NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: AVALANCHE v RED WINGS

May 22, 2002

Bob Hartley

COACH HARTLEY: I think it's pretty clear that we had no business to be in it. It's pretty clear. He gave us every chance possible in the book to go home with a victory that we didn't deserve, but the Red Wings outplayed us and outworked us, plain and simple.

COACH HARTLEY: Like, this is the worst excuse in the book. We're traveling first class. We were in Denver at 12:30 two days ago. We have optional practices since the start of the playoffs. I don't even want to hear until the rest of the playoffs the word fatigue. This is for losers. We didn't skate tonight. We had scored the first goal and got a four minute power play where we could have gone back to the locker room with a 2-0 lead. We did nothing with the power play. They wanted the game, and for a reason, unfortunately, I can't explain to you guys. We were not there tonight.

COACH HARTLEY: I just addressed it. We had a golden opportunity to make them pay on Holmstrom's four minutes, but, that's where I feel that we missed like a great chance to go up two goals, and then like the second period, we spend the entire 20 minutes in our zone. It's tough to score a goal from our own zone.