NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: HURRICANES v RED WINGS

June 7, 2002

Paul Maurice

COACH MAURICE: It works the same for both things, so there shouldn't be advantages for one or the other if one teams has a hard time finding that line of what is going to be called, it work the same for the other. There has been a bit of a shift that we have seen from our series, I can't speak for Detroit and what they were used to through to the Finals. But a bit of a shift, understandably based on some of the series earlier in the these Playoffs. I understand why why it's called tighter. But both teams are probably looking at the penalty called against them and not real excited about it.

COACH MAURICE: Some technical adjustment that you have to make about how you are going to move it through the neutral zone and then -- but the bigger one is just the quickness. We have got to do things quicker and move it quicker and -- I think in some ways be less patient with what we're looking for because we're just not going to see it. They have done a real nice job taking away our back end, getting it through, and we haven't had a lot when we brought it back down low, we haven't had a lot. But most of it is just quickness. We have gone through these stretches before, and sometimes just -- Colorado scored a couple of their goals just launching it at the net. I think that's probably where we have to go with this.

COACH MAURICE: You know what, I don't think that either team had an opportunity to establish its style of play because of the number of calls. It's so hard for anybody to get a sense of how this series --the flow of the series what is happening is one team dominating another offensively? Is it a physical series? Is it trading chances? Because just so many penalties, that it's hard to assess. I think that all we have done is through two games from our point of view is we keep narrowing what we know will work and what we have to do. There's not about five or six different ways to approach this. There's only really one or two ways that we can play to get this done. And so much of that's just based on our own quickness. To position defensively and how well we move the puck from our back end. Whenever we got in trouble with it, we usually had had it and didn't move it quick enough, or didn't get to position quick enough defensively. Those were really the two things that were causing us some problems.

COACH MAURICE: We're not getting a whole lot of anything off our powerplay right now. I don't think that that's going to change drastically. I don't think there's going to be one or two adjustments they are going to say, ah-ha, now they have got the powerplay going and now they are going to start really generating some great offense. I think that they have very skilled defensemen in terms of how they knock pucks down and how they move it. Their forwards, they are intelligent. So much of penalty killing is good smarts and reading the flow of the play and their team probably is the best in the League at it in terms of having a big group of very, very smart intelligent hockey players, and that's why they can move so quickly. It's like Ron Francis killing penalties, I mean, we go to 5-on-3, he goes out there because he knows better than anybody where that puck is going, and they got a bunch of guys who are in his class, when it comes to reading plays like that.

COACH MAURICE: I think Sandis, from the start- - felt -- probably had a big part of creating this idea that he was going to be an offensive guy; that was going to really drive our team offensively from the back end and I think he felt every time he got the puck he had to do that. And that's unfair to any player and it's not realistic and because of that, there was some consistency problems in our game with that. Hedican comes in and Kevyn Adams who is a big part of that trade force, but Hedican comes in and much along the lines of Sean Hill when he came in, what it really did is it allowed us to restructure our defense to put people to play to their strength not their weakness so we have got a guy with speed on each of the pairings, a guy that can bang on each one of the pairings. It allowed us at the time - David Tanabe was playing with Glen Wesley, allowing us to move that and go with Hill and Wesley and that gave us a little bit more of a physical presence there. More than anything, it really improved the structure of our defense and allowed our six guys to fit each other better. From that point on defensively we were a far far better team.

COACH MAURICE: Especially in our building, little hard on the throat. You don't you know, and you don't want the other bench knowing who is next and I know early on I had a habit of watching the play and tapping guys on the shoulders, who were up next and all he had to do was watch our bench to get a feel of who was coming out. That, and just in timeouts, it is so loud that there's not a lot of instruction that you can get across to your players, but far better that than, there was a Game a few years ago that a linesman came over and asked me to watch my language because -- this is back in the Greensboro days, people, shouldn't mention it, but asked me to watch my language because the people on the other side of the building could hear it very clearly. Those days are long gone. (LAUGHTER).

COACH MAURICE: Oh it's easier to coach the other way when you are not -- just from the flow, when they let more go, I think that in some ways it makes for better hockey. There has to be -- I mean this has to be a line drawn somewhere. I am not sure where it should be. I think that they have been consistent in what they have called. They have just called a lot, and it made it more difficult. I think we would all prefer just to watch a real good 5 on 5 game and when a powerplay came up, have it be really significant because it was only going to be maybe one in that period that you were going to get. But at the same time, nobody wants to see, I don't think anyway, that ten or fifteen seconds after every whistle guys pushing and shoving for nothing, I mean there's not going to be really any fighting unless a game gets out of hand, and there's no need for that, I mean, that's -- that's actually you know, it's foolishness. Especially because majority of it comes from people who haven't dropped the gloves their entire career you know, and now they got a green light to do the face wash, it's comical, but it gets old after a while.

COACH MAURICE: I still don't like to talk to the goaltenders. I don't think I have ever have. I had one kid in junior only thing I have ever said to him was "stop the puck." I think that was my one comment to him and it was in Sault Ste. Marie. I think I was feeling the pressure of coaching at home. You know, all I try to do with Arturs is try to do -- is try to learn his personality a little bit as a coach and how he works. He's very bright man and very hard working, so other part he's also very consistent in his emotions. Once you get a read on how he feels, that's pretty much standard for him. So we talk occasionally, now it's it has been this way for a year or two with the exception of you know, when Barrasso came in there was a new case to deal with, last year he knew he was playing every night so it really didn't matter. How the kids are, how the family is, how he's feeling, I always like to encourage Arturs to stay off the ice. He doesn't listen to me, and away we go. But from my point of view, I am not going to do anything that has any -- I don't understand what goalies do for a living other than the minor technical things and I never played the position, so I just try to you know, if I feel I need to explain what I have done when I take him out I take the time to do that, but for the most part he knows what is going on, there's no surprises there.

COACH MAURICE: This one is a little different. I think that it has been difficult for me anyway, I won't speak for the Red Wings - to get a really good sense of the games again. There haven't been long stretches of 5 on 5 play where one team is asserting their game over another. It has been very difficult to know exactly you know, if there are any momentum swings in a game. They keep getting broken by the powerplays and the penalty kill, so it's difficult. But we met briefly with the team today and it was the same team that showed up in the last three series for -- after you lost a game, and there were no differences in the room. I couldn't sense any.

COACH MAURICE: Barring any injuries, no, on Dave. There will be two general matchup ideas that we are going to want to establish. I won't hold them. We have "D" pairings that we think will play against certain lines that they have but there's not going to be a strict four line match here in this series in my mind. We have got two lines that we have rotated on a specific style of line. I am just hoping that I can get our fourth line off the bench a little bit more. But we're just going to have to go fewer "D" zone faceoffs to have that happen.

COACH MAURICE: Well we got Brind'Amour or Battaglia and Cole out more early especially just in case that happened. It did. But their numbers were up a little bit better I thought this the game and I thought that Eric Cole had a pretty fine game yesterday. I thought he did a lot of good things, thought he was specifically improved over the first game. But then you get into Gelinas and Vasicek aren't getting the ice you want. I think the numbers were better from our bench actually in Game 2 than they were in Game 1. I think that more people got into it better in Game 2 but it was still difficult to get everybody -- especially got that into that third period it had nothing to do with the penalties at that point. It's we weren't moving well for a stretch of 6 minutes there and had a lot of defense on faceoffs that made it more difficult to get the lines off the bench.

COACH MAURICE: We'll see, yeah. Sorry, I mean, the interesting stat about Ron Francis's line when you guys take a look at it I am sure you will, their scoring on the road is usually very, very good, and in some cases better than their scoring at home. Ron Francis would far prefer to play against a grinding defensive line. Now, I don't know if you can call him a defensive line anymore, they are on fire scoring left and right. I am sure they are starting to feel the pressure to put the puck in the net. (LAUGHTER). But flow and freshness off our bench are No. 1 priority because we're going to get a matchup. I mean, with the way their team is structured you are going to get a matchup that you put it on paper you say why did you have that matchup. Well, we're who we are, and if we're playing at the top of our game, we like all our matchups and if we're not, there's not a lot of matchups that look very good. That's true for any team.

COACH MAURICE: You know what, I hadn't even given that a minute thought. I didn't expect that will phase him. We have gone through stretches where he hasn't had a lot of work in series, then stretches in the Toronto where he absolutely won us a game. That's part of the peaks and valleys. Arturs is not 22. He has been around through a lot of these things, and I won't say anything to him because it would have absolutely shocked me that I would need to, or thought about it. It never crossed my mind that he's hanging onto that.

COACH MAURICE: Oh, man.

COACH MAURICE: I can understand the hockey ones. These ones I am not very good at. I don't know. I don't know if I have an answer for you. What is my coaching philosophy, I am not sure that I have developed a complete one. I don't -- I don't think that you -- I don't believe in one style of hockey. The team I coached in junior was just all speed, constant motion. We went completely away from that when I got to the NHL, not at first, at first I thought that worked great and found out it really didn't, and then changed so much. I am pretty quiet with this team and I am not sure that's my personality either but I think it works with this team. And I think that you have to adapt to your surroundings. I think that I got a really good coaching staff that I rely on heavy. I am not afraid to delegate responsibility because I think in some ways each one each Kevin McCarthy and Randy Ladouceur are better than me in some areas and in those areas I let them do their thing. At the end of the day the kick for me is I really, really like this. I like hockey. I am not so sure I like all this, but I can talk hockey for hours, not intelligently, but for hours, and enjoy it. I drive people nuts in the summertime in July unfortunately last six years I have had five months to do this, but fortunately won't be as long this year, but I just really like the game. I am not a lot different than any of you in how I see the game. It's X's and O.S for me because it has to be, but when I turn on a game that I don't need to watch, I just enjoy it. I don't look for systems. I don't look for anything like that. I love going in the training camp every year. We had our rookie camp, I get a chance to go watch my buddy who coaches the Kitchener Rangers probably have more fun watching those exhibition games than any game I have watched in the NHL just because I like the game. I beat that to death, didn't I? Pretty much nothing that you can lose. I noticed you stopped writing. It was a good call by you.

COACH MAURICE: Most of this is still overwhelming to me in a lot of ways. I am sure that there's a better way that I can work all of you to get an edge. I can't figure that out so I don't bother trying. You know, I think for the most part I tell the truth when I speak to the media, and because I do that enough if I don't want to answer a question I just don't. As some of you have found out. But this is -- this is about as good as it gets for a coach. Be honest with you I will just beat this up for another 20 minutes. I am almost done. I don't now this is going to sound crazy, but in the darkest of times in the coaching where you were almost you were pretty sure that you may not get on that plane or the next trip, I really enjoyed that time too. That was pretty good. Getting fired is not a big fear of mine. I really enjoy the rush, and the tension, and sometimes the sick feeling that you get, the deep breath you have to take on the bench. That's -- I like that a lot. That's good. And I still drive the speed limit. (LAUGHTER).

COACH MAURICE: And the police escort that gave us the ride to the airport they do too and we'd like to thank them kindly for getting us to the airport last night safely.

COACH MAURICE: Yes Sami Kapanen will be on the point in the powerplay. And yes, he looked a little tentative in the game. He was not alone in that, so we make adjustment as we need to, but you have to -- it's not a matter of taking one guy off. When you do that you have to ride out the next four rotations that we go through on the bench and see what it does to everything else. There's more to it than that. What was your second question.

COACH MAURICE: It's that matter of time theory that you are working on here. If these other guys aren't scoring when is going to happen, and I will just say this and answer I have thought it amusing that the local media up there referred to that as their fourth line. And that's not just in the Playoffs. I mean I thought that for quite sometime now.