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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v DUCKSMay 18, 2015Joel QuennevilleANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach. Q. Joel, Kyle Cumiskey, is he in tomorrow? COACH QUENNEVILLE: Could play. Q. If he is, what can you possibly bring, what do you tell him going in? COACH QUENNEVILLE: He'll be excited about getting in the lineup. He brings some speed, quickness. I think he defends with his quickness in the puck area. I think offensively he's got some pace to his game as well. I think it will be a good opportunity for him to come in and help us and bring some quickness to our team. Q. Stephen Johns suffered a broken arm. Would you play a rookie defenseman in a situation like that? COACH QUENNEVILLE: I think on a need basis, you got to look at all your options. Tough break for him, no pun intended. We saw him play prior to coming out in Game3 against Grand Rapids. Got a chance to look at him. All the reports were pretty remarkable the type of season he was having. Made tremendous strides and big progress in his game this year. Unfortunate timing. Q. Timo was saying it's hard sometimes to get into the flow of the game, the rhythm of a game, playing five minutes. Is there any thought to that? COACH QUENNEVILLE: That's a valid point. I think the more you play, the more effective you're in the game. You seem to have more confidence in a lot of areas. I thought he started the game well yesterday, got a little bit deeper in the game. Didn't play much. But I didn't mind his game. We'll see how we'll go going forward. I thought he was all right yesterday. Q. From seeing Kyle in Colorado a few years back, going overseas, the Anaheim organization for a few years, how have you seen his development over the years? COACH QUENNEVILLE: I think he's one of those players that has a different dimension from the back end, jumping into the play, quickness, in and out of puck areas. He's got a different level of speed for a defenseman. I just think that depth organizationally, he's one of those kids that came into our organization at the start of the season that we're happy to have him. He didn't get a chance to play much this year, but we knew that he can play. He can be an asset, as well. Q. Joel, one of the better stretches of this season for the power play is when you double‑shifted Kane. Is that something you would consider or anything you can do to improve the power play? COACH QUENNEVILLE: We could do that. I think the game, the score, a lot of the variables, if Kaner was fresh enough, maybe we could have used him a little bit more yesterday. But I think that unit, you know, they came back‑to‑back, so it would have been tough to leave him out there for all four. You know, for a full one, as well. It all depends on the stress, I guess, over the course of a power play if he's going to be out there for the two minutes. Certainly he gives you some variables and some real strong options with that possibility. Q. You've had 8:45 start, noon start. How much does it affect the game‑day preparation? Does it have an impact on the game itself? COACH QUENNEVILLE: We try to roll with it, go with the flow. Changing our pattern over a long season, a long playoffs sometimes gets a little bit too predictable and can be stale. We try to mix it up a little bit with our times, different times in our meetings, our practices, non‑game day skate for us tomorrow. We do different things based on the times of games, try to be a little consistent in kind of how we approach things. But our guys, they're focused in their concentration as the game starts. No excuses. Let's go. Our leaders prepare the right way. Getting off to a strong start is something we always preach. It's one of our strengths. Q. Different coaches have different philosophies when they're putting together defensive pairs. Some really lean on a left and right shot, others don't. What is your philosophy? How do you look at that part of building a pair? COACH QUENNEVILLE: I think we have on a need basis, I mean, you look at your team, you know your defense over the course of a season is going to have some stretches where you're going to be missing guys. Based on performance, you're going to be moving guys in and out and around. Everybody will get a chance to play with each other over the course of a season. I'd rather have guys play a left and a right, play their own sides ideally. Some guys are comfortable playing their off‑side. Hammer made a great transition playing left to right a couple years ago. Not too many defensemen are capable of doing that. I think it's a great option when you got guys that can play both sides. I just think over the course of your season, you know, it will work itself out, who plays with who. Our defense over the course of the years, the pairs, they played with each other so much, it's not much difference if you're going to be prepared with Duncan‑Seabs or Duncan‑Hammer. Q. How would you describe the style of a Bruce Boudreau team and challenging the moves? COACH QUENNEVILLE: They're a deep team. They attack. I think once they got that lead, they were looking to play smart and safe. The neutral zone is tough to get through. I think that's the challenge from playing from behind, getting ourselves in a tough spot like we did. They attack, they've got some skill as well. They're a deep team. They have an active defense, as well. All four lines, good balance. Q. Joel, the Ducks were saying if you guys are playing your top four defensemen for 22 to 28 minutes a game, it's going to take a toll on you guys. Do you agree with that? COACH QUENNEVILLE: Every game's different. Every shift's different. We'll see how the ice time is delegated by performance and by how things are going. We know they're a physical team. That's part of it. We want to make sure we don't get distracted where we got to go to be successful. Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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