NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAPLE LEAFS v HURRICANES

May 24, 2002

Paul Maurice

COACH MAURICE: Well, that's part of the attitude that you develops on a team where you don't have five or six guys that are really the big names in the league. When your main or your most prominent, Ronnie Francis, has the personality that he has, it lets everybody else develop as an equal part of the team so there's not a -- there's a pecking order of veteran experience and all those things that happen of on a team but there's no cast system in there where the four or five guys that are on that fringe don't feel or are ever made to feel by the veteran guys that they're not as big a part of it. I think that has something to do with those guys knowing -- and then there's some pressure involved because I think they know that they're counted on, that they're needed and that's why some of those guys come to the games knowing that they feel that same kind of pressure that the other guys do in a good way.

COACH MAURICE: It's possible. I thought both guys were capable of doing it. Still do. It was very possible that Kevin would have been on this run but didn't -- I'm not overly surprised to see Archie play the way he did last night or in the games since he's been back.

COACH MAURICE: Conversations with Arturs, as well, were very short. And I don't remember specific words that he used, but being that he's a veteran guy and he's got pull, he doesn't want to have a two-hour conference with you. I don't think I would if I was in his situation either. But there's never any question about how Archie's going to come back and prepare. There's almost no need to go an tell him that. Maybe I did. Maybe. I'm not sure. But I also wouldn't have wanted to slight Kevin when he was in the net. My point in saying that we were going to the need Archie in the stretch was not in saying that I didn't think Kevin could not get it done. I just thought based on the way we played, the number of tight games that Arturs was going to have to come back in at some point.

COACH MAURICE: I think you have to be but I'm reminded that after his 75th game or 75-game performance the other year he went over to the World Championships and stopped 180 shots against Russia when they beat them. So he has that ability. He's conditioned is himself so differently than other athletes; you can't tell when he's tired.

COACH MAURICE: I think there's got to be something to that. I mean the reason we did it was that thinking that the condensed schedule would not allow us for a goaltender to stay sharp. By the time we hit the playoffs it had kind of fallen into place because he hadn't played a lot of the season but he'd also had a good run going into the playoffs in games to get himself to adapt today his game.

COACH MAURICE: Well, one of the things it does is it gives you a center iceman that you're not concerned about throwing them into the defensive zones face-offs and Brind'Amour has been out there for a while and it happened a few times last night where Ronnie was on the ice when the penalty was taken, stayed for the defensive zone draws and then entered into it, and then you have to get him off the ice, so you have a guy that can win faceoffs for you and he likes killing penalties. That's a big part of -- those guys want that role. He wants that role. All three guys on his line do a very nice job of getting into the shooting lanes. They're not afraid to get hit with the puck. He's been important for us. We've had some critical games even going into the playoffs penalty killing is the difference.

COACH MAURICE: Hey, listen. No question. When you want to get hit by the puck. There's something there that makes you a little different. I mean those guys are hoping to heck that that thing hits them on the way out and that's a little different mindset.

COACH MAURICE: Well, there were things and you always look at your own team first. We know what they're going to do. I'm not sure -- we did a lousy job in the neutral zone. That's the straight answer. There were things specifically that we did not do well in the neutral zone and we're going to have to do those better. We did them well in Games 1, 2 and 3. We did not do them well. I think -- there's some specific things in there that we did not do well and that there was one lineman especially who did not have their finest game in the neutral zone but we had a new version of our neutral zone going. We just threw our goalie at them and he did a fine job on the trap.

COACH MAURICE: Not last night. Other than last night?

COACH MAURICE: Toronto was a very, very strong team playing a different style. I think that -- You see just the system of -- the style of game and it's not the system; just the style of game kind of changes every three or four years and it goes back and forth. New Jersey always kind of seems like they're just a little bit ahead of that style change than everybody else. Everybody wants to get bigger so they can be with New Jersey. Soon as they do that, New Jersey's at added two or three guys that can really wheel up into the middle of the ice and now you're saying, "Gee, they're not quite as big as they used to be but they're a lot faster and move the puck better." So now we need to get a little more skill into our top unit and (inaudible) nine behemoths to start the season and everybody will try to get bigger. They've done a real good job just staying slightly ahead of that curve and I think Toronto is probably the next one that's moved well with the trend. We've a -- we weren't changing our team with the trend; we were just trying to get basic components and our timing has been pretty good because we got bigger and quicker at the same time.

COACH MAURICE: I think part of this -- and this is a theory that you will all, of course, go to the papers and prove me wrong again but just a thought -- the majority of the top-end puck-moving defensive men are in the Western Conference. Like the guys who really wheel that puck and that changing your game maybe more than (inaudible) when you have a back end that can really just really skate with it, move it, snap it, you can change your offense completely so you can still run a 1-2-2 or a trap or whatever that defensive system you want but when you get the puck, it changes your style because you really move it. You think of St. Louis and their back end; Detroit and their back end; even the improvements that Chicago made this year, their back end really moved the puck very, very well. Colorado obviously have played against these guys so I think that the big names are in the Western Conference in defense in the Western conference and I think that has something to do with the style of hockey that is played there. I know Brian Leech plays here and I know those guys but a lot of the big names are out there.

COACH MAURICE: We are not real interested in how many guys are enjoying it. I don't know that -- a lot of people are saying they must be enjoying it and enjoy it while you're here. This doesn't happen. Ronnie said that he's been like 21 years and this is his fourth time to the conference finals -- you guys can check on that -- but it goes to what you're saying, this is not something that happens to a lot of teams every day. Then when it's over, you'll get a chance to look back and enjoy it.

COACH MAURICE: I never saw it.

COACH MAURICE: He is a physical power forward that doesn't mind finishing his checks. I didn't see a lot of -- I got asked a couple of questions last night about Gary being, I don't know, maybe more rambunctious. I didn't see that. To me he plays the exact same game every night. The things don't really change a lot and he always plays on that edge. And some nights he may get noticed more for it and spend some time in the box and other nights he won't, but I don't think his game really changed. I really don't. I think that that's just a function sometimes of where the puck is on the ice and what the refs are watching. I didn't get that sense; maybe I'm wrong. Apparently I didn't get a sense of a lot of things that happened on the ice last night. Hey, somebody's button just snapped here. Somebody's got an issue.

COACH MAURICE: Pretty happy with the way that Ronnie's played and they're coming through now. Jeff O'Neil's playing his best hockey at the playoffs right now. Ronnie's played well all playoffs and I think Sammy's starting to get a little of that back but I think -- I thought I heard him say that he thought that might be missing the net.

COACH MAURICE: He's hit enough poles that he deserved a break. Got a lot of wood on it but --

COACH MAURICE: Fine. He was fine. He came back to the bench. I don't know how they stitched it that fast. I don't imagine -- there's going to be a scar, pretty sure, but he came back with about a minute and 40 left.

COACH MAURICE: In some ways the pressure is off the team in what could be a deciding game because there's only one direction to go and you leave it all on the ice. And that makes them very difficult especially because Toronto when they're going forward the way they were in Game 4, you're going to get more changes if your prepared for it. If you're not you're going to the spend lot of time in you're own end. I didn't think we were particularly well prepared -- no, that's not the right word -- I don't think we played well against it last night. I think we did play well against it in other games but we'll expect to see a very strong fore-check and a lot of ice pressure and a very small gap in the neutral zone and if we're quick and positioned properly and can go 50 percent or better in the 1-on-1 battles then we're going to get some chances from it. But at the same time if you're awful a little bit, they're going to get some chances.

COACH MAURICE: Sure. Sure. Exactly the same scenario, the same -- we're not going to -- we can't give up that many opportunities in a game and expect to win on a consistent basis but we haven't all year. I go to the game tape this morning. I do it with the volume down and the emotion out of it because you know the final score and it's not nearly as bad as I thought, especially through the first two periods. Most of what we gave with the exception of the free passes through the middle were to the outside but it got heated there in the third. When you break your tape down and take your special teams out, we didn't get the match-ups we wanted. The whistles. So when it's not going, you never get the whistles at the time you need them so you're not getting the line match-up that you want. And for the road coach, a lot of times you, when you're really humping, you like the whistles when you're playing well; when you're not, you don't want any so you can get them in and get them out before they have the time to adjust. And we got all the whistles that we didn't want last night. It made it difficult for us.

COACH MAURICE: We just want to win. Anywhere. We won two overtime games and a game where we didn't feel we played our best. There's certainly not a point in the series where you say "we've got them by the throat" by any means.

COACH MAURICE: With our team, that usually doesn't happen. When there's more jump in the building, when there's more emotion we just seem to actually do things harder. And that's usually when we're more successful. When we go into the games and kind of play like we're looking to win, maybe last night, maybe Game 3 of the series where you're going to play a little to the outside, we're going to make some passes instead of banging it out and really pressing up ice, we try to fit passes here and there so we can work it around the outside. We've talked about when that crowd's there and our guys get their legs going we play quite a bit bitter.

COACH MAURICE: Eric will have one day here where he feels good, usually about the 28th of July. He's going to wake up and say "I feel great." And then that's it. And that's going to be for the next 16 to 20 years of his career. That being said, he probably feels exactly the way he did in November. That's the way he plays.

COACH MAURICE: Sean was the perfect fit, you know. For our team to be where it is today, a big part of that is all the pieces pretty well together. Sean Hill is the personality in the room; he's little bit more outspoken; likes to have some fun and loosen the room up a little bit. But then he hits the ice and he just plays as hard as he possibly can. He plays hard minutes. There are guys that go out -- on defense -- play 30 minutes a night and they don't look like they're sweating and Hilly works every minute and that fits our team.

COACH MAURICE: The guys that you always feel like you have confidence -- this is going to sound so simple -- they just seem to really enjoy it. Everybody handles pressure and handles the big game differently. Some guys get spun right into the ground and they get all wound up and some guys it looks like it's just a regular day at the rink but when they get on the ice -- Roddy's more of a wound-up guy. He's very intense every game and Ronnie's quite a bit more laid back. But when they get on the ice, they want to be in the game. Roddy wants to take every face off all the time whether he plays 28 minutes because if he played minutes 20 I'd be getting the fish eye all night. He wants to be on the ice all the time. And it's not that there's an ice time problem there. It's just like "I'm ready, I'm ready." And Ronnie's the same way. Those guys -- I think this in all sports -- there are some guys that get affected as the game gets later and, you know, they squeeze that stick a little tighter. But those two guys -- You know what's interesting, after the game the emotion washes away like last night. (inaudible) obviously played great but we had enough guys play well to win that game when I go back to it. The two guys that you mentioned, Francis Brind'Amour, had great games. Jeff O'Neil and Sammy Kaplan played very well. We had a couple of defensemen play big and we had penalty killers who played very well. Overall as a team, we need more guys to play well and we've had that in the playoffs but last night we had just enough. (inaudible) happen to be an our goal time which made it possible but those two guys played pretty well last night.