4-4 Alex Lyon

What has been your mind, your points of emphasis here in this little break between games?

A million, like I've said before, there's a million sliding scales and you're just kind of playing around, oops, sorry, playing around with the edges.

You know, I think when things are going the way you want, it's really important to get back to kind of ground zero and reset the gears a little bit and just focus on the things that make you good.

And also just simplify a lot and just be really competitive after that, you know, for a long time.

So that's what I focus on is just being a really competitive player and I just keep it simple and enjoy the process and just keep moving forward.

Were there really any in your mind, any common threats that those last two games, you know, some weird goals happened and different things going on and anything in your mind that stood out?

No, no, I mean, at this point I have a pretty good feeling of when my game is feeling very sharp and when it's not feeling very sharp and you know, you go into every game, you try to have the same mentality and that confidence.

And so usually you go into the game like that and then there's some indicators where you're like, okay, I'm going to have to maybe try to manage the game a little bit here.

But yeah, you just honestly, it's just about if you just keep grinding and keep putting your feet on the ground and it's just the nature of the game.

There's going to be ebbs and flows and it's hard to kind of take a long time to get to that point where you don't worry too much about it and it's the same when you're high.

You know, I've said that as well, but I think that's really important too. It's like when you're high, you have to remember the bad times.

And so I try to do that as well. So yeah, just just remain even continue to work, continue to grind and have faith in the process.

You're talking about grinding as an individual. What's the like for this team? You know, the team continues to grind through these games in this schedule and you're trying to, you know, have a bounce back from last night.

Yeah, well, you got to enjoy it. I mean, I kind of love the adversity. Like you have to love the adversity to a degree and I said it after that Detroit game, but we had it as long as I've been in the NHL.

That was the longest sustained run of success that I've ever experienced as a group and that's extremely rare.

And so I just kind of have to keep side of that and remember, you know, like when we were in September and October and November, there were difficult times.

And so it's important to remember that as well that it can turn at any second and when the momentum shifts, then you have to embrace that and continue to grind through that.

So it's just a workman-like mentality and I think that we do a good job in here of staying even, yeah, both ways.

Someone who's been on good teams before, what are some of the indicators or what are the keys to getting ready for that jump into the postseason like we're in these last few games in the regular season?

Yeah, well, the game tines up a lot. I'm sure as you guys have seen, you know, Ottawa was a great example last night throughout a couple of their top guys and they played a fantastic game, managing the game, keeping bugs in front of them, limiting high quality, high danger chances.

And that's the name of the game in the postseason. It's not necessarily about who can create the most but who can be the most patient and allowing the other team to make mistakes.

That's really the name of the game. You watch teams like Florida, Tampa, they do that to a tee where it's just almost machine like at times and they get a deep, they retrieve, they go low to high.

You know, Carolina's been on that train for like 10 years, they do it better than anybody. So that's really what the postseason about is about.

It's not necessarily about going out and doing more than their opponents, about just being more patient and whoever can grind those details better usually has the best chance to win.