NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLUES v AVALANCHE

May 16, 2001

Bob Hartley

COACH HARTLEY: It's definitely a tough game to lose. But, you know, like we knew right from the start of this round that it would be a tough battle. And everybody expected that the Blues would come out strong in this game and they did. And felt that defensively, you know, like we did a pretty decent job. I felt that we were skating better and better the more the game was progressing. We had chances to win the game. But those things happen. We have to get credit to Blues. They played a solid game.

COACH HARTLEY: No. It was a line change. Danny Hinote came out because he was done and pucked one in our zone. They just got a shot and they got a tip. And those things happen. I felt that Chris Dingman, Dave Reid and Dan Hinote had a very solid game. They gave us a big goal and they skated very well for us.

COACH HARTLEY: Especially late in the third to lose a lead. But those guys kept coming and on their third goal, like I just said, like point shot, they tipped it and caught the corner of the net. So whenever you put pucks at the net, like you might generate something good for you. That's exactly what they did. And after this, we kept battling back. I felt that in OT, we had many chances. We had good chances at the net. Rob Blake had great point shots. We had good traffic at the net, but we couldn't buy the winning goal.

COACH HARTLEY: Well, I think that his performances are speaking by themselves. Patrick is strong. He's giving us a chance to win every game. And tonight like we almost took advantage of it again. But we're back to work tomorrow and, you know, we knew it would be tough.

COACH HARTLEY: It felt that, like I said, the more the game was progressing, I think we got stronger. It was tough in probably the first half of the game because there was lots of penalties called on both sides and it was tough to generate any momentum. But, you know, after this, like both teams started to play good hockey. And I really like the way that we came at them. We had a couple of two on one, we had a couple of three on two, so we didn't score. We didn't take advantage of the situation. Have a good night, everyone.