NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAPLE LEAFS v HURRICANES

May 26, 2002

Rick Ley

COACH LEY: From what I understand, yes, Pat will be back in his usual spot tomorrow.

COACH LEY: Well, I don't know. (Laughs). It was fun last night. We took another step in the right direction, anyways. We still have a tough task ahead of us, but we are a step closer.

COACH LEY: Both, I believe. I haven't talked to him today. I believe he just has some further -- I think some final tests today, I believe, but everything looks great. I talked to him after the game last night, and he sounds ready to go.

COACH LEY: No, not really. Just happy. It was a very brief conversation. Cell phones do not work in that building very good, so we kept breaking up, too. Basically, we just talked about that we lived to fight another day.

COACH LEY: Well, it's his team. It's been a long drawn-out year for him, with the Team Canada, the gold medal team, then the All-Star Game, and a lot of other things that most people don't know about. It's taken a toll on him. Now he's ready to get back and get in there and get back to the fight himself.

COACH LEY: It's more nerve-wracking watching it than it is being part of it. When you're behind the bench and you're running the team and working the game, your thoughts are doing that. But when you're sitting there, you feel pretty helpless.

COACH LEY: Well, I would think it would have to be a good feeling because we had to undergo a lot of duress to win Game 5 in Carolina to get to a Game 6. When you have some victories, and small victories, at the end of the night, you end up with the ultimate goal, and that is to win the game, it has to do some good things for your confidence. I think we'll be a confident team, but at the same time, we are on the edge, and we have to be thinking about one thing, and that's working at the process to get the result we want at the end of Tuesday night's game.

COACH LEY: No. I think what really pumps their crowd up and gets them loud is they have to yell very loud to get over the music. (Laughter). We don't really play much music here. All our noise is fan noise. I think we've got the best fans in the world in Toronto. But we don't play the music. We let the fans do their work. Down there, they play the music so loud, they have to be loud if they want to be heard.

COACH LEY: Our basic plan, I thought we were moving the puck better against their trap than we did at the beginning of the series; that's one thing. If you don't have the puck with people moving into the offensive zone with some space, then it's hard to establish a forecheck and offensive zone play. We've done that better. And the guys are trying to get to the front of the net. That's the key. We are still struggling after the penalty parade in the second period; we kind of got in that defensive posture and could not get out of it after that. They were just shooting it in and trying to forecheck us after. It was almost like it was a victory to get the puck out for us.

COACH LEY: Well, what happened earlier in the series, they were positioned so well, and we weren't able to move the puck, and consequently, end up with any three- or four-man rushes. We were ending up with two-man rushes. One winger holed up one guy and one defenseman would stand up and block and hold off the second guy so we were not able to establish any forecheck. But we have been able to move the puck more effectively against them and we are getting that third man so, they can't cover everybody off, and that's what we have to continue to do and even get better at it.

COACH LEY: Well, we moved the puck. We still played the best game of the series here the other night, and Nathan was not in the lineup. I thought Nathan did a very good job last night, and he can move the puck. He's quick. I think there's a misconception here with Nathan in that people don't think we like him. Nathan has not said a word; everything has come from his agent. He's one of those kids that you desire all the best for him because he's one of the nicest kids I've ever met and he gives you everything, but he didn't have a good training camp, it boiled down to that and that's why he wasn't here. Now he is here and he made a contribution tonight, and I expect if Pat puts him in the next game that he will continue to do so.

COACH LEY: Well, we are getting the puck to the right spots, where earlier we were passing it to the wrong people. "The trap", it's called the trap for a reason; they give you a spot to pass it to and then they close it down, but there are holes in it. Now we are looking for those holes and the key is getting your people into that position. It's not always the first pass that goes to that spot, but that spot has to be available for the second pass; and if it is, that's what opens it up.

COACH LEY: Well, the big guy is going to be back so, I don't know what's going to happen. I thought that the line combinations were played very good for half the game. Once we got the penalty problems and got in that defensive mode, it was really hard to assess it. I have to go in and watch the second half of the game and see what maybe what we can improve on. Corson and Green and Valk, I thought they did a good job. They have been a pretty comfortable team if this playoff series, and the reason I did it was I felt that we needed to do something to disrupt their comfort level. And at the same time, if you keep throwing a line out there and they want to stay away from you, you're keeping their best line off the ice, too.

COACH LEY: Well, I think after the game here the other night, they would have to say that they were fortunate to be up three games to one. It probably should have been 2-2. That's the game of hockey. That's the way it goes. Some nights, you play much better than the other team but you don't get the result you want, and it works both ways. CuJo was great and kept us in there in the third period. But fortunate, no. I think from the previous game, maybe we got rewarded for a good effort and the process of the game before.

COACH LEY: Well, if you watch all of the playoffs, there's a lot of funny goals being scored, but that's the game of hockey, too. Playoff hockey, you don't see very many, what you would call highlight reel goals, unless you're watching Sakic. Sometimes it doesn't matter how you win. You can win ugly, you really can. And sometimes you have to win ugly before you can get better as a team. We had the two-on-one in the second period, I think it was Valk or Corson or Green; Gary had a perfect spot to shoot from, but we're trying to be too fancy and make that pass. And good defenseman don't give that you cross-pass on a two-on-one, because actually it's two-on-two because the goaltender has a shooter and the defenseman's job is to make sure that cross-pass doesn't go through. So you have to wait it out sometimes, you shoot the puck and go into the net. A lot of goalie's don't like it because they don't know if you're going to stop or not. Sometimes they keep going.

COACH LEY: Well, that's what he gets paid for. (Laughter). Yeah, he was good. He was really good in the third period. CuJo, to me, has always come up big in the big games, and when you need him, he's there. It wasn't that we were trying. I think we got a little scrambly, and they were throwing five guys into the rush. They did not want to come back here. They had five guys up all the time, which obviously when you're fighting from behind, I think it doesn't matter what team you see; when a team is fighting from behind, there's something within that gets the adrenaline going of the that team, and the other team looks and says, wow, where are these guys coming from. It's a funny thing.

COACH LEY: I think the players playing in front of him have to feel very confident that they have someone backstopping them that is a big-game goaltender.

COACH LEY: Well, the hard part, I said it last night after the game is the two-referee system. Especially it seems like the referee that's in the zone is the one that calls the majority of the penalties, and the standards are not the same. You've got something that happens in one end, it's a penalty; and the same thing happens at the other end it's not a penalty. So it's not a standard. The guys don't know how to play. To me the system has not worked and that's why, because the players do not know what the parameters they have to play under are.

COACH LEY: Well, the players are what makes the game. Not the coaches, not the referees. It's the players that are the game. Whatever they do should be done around the fact that the players are what the people pay to come to see. However they do it, I don't have the answer. A lot brighter people than me have tried to figure it out and haven't. One thing they do have to figure out is that it should be done around the players, because it is a great game.

COACH LEY: Not at the time of year we have, no.

COACH LEY: I think it's important. It's important for any team. I think there's a buffer zone there that makes you, when you're always fighting from behind -- lesser teams would have crumbled, but our guys have hung in there in a lot of tough times and have fought back and come to the forefront.

COACH LEY: Yeah, other than me. (Laughter).

COACH LEY: Well, the way the rules are, I think that they have not had a day off since the last day of the season. That's a long time. To have a day home with their families or girlfriends or go to the golf course, whatever, just something to relax.

COACH LEY: We have not had a chance to talk about that. But probably wouldn't be a bad idea to have them around. I don't think we'd bring them in; that might be a little disruptive. But to have them here to see what it takes, that's why we're making sure that Karel Pilar and some of the injured guys, players that are prospects in the minors. That's why they are here and we are taking them with us, so they can see what it takes to be successful.

COACH LEY: Number one, I think it will be good because they can get today off and get away. Number two, it will give the bumps and bruises, I think we are a little bit older team than them, it will give us a chance to let some of the bumps and bruises to heal up a little bit and a chance to refresh their minds. That's the biggest part about days off is that it refreshes the mind. And it's the mind runs the legs.