NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: PENGUINS v DEVILS

May 17, 2001

Larry Robinson

COACH ROBINSON: No. We're not killing anybody yet. We just -- I thought we played much more patient game tonight. Marty made some big stops for us, a penalty killing; did a great job. And we scored some timely goals. The big thing was that we were much more patient tonight defensively.

COACH ROBINSON: Just one of those spur of the moment things. I was more or less reacting to what they were doing, and I was trying to basically get Bobby out there, if I could, either against the Straka or Lemieux line, and that was the big reason behind it. So rather than always changing the three guys, I said what the heck. And as it turned out, I thought it worked out really well. Gomez and Randy and Sergei, they had a good night.

COACH ROBINSON: I don't think it was so much embarrassment. For six or seven minutes, we didn't play smart hockey. When you go up against, you know, guys with a defensive count like Mario and Kovalev and Straka, every time you make a mistake defensively, it's a chance for a goal because they are that talented. So, the more you cut down on your chances defensively, the better off you are going to be.

COACH ROBINSON: Well, they even had some chances early tonight, too. We got a little careless. But that's -- you know, tonight is the way we have to play.

COACH ROBINSON: I heard kind of the cat calls and Marty stifling the shots, but I really didn't pay that much attention to how much shots they were getting. I was just more paying attention to our position and what we were doing with the puck. I think it's one thing to say, well, you are going to play your game, but it's another thing to overemphasize how you want to play against a team; you forget how you play yourself, as well. I was happy with the way we kept getting chances without just sitting back.

COACH ROBINSON: That's usually a good sign. Either that, or they are trying to get home before traffic. But I think it's very important to get the crowd out of it, especially here. When the crowd gets going, they can wind this team up, so it was important to get them down early.

COACH ROBINSON: Well, basically we're trying to find out who they are starting and we wanted to get our match ups and we wanted to get certain people -- a certain defense against their forwards and that's usually why I make changes like that.

COACH ROBINSON: Could have been or it could have been somebody else.

COACH ROBINSON: It's some kind of an explanation for not giving them too many men on the ice.

COACH ROBINSON: He was solid tonight. I thought -- well, two things. I thought he handled their dunk-ins extremely well because they were firing pretty well and he was able to get around the net and stop the pucks. I thought he did some smart things with it when he did stop it. And he also was there -- they had a couple of good opportunities. One being -- a couple on the power play and another couple very early, and he was able to make the big stop at the right time.

COACH ROBINSON: They miss both of them, Lang and Kasparaitis. Those are two pretty good hockey players.