"There's no guarantees, right? But we're returning a lot of core pieces. The biggest thing for me is just their character and the humility. They just come and they work hard every night. They give you everything they have.

"Their main goal is winning hockey games, not personal accolades, which is always special when a team comes together and does that. And because of that, we're able to have a lot of success.

"That's the kind of locker room and culture that's being established for this organization, and that's what we expect moving forward. So it's not going to be easy, but I know our guys will give us everything they have next season."

"We certainly think we can continue to improve. We've got ten picks in this year's draft, and we do have cap space if we wanted to do something. There's ten forwards under contract for next year.

"We do have some guys whose contracts are up. We got to make some decisions there. Usually, if you get a deal where the team's not happy and the player is not happy, that's probably a fair deal."

"Vince (Dunn) came in day one last season and there was room for improvement. A lot of times the coaching staff talks to a player, or I talk to a player, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

"Ultimately comes down to the player and the commitment that he makes. And Vince did that. He started tweaking his nutrition. He spent the whole summer training hard in Toronto with Gary Roberts' group. As the season went along, he made huge strides."

"Will (Borgen) was starting to get that chance in Buffalo, and then he broke his hand and missed some time. Last year, with us carrying eight (defensemen), it was a little tough to get him ice time.

"This year he stepped in and took advantage of the opportunity he was given. Played real well, physical by nature, and there's still room to work on and improve, but I thought he took big steps in the right direction this year."