Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton both did not face the media after the awful game on Tuesday night. Today they did and told why they didn't want to face the media after the loss against Carolina.
As the media circled around Horton, a clearly frustrated Lucic took time to explain himself as well and admitted that he didn’t want to face the media Tuesday night for fear his temper and frustration would cause him to say something stupid or that he may regret.
“Yeah, that was basically it and nothing more than that,” Lucic told ESPNBoston.com.
Lucic has scored only five goals in his past 40 games (including playoffs) since March 22, when he scored his 30th goal of 2010-11 season. Lucic, who hasn't lit the lamp in six games this season, acknowledged frustration has settled in, but was still willing to accept blame for his poor start this season. Lucic knows he isn’t doing what he needs to do to be the player he can be.
“It’s not fun when you’re not helping your team and not producing and I think that’s the frustrating point from my side,” Lucic said. “I think it’s not even about goals and assists right now. You just look at shots on net and I think I only have 12 or something like that, which is an average of two per game and that’s just the first part I should look at. I need to work harder to get myself more opportunities. Get shots and scoring opportunities. It all starts with moving my feet and it kind of feels watching video of my game that there’s a bit of hesitation in my game and I just need to look at that and completely get that out, getting back to that north-south type of game that I find success with.”
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“I think having a little more confidence with the puck and wanting the puck and holding onto it,” Horton told ESPNBoston.com. “That’s how you make plays and that gets me more involved in the game.”
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“I do obviously," Horton said when asked if regretted losing his cool at that point, "and I didn’t want to take a 4-minute penalty but when I got slashed from behind and I turned around, I thought he wanted to fight me.
"But again that was probably the wrong time to do it and out of frustration I did do it. If I could change it now, I would, but unfortunately I can’t and I really put my team in a hole.”
Horton's frustration was still seething after the game Tuesday night and, like Lucic, he chose not to let that cause him to say something he would regret.
“It was a frustrating night for a lot of people and I just wanted to turn page and forget about it,” Horton said. “I don’t want to be out there hurting my team like that, I just got to get back to playing the way I can and help my team.”
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