Henrik Lundqvist met with the media on Saturday for the first time in training camp and said (NYR):

On the first practice, "It felt great, I'm excited to be back here, back in New York. Had a great summer in Sweden, enjoyed the weather, friends and family but it's the time of the year where you focus on what is ahead and the new season and new challenge and it's great to see everyone. Some new faces with the coaching staff and players but camp is always fun. It's always the same feeling, you are anxious to get going, nervous, excited. It feels really good to be here."
On his meeting with Quinn over the summer, "I got a really great impression of how he likes to discuss things, he is very open, seems like a great guy. Now it's the other part of him, to see him as a coach. Moving forward it will be under different circumstances, it's one thing to sit in July and discuss and another to discuss under pressure. Curious to see how things will feel in here. Each time there is a new coach there is a new feel, the way they coach, how they speak and you always learn something."
On Quinn's first practice, "we are going to play differently, these few couple of weeks will be huge for us to pay attention to the new details and how we want to play the game. Skating and strength will come, but the big thing is for s to understand how we want to play and it's a big focus right now in the first couple of days."
How is the knee, "good. Body feels really good, trained hard this summer, feel like I am coming here ready to get going. Last year was a little different with the knee situation and after having the injection. Took a couple of weeks off but since then I've been skating and training the way that I want to, skated a little more this year."
Did you have an injection, "right after the season, took four weeks off and when I got back to Sweden I skated for a few weeks, started working out, took a break from skating and then back to skating in late July. A little bit more skating this summer."
Are you lighter, "maybe a little bit but I've been around 180 the last couple of years. For a lot of years I was around 200 lbs but the last four years I've been lighter."
Was that by design, "I wanted to try and stay a little lighter, I want to be light on my feet, but pretty similar to the last few years."
On his knee, "it's not the first time, over the years I've bruised my knee a couple of times but you learn how to deal with it. Now it's back to where it needs to be. I feel great. Right now there is nothing really bothering me, I can go 100% and that is a good feeling."
On his mindset for this season, "you gotta look at short-term. Right now, have really strong camp and build it week by week. You can feel that we start over a bit with the new system, new coaching staff, different mentality. We can't look too far, need a good camp, good start and build off of that and see how far it takes us and that will tell us how we will stack up against other teams. I won't sit here and predict, the focus right now is on the start. We have a lot of skill in the room and hungry players, that is a great combination. We need to get on the same page with how we want to play and take it from there."
Do you like how coach wants to play, "we can play many different ways in this league, the most important thing is that everyone buys in and gets on the same page. For me the game doesn't change, I need to focus on what I need to do and at first as a goalie and the D-men you gotta work off of each other but I need to focus on my game and as a game we need to come together and everybody needs to understand what needs to be done. There are a lot of different ways to play, it's just about buying into that style."
Do you still want to be part of this, "Yea. People talk about rebuild and no one knows how long of a project that is, but we will focus on the start, see how we stack up and try to do as good as we can. There is no other place I want to be. I feel great, excited to be back and see how far we can take it this year."

Popular in the Community