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NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 23, 2009

Andy Murray

DAVID KEON: Welcome to our call. With us we have St. Louis Blues head coach Andy Murray. Thanks to Andy for taking the time today to join us and answer your questions. The Blues visit Minnesota tomorrow, travel to Dallas on Saturday to meet the stars. Following that game, St. Louis will head to Sweden where they'll meet Linkopings in an exhibition game next Tuesday as they prepare for the 2009 NHL premier Stockholm.
They'll open the NHL regular season with back?to?back games against the Detroit Red Wings on October 2nd and 3rd. Thanks to Andy for joining us today to answer your questions.

Q. You've traveled the world many times in this game. I'm wondering where Stockholm ranks for you as far as favorite cities and why?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, first of all, it's a great city. Been there a number of times with the National Team. And probably in my coaching career, it was probably a game that I coached there it might be the highlight of my coaching career to be honest with you.
We were there with our young Canadian National Team playing against the Swedish National Team, the Finns, the Czechs, the Russians in the Sweden Games tournament. And kind of hadn't done really well in that tournament previous years. The day of the game, the Swedish team president came up and said ?? we were playing the Swedes that night ?? he said, We know you can't win tonight, but we need you to put on a good show. And we won 1?0, so it was a great feeling. I like the city.

Q. With all of your international experience, it's almost maybe perhaps a little bit of an advantage for you. So many other staffs have been there a little bit. But in getting your team prepared, which I know you're very good at, fastidious about, what have you told them in advance to get them ready for this week?long experience?
ANDY MURRAY: We had an orientation session this morning. But really to talk about Sweden and the way we're going to do things, the way we're going to do things on the flight over, our plans when we get there. How the timetable's going to work for us. We're going to try to make sure we're as fit and ready as we can possibly be in the game against the Red Wings.
But we do have some experience now. Our strength and conditioning coach was the head coach of the Canadian National biathlon team. So he's made a tremendous number of trips over there. We're aware of how the body feels and the things that you need to do. So we're making some adjustments in their schedules to help facilitate that.

Q. I was talking to Patrik Berglund the other day and could sense a real excitement from him. Have you sensed that as well? The opportunity is so unique for him to play a game, an NHL game in Sweden. Have you gotten that sense from him that he's jumping out of his skates and ready to go?
ANDY MURRAY: I think it's exciting for him because we're doing two things at once. One, we're playing the Detroit Red Wings and half the Swedish National Team. He's excited obviously. He gets a chance to play in front of friends and family, and Alex Steen, it's the first opportunity for him to go over there and play with an NHL team.
I knew his dad, Tomas, when I was in Winnipeg. We played a game in Finland, and Tomas enjoyed that. Alex is the same way. So I think both guys are naturally excited for a number of reasons. They're going to be playing in their home country and playing against a lot of their fellow countrymen.

Q. The exhibition game is also unique because right before you start the season, you get to play a team from the Swedish Elite League. And I'm assuming it's on the big ice in a foreign arena. How do you approach that game in particular? Do you approach it as though it's, you know, the last tune?up? I mean, how do you look at it because of the difference in ice? The difference in teams?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, really the difference in the ice is outside the dots. We can maybe use the Hoosiers example when the little ?? what is the high school that went to the Indiana championship. They measured the basket in the old little gym and went to the big building and measured the basket to the floor.
Really, this is a thing we used to tell our guys. In the international tournaments if you measure it from dot to dot it's the same.
We just have to play the game within the dots the same way. It's a great challenge for our guys. We decided to take the train up there. We've got a private little train that's going to take us. It's just part of the overall experience.
It's fun to play these games. It's an international event. I'm sure the building will be packed. It's an opportunity for the Swedish fans to see an NHL team in their city, which normally wouldn't happen.
I think the whole experience is great. But we're going to be tested. Anybody that thinks that these games are easy games over there against these teams who know how to play on that ice, is wrong. It's going to be great competition.

Q. I'm wondering how you've seen your competition on the blue line at this camp and who you're most impressed with?
ANDY MURRAY: You know, we're faced with a real dilemma right now. We've got nine defensemen in camp. We're having a real tough time sorting it out.
You know, as a coach you're impacting the lives of players when you make these decisions. So we're really trying to be careful with it, and trying to make sure that we create a fair scenario for all these players to be evaluated.
I don't know if there's anybody that's really stood out. I think we like the group. I mean, obviously we brought Darryl Sydor in as a free agent, and he's performed very well. Young Alex Pietroangelo has come to camp and spent the whole summer here training. He's much stronger. Looks like he believes in his own game that much more.
So it's interesting. Junland I don't know how to say this, but he played in Linkopings for a couple of years before he came over. And when he left to go back home to play in front of his family, he's had a great training camp as well.
So it's tough right now. We're not sure if we're going to take eight defensemen or seven defensemen and 14 forwards. We've got some things to sort out.

Q. You actually just touched on Junland, and I was curious about him. Where his chances stood. You know, if you're going to take an extra guy to just to kind of have, if you were thinking about taking one, would he be that guy so he could play there?
ANDY MURRAY: You know, I think we would only take him if we felt he was going to play with us after the trip. We wouldn't just take a guy for the sake of this particular trip. We'd want to make sure that that guy was in our plans after we got back as well because we want to give these guys a shot of reality. And when we come back home, we have to play for real as well. I don't think we'd take him unless he was going to be on our roster.

Q. Last year I know that the Rangers took three goalies, would you be taking three goalies over as well?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, you're allowed to take 24 players for these games. The NHL can have a roster of 24, rather than 23, and three have to be goalies. So we'll be taking Ben Bishop with us.

Q. I wanted to ask you about Eric Johnson and his progress. Did you see any after effects of the knee surgery and injury, or is he looking just as you'd expect him to look?
ANDY MURRAY: To be honest with you, he looks the way we expected him to look for a player that hasn't played for a year. He's going to have some things that he has to work on. It's going to be some ups and downs. It's not just because of the injuries and the fact that he hasn't played for a year. He's a young guy that's starting to emerge as a player in the second half and his first year with us.
So we've got to be patient with him. He can shoot the puck thru the end of the rink, there's no question about that. He sees the game offensively. We're just working on becoming an all around defenseman. He's got a huge upside, there's no question.
But to be honest with you, he's not the finished product yet, but I don't know if he would have been anyways. I think it's just the time that he had off.

Q. You touched on a young player in Eric Johnson. What about just a few of the other young guys? I know you've got so many of them there. But how much of a noticeable difference has it been in this training camp versus last year for them in their maturity, their development, everything that you've seen?
ANDY MURRAY: I think they're all a little bit more relaxed. I think they realize that they're going to be here now. To be honest with you, I've kind of worked the last couple of days of making them a little bit uncomfortable. So we don't need anybody sprouting big heads around here or anything. I don't think they have at all.
It's just it's normal when guys, you know realize that they're going to be here. It's a little bit different. But they're working hard. I mean, we take great pride as a team in being a hard?working group. Our practices are intense. Guys have worked extremely hard.
When we rest, we rest. When we work, we work. And we've been pushing them really hard here.

End of FastScripts

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