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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v DUCKSMay 16, 2015Ryan GetzlafRyan KeslerANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Just talk about the anticipation, six days in between series, getting ready for Game1. RYAN GETZLAF: It's been a long time coming.  Obviously we've had breaks towards the end of the year and during the playoffs. It was much needed that you have time to rest your body. We've gone through the last three days of preparation, now we're just waiting for tomorrow. Q. Do the Blackhawks seem like one of the teams that can raise their level of play because they've been there so many times in this position? RYAN KESLER: I've played them a couple of times. They're a team that knows how to win. Skilled team, fast team. Every round I think they up their level. We have a couple guys in our room, like Getz, that have won, have gone almost all the way. I think we know how to win in that room. We just need to play our game. Q. Ryan, I don't know if it was a case of you getting under Toews' skin or vice versa, spiced up that Vancouver‑Chicago playoff series. Do you consider that a true rivalry and how much do you look forward to playing against Toews again? RYAN KESLER: Toews is a good player. We match up against each other. When you play in the playoffs, you play against the same guy for six, seven games in a row, obviously there's going to be a rivalry there. If I play against him in this series, I'm sure, you know, we (indiscernible). Q. A lot of fans have teams that they despise or hate. This will be the fourth time in seven seasons you've played the Blackhawks. Talk about that. RYAN KESLER: Do I hate them? I think we're here for one reason: to win. I think we've done a good job of keeping our emotions in check, not let that so‑called hatred come into your game. I think that's when things get a little hairy for us. Q. Getz, talk about the focus of this team. You talk about three great days of practice, the preparation. You've had six days off. How focused is this team and how intense have the practices been? RYAN GETZLAF: It's been good. We've had our buildup, again. We've had to approach it almost like a football team where you have day one, day two, day three. You work on different things every day in preparation for a team. It's been no different for us. We had our tough practice three days ago. The last two days have been more of a structural thing. But we're prepared again. That's the big thing. Everyone knows their role. Everyone knows what they're doing going into this series, and now we're just going to play. Q. Getz, to follow up on that, is that new this year, the way you guys have sort of broke preparation and practices down? RYAN GETZLAF: I think the preparation's been a little bit new in the fact that I don't think I've ever had this much time off during the playoffs. As well as at the end of the season, we had two three‑ or four‑day breaks at the end of the year. I've never been in that position. In that aspect, it's a little bit different. Our preparation remains the same, to prepare for the team we're playing. We've just been able to do it over a three‑day period. Q. Getz, against the Blackhawks, they win some, you win some. Very tightly drawn. Is it their talent or in their scheme, the way they do things, as well? RYAN GETZLAF: Combination, I guess. They're a good hockey team. You look at over the last three, four years, anyone who has been good, the matchup is always going to be back and forth a little bit. There's years where they scored a little bit better for a year, times they don't. You're playing against Chicago. They're a great team. They skate really well. They do things a little bit different than other teams because they've been together so long. That's what you've got to pay attention to in these matchups. Q. Getz, going back to what you said about not having this much rest in previous playoff years, we hear about how much of a grind the playoffs are, the bumps and bruises, everybody is playing hurt, has the way the schedule worked out this year made an appreciable difference for this team? Do you feel like you guys are healthier and thus better suited to do the job than maybe in past playoff years? RYAN GETZLAF: Sure (laughter). I mean, there's always years where you're going to feel better than others. Anyone who has been there, long in the playoffs, knows that you need luck, you need to try and stay somewhat injury‑free. You're always going to have bumps and bruises along the way. When you have breaks, it helps guys that play a lot of minutes. You have those days when you can turn your brain off and not think about hockey. For me, it's been nice, it's been good to be able to have those days in between series where you don't have to think about the next opponent right away. You can relax, turn things off, then get prepared again. Q. You talked about the discipline earlier. I think it's been one of the most impressive things I've seen in the first two rounds. Has it been different in the playoffs for this team than it was for the regular season? Is it different this year than in years past? RYAN KESLER: Yeah, I think regular season, we got a little too emotional at times. When Perrs or Getz would get hit, or Beauch, we would try to get them back right away. Like you said, there's times in every series that we played that things got a little hairy and we kept our composure. That's our mindset now of this group, we're here to win. Just keep winning hockey games. RYAN GETZLAF: As for the playoffs, I think the whole feeling's different when you talk about a team that's confident in what they're doing from a period‑to‑period standpoint. We just keep playing. Like we said, during the year we got carried away at some point. We would take one penalty, then we would take two or three. This playoff run we've been able to kind of maintain, kill the penalty, so we want to continue doing that. Q. Ryan, Joel Quenneville compared you and Perry to the Sedin brothers. Do you have that feeling at all, you have that second sense about where you're going to be? RYAN GETZLAF: Yeah, definitely. We've been playing together for 10 years now, played in a lot of big situations together, trust each other. I think that's the biggest thing you learn when you play somebody that long, you trust where they're going to be. They trust you're going to get them the puck when it's supposed to be there. We've been able to develop that chemistry. Hopefully that can continue. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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