	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: PENGUINS VS SENATORS

May 13, 2017

Guy Boucher

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Pregame

Q. Coach, can you just tell us a little bit about what you plan to do lineup-wise tonight.
GUY BOUCHER: You know, the goalie, the defensemen stays the same, and with the forwards, Dzingel and Wingels are coming in for Stalberg and Neil.

Q. Can you update Viktor at all on his status? Is it long term?
GUY BOUCHER: No. He's day to day.

Q. What do players get out of game day when they don't have a morning skate? What was the focus of attention aimed at?
GUY BOUCHER: The exact same thing we did against the Rangers in the sixth game, the exact same thing we did for three games in that series, 3:00 games. And the first series, the same.

I hate morning skates. So I said it since September, so it's 1:00 and 2:00. At this time of the year, we've played 100 games. It's not like the two, three little passes we're going to make on the ice this morning is going to change something tonight.

Q. Coach, Pittsburgh defense is probably the most vulnerable unit on that team. What can you do to try and exploit that and make life difficult for them on their blue line?
GUY BOUCHER: Well,they didn't seem very vulnerable to me on the video, to be honest with you. I thought they played very well. I thought they complemented their offense very well. There's definitely threats there. Schultz has got a terrific shot, and whether it's on a power play or five-on-five, I think his one-timer is a threat. And I think their forwards are really good at helping him.

So, you know, from what we've seen, I thought their defense worked really well. So I don't see a weakness there.

Q. With a team like the Penguins, do you feel like you have to tweak anything defensively, or is what you did against the Rangers acceptable?
GUY BOUCHER: Every team poses its challenges. This is the Stanley Cup champions. This is the team that beat the No. 1 team in the league. There's a lot of things we have to be aware of. They've got three forward stars. I don't know what their lines are going to be, but they could be on three different lines. Obviously, we're going to have our hands full in that regard.

I just think that for us, we've played a certain way all year. Yes, we adapt, and, yes, we tweak things, but for the most part, we stay true to our identity, to our strengths all year, and we've done that throughout the series too. We just played a really fast team.

I said it before this series. I always thought the two fastest teams in the league were the Rangers and Pittsburgh. So I think right now we will have met the two fastest teams in the league, and I think that poses the greatest challenge, I think, to anybody, any team. And we're going to have to make sure that we can't allow all that speed to take over for sure.

Q. You guys have been a resilient team all year, but in terms of the team's kind of confidence, how has it changed as you've gotten to this level in terms of what you think this group could accomplish?
GUY BOUCHER: Well, we've been going about it the same way. We're looking at the first ten minutes of this game. Everything else above that, beyond that, we've never paid attention to, and we're not going to start doing that right now. I think we're trimming it down to its simplest expression of what we have to do, and that's to go out and put our game on the ice.

Whether the stage is bigger or not, our show can't change, and we're not going to change our approach in that regard.

Q. Guy, between your time in Tampa and your time here, the league got faster kind of year to year.
GUY BOUCHER: Oh, yeah.

Q. Did you ever think that maybe you needed to alter the system, or have you altered your system to account for that? If not, what about the system allows for it to work even as the league gets faster?
GUY BOUCHER: I've done the same thing everywhere I've been. I was in Europe, and Switzerland was extremely fast based on speed. And with the size of the ice, I've done the same thing there. I've done the same thing in Tampa. I've done the same thing here.

Obviously, you evolve as a coach, and there's things you do a bit differently, but the core of what I've always done stays the same. Just the peripheral things change, and systems change from year to year because you adapt to the players you have. I've adapted to the players that are here, and the same in Tampa and the same everywhere I've been. So that's not going to change.

The speed of the game is getting faster and faster. I think what we're seeing now throughout the league is that your third line now has to be your fourth line. The old third line doesn't -- you don't really have a fourth line anymore. If you have, you can't make it through. And I think that's made a big difference.

Our GM went out and got us some speed guys like Stalberg and Wingels, and it created some depth in our lineup. That certainly paid off for us.

And then we've created -- our fourth line was like a third line, and you look at every team that's left, that's exactly what they've got, and that speed on every line is just -- the speed now is, I think, the number one thing, even above hockey sense because it's such a fast league that the fast players will get through your systems.

We saw that with the Rangers. They've got guys like Grabner and Kreider. Once their straight line, they're gone. It doesn't matter what your system is like. There's a chance they'll go right through it.

It's the same with Pittsburgh. Whether I use one system or another, in the end, like you said, speed right now is the name of the game. You see all these young guys that are coming in because of their speed and their stamina and their strength, their explosiveness. They're ready to play in the NHL quicker and faster, and it's going to get faster and faster as we move along.

You're right, four years for me, that's the biggest change. I think entirely the neutral zone is tougher to get through because everybody's kind of scared of that speed. It is scary. But did I adjust? A little bit here and there, but not to say that I've changed much.

Q. Guy, when you're going up against the defending Cup champs and some of the obvious stars that Pittsburgh has, is there any concern that your guys give them too much respect? I mean, going into a series like this.
GUY BOUCHER: No, because I think that, since we've started the season, the word respect has always been a part of our talk with the players. We want to respect the opponent, but it's important that we are ourselves, and we spend 80 percent of our time talking about ourselves and what we need to do, and 20 percent of them about the opponent. Obviously, you need to be aware of them, whoever they are. They've got their strengths. They've got their weaknesses. We've done that all year. We haven't changed our approach for this series at all. It's just we spend 20 percent of the time getting to know what they're going to do and what their tendencies are, but 80 percent of the time we've relied on focusing on our strengths and how we can get them better, how we can grow every day, and our players have grown daily, and that's why we're still here.

Q. Guy, you just talked about speed. Is there anything about Pittsburgh's speed that's any different? Is it through the neutral zone? What is it about their speed that's so effective?
GUY BOUCHER: Well, I mean, they've got straightaway speed, but they've also got east-west speed and thinking speed. Obviously, when you've got stars like Crosby and Malkin and Kessel, I mean, those guys are not just good at speeding up the game, they can slow it down, they can accelerate. They can get something out of nothing, and that's why they're stars.

Obviously, we've got Karlsson on our side that's that caliber, and he does the same thing. When you've got three of those guys on the opposing team, what's difficult is every time you're going to be on the ice, you're probably going to get one of those guys on the ice. Your awareness has to be extremely sharp because at any moment they can do something out of nothing. And you can play great for ten minutes, and all of a sudden, they come up with a terrific play that puts a dent in what you were trying to do obviously.

So it's a total focus and awareness that we have to have. You know, in 60 minutes, obviously, they're going to get their looks, but we have to be able to take most of that speed away. Otherwise, they're going to go right through us.

Q. Guy, it's been fairly well documented the adversity this entire organization has gone through this year. I'm just wondering, do you think you'd be where you are this year had you not gone through that adversity and overcome it?
GUY BOUCHER: It's hard to say. I've always said that success is not because of Xs and Os. There's different types of Xs and Os and systems, and they all work and don't work. But circumstances and intangibles really are what makes things work. And the intangibles, I mean, there's a part there that's adversity, but I think our players have been serious since day one. Some players didn't live adversity on their team and had terrific seasons. I just think it helped build the soul of the team, to be honest with you.

Did it help the way we play? I'm not sure because we would have played the same way. Did it help the combinations with the pairings and the line and all that? I don't think so. So I think it's more in terms of building the team spirit, the chemistry between the players. We've always talked about adversity as you have the choice. It's going to destroy you. It's going to build you. But we strongly believe that it's a choice.

I think the players have decided that every time we have some adversity, whether it's in the game or off ice, it was going to be a building block for us. It wasn't going to be something that was going to tear us down. So it did help us to build.

Now, are we beat? I don't know. But one thing is for sure, knowing the players now, I think we'd still be a solid group because the guys are very committed, very serious, and that was from day one. And as a coach, they've been terrific. They bought into everything. They pulled through some tough times, but what I liked is they wanted to stick to the plan. They wanted to stick to what we were doing, and they wanted to stick together, and I think that's probably the best way to look at our team. We're a team that sticks to it, and it's paid off for us.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297