NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: STARS v DEVILS

June 8, 2000

Larry Robinson

COACH ROBINSON: Well, the Cup has been in the house all along, so that is not going to change. It follows wherever the series goes. Anticipation, well, it was a very short night, but this is what it is all about. Hopefully, we are -- everybody is prepared and well rested and well focused. I think that is what it's really going to come down to. We can't be looking at the end result. We have to look at what we have to do on the first shift, first period, and then go from there. I think you are giving yourself false hopes if you are looking at the end result, because we don't know what the end result is going to be. It's a very veteran team that we are playing against, a good hockey team. Every game has been extremely close, and every game has just been a bounce here or a bounce there, so we have to be realistic; and, by being realistic, if we don't play well, then we are going to get beat. We have to put our best game on the ice.

COACH ROBINSON: According to me or according to somebody else? (laughs).

COACH ROBINSON: I don't really -- I mean, I can't remember back that far, first of all. But I was involved in a -- very fortunate to be involved in a number of them. I think the last game against Calgary in 1989, I don't think that I was happy with my game. Mind you, I was older. I think I ran out of gas is basically what it was, but I didn't think that I had a great game. I went away from that, from losing that game to Calgary, knowing that I thought that maybe I could have made more of a difference.

COACH ROBINSON: You know what, I don't know if anybody knows what it takes to get that final win. I told them this morning, I said that if you are nervous, then you should be. If you are scared, then you should be. Because if you have never been nervous and you have never been scared, then you have never been in the Playoffs. That is what Playoffs is all about. And it is not -- it is not a fear as we know it. It is not like a fear of dying or a fear of falling off a bridge, or whatever. It is just -- it is a different kind of feeling that you get, knowing that it is so close, but yet knowing that it is again so far away. That is what being in this situation is all about. So it is so important that you don't lose your focus.

COACH ROBINSON: I will do my normal thing, I guess.

COACH ROBINSON: No tirade, no. (laughs). I have got something planned, yeah.

COACH ROBINSON: Well, Scotty and Brian have been together since Day-1. Dano and Nieder have been together since before Day-1. Only leaves two guys left. So it just was kind of a fit. Vlady came to us late in the season and so did Colin, so, they just seemed to be the right fit. And just for those reasons that you mentioned, it gives us a stay at home defenseman and a physical defenseman on each pairing and three guys that can carry the puck.

COACH ROBINSON: Well, I don't look at it like they are vulnerable. I think they have -- they have all the ingredients of a great team otherwise they wouldn't be here right now. So I don't look at it as so much tapping into their vulnerability as much as we have to play to our strengths and we have to stay away from their strengths. And I think their biggest strength is certainly their powerplay. You can look at the statistics and say: Well, they are whatever, 3 for 35 or whatever it is - I don't know what - I am not a big believer in statistics, but you still know that they have powerful guns out there on the powerplay. So we have got to stay away from taking foolish penalties, needless penalties. That is the bottom line. We can't allow their good players to have time. I mean, it is not a secret. I think good hockey players, if you give them time, they are going to make the plays so you have got to take away their time out there. We have to remain being physical and remain making the easy plays; not trying to do something that we are not capable of.

COACH ROBINSON: No, I think every era has a different philosophy and I think Scotty is the first one to admit that he has mellowed quite a bit since the early days. But in the early days a lot of the times you played through fear - fear of being sent to the minors; fear of losing your job and I think the Player's Association has created a more comfortable level for players that way. But you can say what you want about Scotty, about maybe not liking him. Maybe it is not necessarily liking Scotty; maybe you didn't like the way he did certain things, but the bottom line is that I think we respected him because he got the most out of players and he knew what he had to do to get players going. So I think maybe there were some of his methods that we disagreed with, but I still think that in the end we still respected the man because he made us all better players.