Sundin played his first four seasons in the NHL with the Quebec Nordiques. He was then traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1994, where he played the majority of his career, serving 11 seasons as team captain. At the end of the 2007–08 season, Sundin had been the...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionHockey Player
Date of Birth13 February 1971
CityStockholm, Sweden
CountryCanada
We were ready to play, there's no doubt about that. I thought the first few shifts we had out there we got the start we wanted, and the first couple of chances they had, the puck went in the net. Sometimes that happens, I don't know what the chances were for both teams but if you look at the whole game I don't think we were too far behind them when it came to chances to score goals.
We all want to compete for a championship. We all know that the real season starts next week.
We'll see what the coaches want to try, ... I'm sure they'll try different combinations as the exhibition season starts here, but I think we all have to be flexible and I think everybody realizes that there's only four spots here for centres and we'll have to figure out who's going to skate with who.
I'll start off with a visor and we'll see, I hope I can use it for the rest of the year, ... But obviously I'm going to need it to protect the eye at the start here for a few weeks anyways.
I'm 35 and I realize I'm not at the start of my career anymore. It's frustrating to see us out of a playoff spot. I think we're all frustrated, we're all used to seeing us do better. But we still have a chance and we still have to battle.
It was a tough way to start a game. We put ourselves in a hole and it was tough to get out.
When you played New Jersey before, it's been really tough to forecheck them because Martin is out there playing the puck every time you dump it in. Hopefully (now) you can put a little more pressure on them.
We don't care who is not in the tournament any more. We are focused on our team, our play. We always thought we could get to the gold medal game, that we had the talent and team strength to do so.
Why not? I hope it's going to help me the rest of my season, this tournament, and I hope the rest of the Maple Leafs here that are playing are going to enjoy it and come back with a fresh mind.
We had a bad game. We had a terrible game. If we want to have a chance to go to the semifinals, we have to be better than we were tonight. We're professional athletes and we want to give the best. We're always going to give 110 percent. There's been no talk about anything else in our dressing room.
We got an experienced team this time around.
We gave ourselves a chance to tie the game up right until the last couple of minutes. Sometimes you come up on the short side of things.
To win a game with that parade to the penalty box requires a good effort and a little luck. If you score six goals in this league, you're going to win nine out of 10 times.
Even though he hadn't scored in a while, he's been playing gritty and working hard.