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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v DUCKSMay 26, 2015Niklas HjalmarssonBrandon SaadCHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Brandon, you know what you have to do. Talk about what lies ahead and your feelings on that. BRANDON SAAD: Yeah, last night was obviously tough to lose like we did. We did a good job of coming back. We know we got to have a better start and finish strong. We have to take care of our home game here and go back on the road and steal one on the road. Q. Things start working better after your legs get warmed up. Seemed like that was what was happening. Did you feel like everybody was a little dead‑legged at the beginning? BRANDON SAAD: Yeah. It seemed like, I don't know what it was, but like we were sleeping there at the start. Their goals piled on. Mistake after mistake. They capitalized on it. That's what a good team is going to do. We know we got to start better tomorrow. Q. What do you take from similar situations in the past, facing eliminations? BRANDON SAAD: It's something we know we've done before. When we're in tight situations like this, we have a veteran group that has been through it and we know how to win games. We got to take care of tomorrow. It's one game at a time. Q. Jonathan Toews is the captain and leader of this team. In situations like this, how much do players like yourself look to him for the way to mentally look at this, or is it assumed? Is there anything actively you do as a player to follow him? BRANDON SAAD: Yeah, different guys say different things. I think Toews leads by example. You saw last night, even if he's not saying anything, the way he battles, obviously scoring the big goals for us, he leads by example. That picks the team up. He does a great job of that. Q. I don't want to overstate it, but does having him on your side with his record, does that give you any more confidence, that he'll find a way, help your team find a way? BRANDON SAAD: Yeah. I think we have confidence in our team. Obviously he's a big part of our team, our captain, our leader. He leads the way. I think we're a confident group that we can come back to the same. Q. It seems like it takes dire circumstances for you to hit your top gear for whatever reason. How frustrating is that? Why do you think that is? BRANDON SAAD: Yeah, we got to play desperate right off the bat. Now we're in a situation where it's do or die. That's the team you're going to see. For some reason we started slow yesterday and it was a big game for us. We need to steal one on the road. We didn't do it last night. We got to do it in the future. Q. Niklas, teams have scored in bunches. Can you pinpoint why that's happening so consistently? NIKLAS HJALMARSSON: It's tough to say. We obviously have to be better in big moments of the games like that. It's always important to keep the momentum on our team, especially after scoring a goal, if the other team scores a goal, you have to have big shifts right after. I think that's something we can improve on going forward. We all know tomorrow is a fun, huge game for us. We all going to bring our best, for sure. We definitely will have to do a better job. Q. Is it still fun even though you face the end of the season if you lose? NIKLAS HJALMARSSON: It's more fun to play these games than the normal games. When it's all on the line, I think that's what you want to play. You want to play at this time of year. You want to play elimination games, obviously come up on the winning side. That's the most fun games to play. Q. These games are fun to watch for all of us. Do you have any perspective of that while you're playing? Do you realize how entertaining this series is for somebody watching? BRANDON SAAD: Yeah. I think it's been a good series. As a fan, especially. It's emotional on the bench when you have goals and swings like that, comebacks. We've been through it before, and it's exciting for fans and for the game of hockey. We obviously want to be on the winning end. Q. Game 7 last year, how you lost to the Kings, is that motivation? BRANDON SAAD: That's an experience we can go back and look upon where we had a lead. You always see bounces like that in overtime. That's how the bounces go. That's how hockey games are won. That's something we can look back on and use our experience for. Q. You've taken more hits than about anybody on the team. Are you starting to feel that adding up? NIKLAS HJALMARSSON: No. I feel great. I can't really say that I'm banged up at all. I'm just looking forward to tomorrow's game. They hit hard, but they hit pretty clean. It's just a matter of getting back up and focusing on the next shift. At the same time maybe I can do a better job not to put myself in a situation to allow to get hit. They're a big team. They like to play physical. But, you know, I'm feeling good and I'm excited for tomorrow's game. Q. Brandon, after Freddie Andersen allowed those two late goals, he admitted he was rattled. How important will it be to test him early and often tomorrow? BRANDON SAAD: Yeah, that's something we talked about even going into overtime. We get two quick goals like that, we want to test him as much as possible. Unfortunately it ended fairly quickly on their side. That's something where momentum can carry over to a game. We want to keep testing him tomorrow. Q. Do you feel you turned a 3‑0 game into an overtime game? Do you think you planted any kind of seed of doubt in the Ducks' minds? NIKLAS HJALMARSSON: Yeah, sure. It's obviously never good to lose. But maybe it's better to lose like we did than get a blow‑out loss, five or six to nothing. It shows character in our team. We never stop fighting, being down 3‑0 and two goals in the end, still coming back. I don't know, it's just a feeling we have in our team that they can never count us out, we always have a chance to come back. Same thing now. We're down 3‑2 here in the series. But we have a lot of confidence. We are confident we can turn this around. Q. Do you see that same attitude in them, as well, in this series? NIKLAS HJALMARSSON: They're a really good team, definitely. Playing against them in the regular season, too, we knew they were one of the best teams in the league. Obviously they won the conference. They're a pretty complete team, really good depth on the defense and forwards, goalie. We knew coming into this, that this was going to be a good challenge. It's going to be a good challenge to turn this around. We're going to bring our best. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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