In Lou We Trust, a New Jersey Devils community

"I know that if you’re close to making it [the playoffs], you think about that. It’s something that is going to push you, maybe. But I thought that the job was to be at your best, to play at your best. I don’t think it says to be at your best only when there’s something on the line. I don’t know. An athlete plays a sports and he’s got to play his best every time he plays."

"I think it will be shortly," the coach said about Martin. "Now we have to determine what shortly means in my vocabulary. It could be a month."

"Oduya has been better," Lemaire said on Monday. "But he can do more as far as his skating with the puck and breakout passing."

Lemaire did not blame rust for hampering Oduya’s play. He has had time to re-acclimate himself. "It’s got to be him pushing a little harder," the coach said.

"Much better. Everyone worked hard. Everyone played disciplined. We were good with the puck. We had good scoring chances. I can't find a player that didn't do his job."

"When we sat down at the start of the season, I told him him that I'm going to give him the chance to play, to prove himself and I'd like him to be in the top three lines. It's not that he doesn't do the job. It's not that he cannot play. You know he's getting in better and better shape. His last game was the best game he played. You could see that there was an improvement. The problem is the kids. At the start of the season, these kids, I didn't know them myself. Maybe Lou thought that they had a long chance to make the team. But these kids they've shown that they're ready to play."

"I think I'll need another game because these two games were back to back and you could tell that some of the guys had heavy legs."

"When it bothers me [is] when a person from the outside come to me and talks about something that he just doesn't know. That bothers me. He'll say, as an example, 'Do you think this guy or that guy would be better in an offensive system?' Then, I look at him. Poor guy. Go back to school."

"It's over. That was the time of the good defensive teams and that is gone. Not that the teams are not good defensively. It's the offense in the league and the parity. You'll see teams dominate for a period and then it switches to the other team. As soon as there is a little drop in the intensity, the other team takes over. Every team does that. It's to do it the least possible. You know it's going to happen."

"They have to understand they don't have one month to make the team and show what they can do. They might have two days. If they get two days."

I talked a little bit to (general manager Lou Lamoriello) about it and Jamie [Langenbrunner] will stay as the captain. I've heard a lot of great things about him, the great leadership that he has, the work ethic that he has. I think he has all the tools to be a captain. On the other hand, when the team has success and is stable and they have their own captain, I don't see it proper to change the way they're doing things.