NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLUES v AVALANCHE

May 20, 2001

Joel Quenneville

Cory Stillman

Scott Young

SCOTT YOUNG: Definitely the thing that we can feed off is the experience two years ago against Phoenix. And the biggest game was Game 5, winning in their building. And all of a sudden you're back at home and ready to force a Game 7. But biggest game's game 5.

SCOTT YOUNG: Well, he's been involved. You know, he's out there in front of Patrick battling away with their defensemen. It's not for lack of effort. He's worked extremely hard out there. And it's been tough sliding against those guys.

SCOTT YOUNG: We believe in him. We believe we should have won that game the other night. We can't give up three goals early on in a game. That's tough. We battled back from it. We showed a lot and we all had a lot of confidence going into that overtime that we were going win the game.

SCOTT YOUNG: Happens from turnovers. That's how a lot of the Avalanche goals start. They like to clog things up in the neutral zone, create turnovers and go the other way. That's something that we want to do to them. We want to frustrate them and make sure that we're sharp as you can be in the neutral zone.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: Well, we'll just worry about one right now. I know we had a couple days to reflect after the tough loss Friday night. But we've got to feel that the way we play has got to be the way we approach tomorrow night's game and don't worry about anything else. We've got a lot of work to do, but tomorrow night, it's all work tomorrow night.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: Yes. I think we had a little bit of both. We still know we've got to have a business-like and a workman-like approach to tomorrow night's game. That's when we have to try to win the one-on-one confrontations, the positioning, the control in the puck area, and then think that over the course of the game they are going to be fresher bigger, stronger, and hopefully that can play dividends.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: Yes, I think early in the game we weren't as good with the puck as we needed to be. They're a team that their talent is extremely high. And you want to make sure that you limit their opportunities in the last game. We gave up too many. As a team, we've got to make sure we think defense first. We'll get our opportunities offensively, we we've got to make sure we shut them down.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: He's certainly getting a lot of chances in the last game. That was his best game of the series. That's how he has to play and I think maybe patience around the front of the net when you're pressing a little bit. He's not quite as comfortable as he's been in the past. But that's an area where he's got to go and recognize his dime. That's his bread and butter and we expect him to cause a lot of traffic there.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: It'd be nice if he'd score. He's certainly put himself in a position to score, particularly last game. He had a couple of key opportunities late in the game. But certainly you don't mind him because when you get chances, they start going in for you.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: We're leaning on Roman now.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: I think Roman's been a big part of where we're at today. He's coming off a real strong series in San Jose and a real strong standing against Dallas. He's been all right in this series. I think you look when the games are critical and on the line, he's been there for us. I think that overcoming the start is the part that we've got to make sure not only him but as a team that we don't give him any life knowing that we've got to play catch-up.

COACH QUENNEVILLE: Power-play has been okay in this series. We felt we had maybe our best chance in the power-play when the perfect setup with Scotty Young there in the last game. But at the same time, I think our power-play has been better in this series and more productive creating opportunities than it was in the Dallas series. But at this stage in the game, we're going to be looking for that to get a timely goal for us and a needed goal.

CORY STILLMAN: Well, we know we have our work cut out for us. That's for sure. Our goal is to go out there and look as far as head as tomorrow, win the one game and then after that, again, you can say that we are coming home. Who knows what might happen.

CORY STILLMAN: I think the only issue for us is going out and playing well. Obviously we're facing a great team that needs one game to clench the series. But on the other hand, we're a team that's got to go out, we've got to work had, we've got the play our game. But we can beat ourselves, if we go out and play our game, good things are going to happen.

CORY STILLMAN: I think one is getting some great shots at Patrick Roy. I think obviously at home, we had to have 60 shots to beat them. We've got to come out, we can't sit back and seeing what's going to happen. We've got to come out and jump on them in the first 20 minutes and send a message that we're here to play for this game and the games coming up.

CORY STILLMAN: Obviously the media play as roll in sports, but for us with Roman here, Roman's played extremely well. Sure, he has maybe some shots he would like to have back. But we're not this far along in the playoffs without him. He played great against San Jose and then against Dallas. And he's a competitor he wants to play and he wants to prove everybody wrong and that's what everybody's trying to do.

CORY STILLMAN: That's not fair for me to answer for him.