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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: DUCKS VS PREDATORS

May 22, 2017

Peter Laviolette

Anaheim, California - Pregame

Q. How have you seen Pontus grow this year? And did he have a late surge in the regular season when you realized he was a guy who could help in the postseason?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Yeah, just, again, through the process of not just this year but I think a couple of years watching him play, his last -- I want to say his last two times that he got recalled he played really well. And being honest, he was probably ready at that point. But when you get in through the course of the season you have already got your roster, you're only allowed to keep so many players.

And that was a player that we could continue to keep playing down in Milwaukee and he would develop. He had a great year down there. But I think it was a matter of time for him to get back here.

When the Playoffs started and we were able to handle more players on the roster, it was an opportunity for him to come back up. And he jumped in and he played very well.

Q. Not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but we were talking about travel. How important will it be for you to close it out here and avoid another eight or nine hours in a plane in a couple of days?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: The travel is a lot. It's for both teams, though. I always look at it that way. They've actually traveled more than we have. With regard to whatever team moves on, I think that the travel, when you can limit it, it always can work to an advantage. Nobody wants to travel -- we had to travel a lot last year, making both trips to California in the first and second round and it was substantial.

This year the travel's been a lot better for us. And not having to do any more travel immediately would be, I think it would be a benefit for our team.

Q. I want to describe this so you can correct me if I have anything wrong and then I want to ask a question. The Ducks were saying you basically play a 1-3-1 which forces them to dump it in. And then Pekka gets it and he's so good at handling the puck and he gets it to your puck movers that you get it out of the zone before they can establish a forecheck. A, is that right? B, do you use that because Pekka is so good at moving the puck? Is that why you use that? Is it just to fit your personnel, or does it just work well because of the personnel you have?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Yeah, not to get into the details of systems here. I haven't really changed the neutral zone in 10 years. We make some variations off of it once in a while.

I think anytime, whether it's a 1-3-1 or a 1-2-2 or 0-4 -- a 1-4, an 0-5, whatever you want to play in the neutral zone. I think anytime you can get a goaltender that can get out and handle the puck I think it's an incredible advantage. It's like having an extra defensemen back there that's able to move the puck. So there's some great goalies in the league, not just Pekka, but great goalies that are really good at handling the pucks.

Q. To follow up, some coaches don't want their goalie to go back there when it's high because it will go off the partition or something. It doesn't seem like you mind that. Is that just because he's just really good at knocking them down?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: He's very good at knocking them down. He can get back there. You see how he does it. When he goes back there he uses his whole body and he can get a piece of it.

Q. More to Pekka and the fact that he's just been a rock back there for Nashville ever since, I guess, he came up. What kind of effect does that have on the team and even maybe on the way you coach? Are you able to have your defense play up more and be a little bit more aggressive knowing he's back there?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Yeah, I mean, as far as a goaltender, it's the most important position on the ice. And when he has the confidence -- any goaltender gets the confidence, and like Pekka has right now, I think it's a positive for your team. And it gives you opportunities to -- last game's a perfect example where you fall behind in a game and there's an opportunity to continue to press and try to climb back into it. And he had to make big saves along the way.

Game 4, in particular, where we needed to score goals late, there was opportunities for them to push that score in a different direction, and he allowed us to continue to play our game and keep pushing.

So I think the guys really feed off of that as far as his confidence goes.

Q. Freddy Gaudreau came in in Game 5 and put together a very impressive performance, not just because of the situation, because you played him at center. I believe he's a natural center but spent most of his time in Milwaukee on the wing. What went into the decision to put him in the middle, and why did you have the confidence in him that he could thrive in that position?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: We've seen Freddy a couple times. Just with regard to where we were at last game. We needed a centerman. And there weren't a lot of options left at that natural position.

I mean, Watty's gone in there and he's jumped in a little bit. But Freddy is a centerman. He's played it down in Milwaukee. He's come up here and played it in training camp for us, a real smart player, just the reports from Dean and how he played down there, a good two-way centerman that would be able to handle that pretty good on faceoffs. And he did an excellent job in the faceoffs in that particular game.

But, like I said, when you're in that game, when you're minus a couple of centermen, you're running low on options. He jumped in, did a terrific job.

Q. Sort of along the same lines, but maybe a guy like Colton Sissons, also, can you talk about the challenges he faced, kind of expanding his role with the top two guys out and how he responded against going up at times against guys like a Getzlaf or a Kesler, et cetera?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: If you think about Colton's season and how he's grown as a player, from the beginning of the year and finding himself on the fourth line, sometimes on the third line, sometimes out of the lineup, and for us really looking for him to define himself as a player.

And there was a point a couple months ago where he came back in and he really started to pick up his game. He's a good two-way centerman. He's smart. He's strong. And not knowing how he would handle that responsibility that he got the other night, we think he did a terrific job.

Again, probably to answer along the same lines as Adam's question about Freddy, we were missing two big centermen, and other guys had to step up and fill those roles and those responsibilities. And both of those guys did an excellent job.

Q. You talked about needing to have a better start tonight than what you saw in Game 4, the last game in this building. When you think about that first period of Game 4, what was it that they did or maybe that you guys didn't do that explained why that period looked so different --
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Why do you want to go back there for? (Laughter). Played a whole game since then. We weren't good. Our guys knew it.

And I think sometimes -- I do think -- I don't think that Game 4 leads to Game 6. I don't think that Game 1 led to Game 3. Every game is its own page in a book.

The one thing you can do is you can learn along the way. And we just weren't very sharp. We were on our heels. We played a team that was on their toes and basically that's the difference. Without getting into systems or how it happened, we were flat-footed and their engine was revving.

So we changed it through the course of the game. We climbed back in. But certainly it's not the way you want to start a game. Our guys will be ready to play tonight. I'm sure Anaheim is going to be ready to play them. What you'll see is a good hockey game.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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