NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: HURRICANES v RED WINGS

June 9, 2002

Paul Maurice

COACH MAURICE: I think we have probably gotten right through to the anger stage. (Laughs) what was said in the locker room, a lot of it will stay there. I think the resilience of our team is the one quality that we've had to develop over the last three or four years based on playing in a Playoff push from seemingly January on. And I remember the first or second year in Greensboro we played Tampa on Game 1, on '82 schedule. Our captain said it is a must-win game. We are used to operating under a situation where the games have always been magnified, and now we have gotten ourselves to a point where we are in the Stanley Cup Finals. So the resilience that we have learned as a necessary component of our makeup is going to be tested from the last game, and we are counting on it for tomorrow.

COACH MAURICE: No, all the questions that are asked now about the Brind'Amour line were asked about the Francis line in the first two series. Ronnie's lines got it going. The Vasicek's line probably has been the one over all four series that operated at the same level. Roddy's line plays a physical game, and it will get less and less pretty as the games go on because it takes its toll. But they have been effective fours in a lot of ways, just haven't been putting pucks in the net. And similarly to the Francis line in the New Jersey series, I think the same thing is happening to them in this series, quite a bit harder to get to the net. The things that they did against Montreal they were not able to do. And I think the style of game that we'll expect from them from now until the end of this playoff series is the same we expected them from Toronto, be as physical as they possibly can be. And it may not be the difference on the shift by scoring that goal, but they generate the offensive zone time and bang their "D" and continue to do that over seven games and if they can't catch them, maybe another line will.

COACH MAURICE: No. When I said I wouldn't take him off the powerplay, it was for anybody to start the game. And he went out there and, yeah, we had seen it in Game 2 with the shorthanded goal that we gave up. Just didn't want to continue to press that. I liked our last two powerplays of the game. I thought they were real effective, generated some opportunities. Based on minutes and ice time he may go back there at some point, but our powerplay was most effective after Hedican went out.

COACH MAURICE: It was a fair amount of discussion at a number of different points in the game. I am not sure there's an advantage necessarily to either team because both teams have played a lot of hockey right now, and we have got out left-handed draw man that we want out there as 1:25 I think on the clock. We got the two line rotation that we want to finish that game, so it wouldn't have really changed anything for us. But, yeah, there was quite a bit of discussion over the course of the game at the benches for two teams that are in the Finals. You'd think we would have had it sorted out by now.

COACH MAURICE: Well, when you look at the minutes their top line plays as much as our top two lines do. So it's not like Francis now plays 50 minutes or 15 minutes more than their top end line where you tire them out. Both Brind'Amour and Francis' line are used to top end minutes over the course of the year, so they're line didn't. The line that ended up picking up the excess ice time in the rotation was Vasicek's line. That was more by design because I really liked the way they played the whole game. The only time really that they got out of rotation was in the first overtime period, and part of that was just you go into it, you know, you have given up a goal late and you really want to watch that emotion in your team. I thought that was the one period where we struggled a little bit. So, because there were no penalties called, you are looking at six-and-a-half minutes of ice time by your top three lines, which is ice that they can handle. And then after we got into it, we knew after that period that they would have to come back out into a rotation, and they did.

COACH MAURICE: I think it is a combination of all three. I think their powerplay has been more effective in terms of zone time than ours. They have had better set opportunities and better looks than we have. Our goaltending has been good on the powerplays, the shot blocking has been very, very good. The lanes have been taken away from the shooters. In their instance, I think in their case they have got so much confidence with the players that they have that if they don't get a shot -- if they get a shot they don't like, they won't take it. Because they know they can snap it around the four other fairly skilled gentlemen on the ice and get that shot that they want. In our case, we are probably a little hesitant being that we have had some blocked at the point; we haven't had much success. I did think we got more through in the later powerplays, and I like what we did on the last powerplays, that we had a lot more than earlier. So I think it's a combination of all three: Good goaltending, good defense, good lane blocking, especially. And then there's a bit of a difference, and I think the way the both teams approach it, they will wait for their shots and show that good patience. And we, on the other hand, are trying to manufacture those lanes a little bit differently.

COACH MAURICE: We don't want to encourage that too, too much. You don't want to encourage the mentality of just hanging around. I know that it will be written somewhere that that's the way we're playing. I viewed our team as a forchecking team. They have good skill, they move it out of their back end very well and move the puck so well that we're just not able to establish the forecheck in the same manner that we had been in the other series. But we would certainly take a large lead at some point without much disappointment. We would be very pleased with that.

COACH MAURICE: Absolutely. I think that from the last question, the fact that every turn of the puck seems to be an opportunity for the game to change. It really keeps everybody on the bench into the game. And you know, when the puck goes one way you can see five or six guys on one bench stand up and look at it. When it goes the other way, the same thing happens. That excitement is built into the Finals just because of the significance of it. But both teams, I think, still have quite a bit -- we still have quite a bit of confidence in ourselves, and that also builds some excitement. It takes a lot of the dread out of it, that I am sure some were expecting we would go in play did he tell like, let's hang on to this thing if we can. I don't think we approached it that way. That allows a lot of excitement, allows -- our room has been great all Playoffs. We went up two on Jersey, they came back and tied two. The old bits were written for our club, but the room really never changed and a little anger grumpiness, I think maybe on my part in the morning. But when the guys -- when we did finally get together today, you can see that spark is back and it's still there, and it is a good sign.

COACH MAURICE: Well, I think that first tip was very impressive, to get an angle on the puck that he did, to get it to where he did. There's a level of skill that's high in the NHL, and then there's that elite level, as I think Ronnie Francis has labeled it, at times the short game that some players have that's just the difference between you being a 10 handicap playing on the PGA Tour. There's those elite players like himself, so hard to hit, you know, so hard to get to because they are a step ahead of the play. The puck is on their stick and it is off and usually he's created ice for someone. Whether they knew he was creating it for them or not. It really probably -- you are not going to see as many of those guys just the way they think the game because the game is changing. And overall, Detroit is an unusual team in terms of the way they approach the puck and what they do with it. They have got a big chunk of those kind of players on one team and there might be one guy on a number of different teams, but seemingly sometimes they are alone in their game, and sometimes they are labeled then as guys who play the perimeter who are not involved in the grind, they are not the prototypical NHL hockey player anymore. You are probably not going to see as many of these guys -- we certainly hope you don't see as many of these guys on one team anymore but you are not going to see necessarily this kind of game for very much longer. I think that the size of the players and as we all overcoach this thing right into the ground, it is going to be harder and harder for those special players to develop that game as they grow up. In terms of his position in hockey I think honestly a man of my little experience would do a disservice by commenting on it because I don't think I'd fully appreciate the entire scope what he means to hockey and his country here, his accomplishments, it's almost in the same way sometimes I don't like answering questions about Ron Francis because I know when I am done with the answer I haven't done him justice in how important he is to our team.

COACH MAURICE: Well they have got a lot of weapons 4-on-4. They can check and they have put the grinders out to play the 4-on-4 game but they can also put some of the skill out on the ice to play 4-on-4. We would prefer not to play it. I think what you are seeing a lot of times is a little lesson for us is how well when the puck gets kicked out into the neutral zone and we have control, how long it takes our players to get out to the blue line, usually because it's not just their own weight that they are trying to get to the blue line. So we're seeing more of that and that causes scrums and the word -- Maltby's 4-on-4 was two, three feet inside the blue line and you are starting to see that behind the play scrum that neither team wants to give a little bit and the referees want to control that, I understand that, but the only direction for us is that we want to play 5-on-5, especially after the whistles. We don't want to get into a situation and it happened again later, we were on a 3 on 2 rush that another 4-on-4 was called behind the play, and we need to avoid that.

COACH MAURICE: No, I didn't. I didn't figure I was going to get apology or a change of calls so, you let that go. I think that they are trying to find the right ground between allowing our players to get to the puck and still allowing his rights as a goaltender. He has the right to play the puck and he has the right to come out and he has the right not to be bumped when he gets there. At the same time we would be allowed a certain lane to the puck and I think he just got to a position that our lane got a little bit better than his ability to protect it so he hopped on it. We don't encourage Arturs to get quite as active out of the net as they would encourage Dominik, and we're thankful that he doesn't.

COACH MAURICE: No. I know you are all out there. (Laughs) you are a week away -- no. In all of this, because you feel in the early parts of your career that you are trying to thread water but you are not quite at the -- quite above it, that is the only feeling that you have right now is that you are just doing your job and that your head is slightly above water but you are certainly not walking on it yet. That was right from the hip too. Not too bad.

COACH MAURICE: Are you saying that the Brind'Amour penalty was not clearly a penalty?

COACH MAURICE: Sure, both ways.

COACH MAURICE: They were the least of the infractions.

COACH MAURICE: No, no we are not going to, and we would prefer to almost have it as it was 5 on 5. It is a tough sort now. I mean, the neutral zone stick grabbing, those -- I mean, to me, aren't important to the game, but and this went both ways, but they were clearly a number of instances when an open man was driving the middle of the lane and carrying one and sometimes two people on his back and just couldn't beer the weight of it and ended up on his face in the crease, clearly, Ron Francis, Ron Francis, and then yeah, it not -- we did it back, don't get me wrong. Those are the plays that take away from the offensive part of the game that you would like to see probably watched a little closer than maybe some of the little grabbin that goes on in the neutral zone. I mean, hey, for two teams that skate, there's an awful lot of it going on out there, and as it got on you knew the further it went there would be less and less; I think everybody had a little bit of a shock that there were the two called that were called and once -- the first one you are saying all right, we killed this, there is another one, there has got to be and there was. And then you are thinking geez, we have seen that -- I mean, we have seen that and far worse here for the last 35 minutes, but we're not going to. I will say this: And this is not related to this series. The refs are in a tough spot now. For the main reason is that there's -- it's hard to play this game to get through to drive the net. There's so much of it going on that you know, what is a ref to do when a guy takes a stick across the chest and brings it up to his face and snaps his head back like he's just lost all his teeth and he can't tell, you know he can't tell whether it's a call or not and he turns around and he's got no teeth, how could you not call that. He turns around and he smiles at you, you look like a fool. The refs have been put in a difficult position to make these calls and to make them right by so much of the, I guess, embellishing is the word that has been going on. The regular season, it's tough on them out there. No question. They are just -- it's almost like right now they are just trying to keep it level, trying to keep a handle on it, so it doesn't get out of control but it becomes difficult to do that.

COACH MAURICE: Well, we have given it up three times, two 6 on 5s and 5-on-5 last night -- we talk about look at it and change the angles on that 5-on-5 last night and push differently from this side, but it's great hands that scored that goal. The guy from the point to get it there and the guy who knocked it down, that's all that was. And the other two came in the Toronto series, we have looked at it -- this is not is something that has been-- that we have seen with our team over the course of this year. But what you are doing now is you are seeing better teams and we have scored two ourself. It saved us, O'Neill scored in the New Jersey series with the goaltender out, we're down 2 -1 end up coming back winning that game in overtime. Cole does it back in Toronto, same thing. So it's going both ways. We're even with the goaltender, down one now 5 on 5 late in the game to tie it. So I don't think -- there's no sense that there are one or two guys that are key guys that have to be on the ice at the end of the game that aren't getting it done but the 5 players that Detroit would put out on the ice at the end of that situation aren't that bad.

COACH MAURICE: I was -- in my mind I was happier the longer that game went. I think you guys can check this yourself. I think the defensive zone time in that 6 period by our team was in the 3s which I looked at as a real good stat except for the last one. My only concern was the fourth period with how our bench was. Once we got that fourth line rotated back in, I wasn't -- I mean Ronnie's the only fellow that you'd say is he feeling it because of his age, but if that point ever gets to it he just uses his brain and skates to where he's supposed to and he's on par with everybody else anyway. So that wasn't a major concern.

COACH MAURICE: Everybody tries to shoot hard at Arch. And he has been very good at not letting that happen. The last one, the fifth of the 6 goals he was on his back and rightfully so, so even if I was, what are you going to do? We're not going to stretch him. (LAUGHTER).

COACH MAURICE: Happened with Jeff O'Neill in the Montreal series. It's the same thing, he came from the first line to the third line, relaxed, got his game back and out he went. For Sami, you are right, I think that that split second of do I want to take this shot or do I want to look for somebody in better -- that's the lanes are gone in series both teams -- Detroit is so underestimated for their ability to play defense. The lanes are gone once you have made that decision, shoot it, no, I will pass, No, I will shoot it, it's over. It's the difference in Jeff O'Neill's shots. Mind you he has been scoring on breakaways and cutting through the middle. But watch him from the outside now, it's not a big wind up, he's just snapping it to the net. That's the confidence. It's almost like he knows he's going to get a goal or two here and there. He doesn't have a good angle so he's just going to go it the net and where Sami, as he's pressing it, gets to that outside and says, I have got to get this shot there, this is the shot that I have got to beat them with and beat him big and it's taken too long to get that shot off. That is his real purpose on the powerplay, twofold, one to bring it with speed, we can have Hedy do that and the other is to pound but we are not getting those looks at the point cuz they are taking them away so there's not a real advantage there.

COACH MAURICE: No. Sure I felt fine got --out 6:45 I got down and then about 7 I got a foot in the head from one of my kids so that was good. But you go through a couple hours a game tape I think I saw what I saw today, and they have a very good team. When one of their top end guys has the puck at the top of the circle are off to the side and he takes the shot you may feel it is a lot more of a chance than maybe a guy who is not a shooter just because of the power that they do -- they are always so dangerous, but our stake in this is our ability to compete and fight and not really care whether it's pretty or not or work for style points and I think we competed pretty darn hard. We made some mistakes and we are going to. Some of them were forced on us. They were stretches and especially in the fourth period that weren't good for us. But the fight was there, and the intensity was there, and those are the things that we have gotten to this point on. And as long as they stay at that level and we're hopeful that they increase as the Playoff series goes on we're here. Those are the things that got us here and I think they are still alive and well in that room.