|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINAL: CAPITALS vs LIGHTNINGMay 18, 2018Lars EllerWashington, D.C.: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Last night Barry said the five penalties in two games was too much. Is there a way you can go about correcting that? LARS ELLER: Yeah, I know what I got to do to correct it. Q. Do you care to enlighten us? LARS ELLER: Yeah, it's an easy fix. Things happen. Just got to be a little more cautious in certain situations. There's maybe one I had to take, especially the last one. Kind of guys coming in, skating into the slot with the puck, so got to try to do something. Yeah, five over two games is too much, so I got to be a little better. It's an area I can improve. Q. It seems like your line is playing really well five-on-five. What are you attributing that to? LARS ELLER: Yeah, that's what I'm going to choose to focus on. I'm not going to choose to focus on five or two incidents that happened in a split second over the last couple weeks, let that bring me down. That's not how I'm going to look at it. I'm going to focus on all the good stuff we've done, all the time we spent in our zone, all the good things the team has done. I'm confident. I'm not happy sitting out in the box, giving them those opportunities, but I'm going to improve that. I'm looking forward to going into Game 5 tomorrow. Q. When you let a two-game lead slip away, it's easy to have doubts in your mind. How do you wipe that slate clean, take the next couple games fresh? LARS ELLER: You just got to forget quickly kind of what happened. You have to move on quickly, just get more urgency in your game, learn from your mistakes. Learn from your mistakes and move on, don't feel sorry for yourself. I know it's clichés you hear the all the time, but it's really what's going to happen. We have enough experience in the room that everybody knows this is what we're going to have to do. We've overcome big challenges these last couple weeks in the playoffs with this team. I got plenty of confidence in the team. Momentum swings back and forth in every series. It's up and down. There's no straight way to success. We're not happy with the result the last two games, but I think still there was a lot of positives from our last game, Game 4. Q. It comes with going through this a bunch, to learn how to do that effectively? LARS ELLER: Yeah, you can't let the mistakes of the past, you know, influence when you go out there for the next one. You got to regain your confidence or whatever it is. Just have a fresh mind. Even shift by shift sometimes. I think we have done a good job of doing that throughout this playoffs. Now it's just best-of-three. We've been in this position before. We knew it wasn't going to be easy. Q. This is a pretty tight team. Now you jumped on the plane today to go on the road. 7-1 on the road. I'm sure everybody jumped on the plane with a good feeling. LARS ELLER: Yeah, I know I had a good sleep last night. There was a lot of smiles today. There was still a good atmosphere today. Everybody was disappointed yesterday, and rightfully so, we should be. But the sun came up today, and we're starting to get excited for the game tomorrow. Q. Marty St. Louis had a quote the other day where he was asked about why teams were having so much success on the road. He said one thing when you're on the road, you're playing hockey, not worried about matchups, all the other things. Do you think maybe some of that simplification allows you to focus on what you're doing? LARS ELLER: Yeah, like that's a very individual thing. It's different for everybody. But I would say, yeah, that could have an impact. That could play into some players can get irritated that they're not going to come in, because everybody feels like they can play against everybody. They want to get out there. I think, yeah, maybe it plays into the coach's mind a little bit more sometimes. For me, not a big deal. In a sense, yeah, he could be right. Q. At any level have you ever been four games into the series where the home team hasn't won one game? LARS ELLER: Yes, I have (laughter). Q. This is breaking news. LARS ELLER: 2011, won two games on the road against Boston, then we lost the next three, two at home. We came back and tied it up in six. We lost seven in overtime, so yeah. Q. You mentioned the experience in the room. That includes a couple of Game 5 wins in series that were tied 2-2. How does that help you guys as a group tomorrow? LARS ELLER: I think it's valuable experience in terms of that you know you can go out and win after a loss, too, simply because you have done it before. We have done it before, we've been there, we know what we've got to do. We've been through this cycle, so to say. That's why I think we can go out there with confidence tomorrow. We got to have a lot of urgency in our game, for sure. We have to be the hungrier team. I'm confident that we will be. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|