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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: DUCKS VS PREDATORS

May 20, 2017

Randy Carlyle

Anaheim, California - Postgame

Predators - 3, Ducks - 1

Q. Randy, this is the third game -- or in all three losses in the series, when talking with the guys in the dressing room, they've said that effort is an issue in those losses. How is it at this stage of the playoffs that your team is having trouble finding the effort they want in these big moments?
RANDY CARLYLE: I don't think the effort was not an issue from a standpoint of I think we made a good start. We drew some penalties. I didn't think our first power play gave us any energy, but after that, I thought the next power play we had all kinds of looks. We had chances. And we didn't have any finish.

I thought the first pass was okay, but the second pass wasn't. Or the first pass was in somebody's feet, and we didn't get the looks with the puck in the prime areas that we've had in the last little while.

Q. Randy, what happened to Gibson? Do you project him to be available for the next game?
RANDY CARLYLE: Gibson has a lower body injury. He made the statement he'd be in the next game for us when canvassed him after the game. We can't risk him. Maybe that's the adrenaline and whatnot. We'll do an assessment tomorrow, and we'll do an assessment once we get to Nashville Monday morning, and we'll see where that takes us.

Q. Randy, how would you describe playing in your own zone tonight? How much of that was a part of this game?
RANDY CARLYLE: I didn't think we were as clean as we've been. I think -- again, that's when you talk about sharing the puck. You make the first pass, and it's in the feet. Or the second pass isn't where we're accustomed to putting the puck. Everybody has the same type of schemes as you work your way out of your puck recovery situation, a little bump in the middle, a bump up the wall -- all those kinds of things where we didn't seem to execute the level that we've been accustomed to.

I thought we did it okay for the first half of the game, but then we seemed to run out of gas. We got frustrated with their neutral ice. I think Pekka Rinne made far, far too many plays on the ice tonight with our dumps. I think that was a huge factor because we'd throw it in, and he made it pretty easy for them in a lot of situations where they cheated people back and moved the puck. So I think that, again, for us, we'll analyze the game, and this is just off -- fresh off the bench.

I think that those are the things that I thought we'd managed pretty well, and tonight we didn't manage it very well.

Q. You alluded to, obviously, the power play. They were able to get a power-play goal there with Watson in the second to tie it up. Is there any fear or concern that sort of continually losing the special teams battle might hurt you guys over the long run?
RANDY CARLYLE: I guarantee you, the next game is the biggest one if we lose the special teams battle in it, then your chances of success go down greatly. That's the game within the game. You always have to feel that you're going to give yourself the best chance by winning that game within the game.

So is it an area of concern? Sure, it's a concern. But we have a lot of areas of concern off our performance tonight. Again, we're not going to hang our head with doom and gloom. We're going to approach this. We'll flush this. We'll get ourselves ready. We'll reenergize our group, and we'll look forward to playing a better game than we played tonight in Nashville on Monday night.

We won in that building before. So it doesn't really matter where we go. We feel we can have success if we play to our capabilities.

Q. Randy, I don't know if (indiscernible) was an area of concern, but last three games you guys have carried play over stretches, but the first half of the third period has gone Nashville's way three games in a row. How do you think you can have a stronger finish in Game 6?
RANDY CARLYLE: Maybe make a little more space between them and us before we get to that area. When you play in the conference final, you're not playing against chopped liver here. There's good teams and good structure and hard-working teams. To get here, it takes a lot of fortitude, and to some degree, you're playing against teams that have earned the right to be here.

So I don't look at it as that's a huge negative. All I know is they have a 3-2 lead. We're going into their building, and we've done their before. So I feel like our group can go into any building and play well and give us a chance for success.

Q. Randy, can you assess the Ducks' passing game tonight and why it did or didn't work at certain times?
RANDY CARLYLE: Well, I thought that, like I stated earlier, I thought that the first half of the game, we were decent with it. Then once they scored the goal, it was kind of like the neutral ice bottled us up. As I stated, we were passing, and we were under pressure to put pucks in, and far, far too many pucks went to Pekka Rinne, and he got to handle the puck, and he had an opportunity with time to make plays with it, and we can't let that happen.

The first thought at times wasn't good enough, but the second one was worse.

Q. What about (indiscernible)?
RANDY CARLYLE: He's day to day, as now Eaves is.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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