NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: CAPITALS v RED WINGS

June 15, 1998

Adam Oates

ADAM OATES: Well, obviously, down three zip, it's pretty depressing given as well as we've played. But it's there and today's another day. Got to practice. We've got to come out here anyway, may as well make the most of it.

ADAM OATES: You know, it obviously has been a detriment to the either series and all year long it's been one of our strengths; we've always scored first the majority of the time. We're going to have to come out and play a little smarter. Whether it's about miscues, getting a little intimidated, penalties, whatever it is, we've got to obviously find a way to stop that and come out and just play a sound first period.

ADAM OATES: A little bit. I'm not really worryed about that. No. It's been three long, good games. Game Two was obviously a real tight game. Last game we tied it up with four minutes to go or so and they got a nice goal in the end to win it. But, yeah, we played pretty hard. Well, I think, you know, all year long we played some being down and we found a way to bounce back. And, it is the Finals, so there is still a lot of positives. We've done some things well to get here. Obviously, everybody's down. But you have to be professional. You have to go out and try and win one game. It's like when you're playing a game during the season and you're down 5-nothing, the game's obviously over, but you try and find a way to just break the shutout. Right now we want to win tomorrow because we want to break the shutout and then we'll go to Detroit and try and win a game again there.

ADAM OATES: Yeah, Tik said that he didn't practice that all year long. He missed that one. So we all had to practice it today.