NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: STARS v DEVILS

May 31, 2000

Larry Robinson

COACH ROBINSON: Well, we have said right from the start you got -- the team that you are playing against, they know we have to match their intensity certainly. I think we have to keep our discipline. I know our guys took a lot of whacks and high sticks and elbows and everything last night, and I thought we kept our composure very well. We are going to have to continue doing that. We gave them a few chances. I mean Marty came up huge on that Modano/Hull chance to score, I think it was in the second period. So we know that they have got guys that can put the puck in the net, and you have to eliminate giving them any kind of chances like that.

COACH ROBINSON: As long as we didn't put all our seven goals in one game. It is kind of deceiving the scores of some of our games, because I know, I think in the first or second game in Toronto we hit four goal posts, and a couple we had a couple of wide-open nets and missed. So we have been kind of snake-bitten this whole Playoff series with our goal output only because we, you know, we haven't had any luck. And so finally I think we had a few lucky goals go in for us last night. I think more so than anything else it just gives the guys that are getting those goals a little more confidence, and they will feel a little bit better about themselves now that the puck is going in.

COACH ROBINSON: I don't think -- I don't fear satisfaction. But I fear that possibly we may come out and not give the opponent the respect that they deserve. I mean, that is always the case when you win a lopsided game like that, like the other night, and it is up to me to have everybody prepared for tomorrow night's game. This is a huge game for our club, and we can't afford to come out flat. They are going to come out flying. We know that they are going to come out and try whatever they can. They don't want to go back down 2-to-nothing. And basically any road team, when they come into a visitor's building, are satisfied and should be if they can go home with a split. I think that is what Playoff hockey is all about. So I have said before that that is the -- not the unfortunate thing, but that's how Playoffs are in that as soon as the first game is over, it is now lost and forgotten. It doesn't -- you don't really carry it into the next game. Each game is its own little series. So it is basically a little series of 7 here, and the first series is over. Now we are on to series No. 2. That is the way you got to look at it.

COACH ROBINSON: No. Unfortunately we were scheduled to leave at 7:30 this morning, and the plane that we were supposed to use we weren't able to take it, so we ran into some problems. I did watch it on the tube this morning.

COACH ROBINSON: It was a lot -- there was a lot of people there. But it was very touching. Just goes to show you the popularity of the man.

COACH ROBINSON: Well, I think Jason can be as good as he wants to be. He had had a lot of pressure on him, I think, when he was first drafted and a lot of high expectations. Sometimes people need maturity and time to mature before they really hit their true stride. But I think Jason is just now starting to grow into a complete hockey player, and I think he can get a lot better.

COACH ROBINSON: The stuff that you do -- you don't coach. A lot of the things they do, it is -- it is just hockey talent and reading off of each other. They have played together now for a season and a half, maybe two seasons, so -- I think they know where each other is a lot of the times without having to look. However, they probably do look and we just don't see them. But it is just sort of a chemistry thing with them and those are the type of lines that make coaches look good. But I don't really try to teach them anything offensively. I try to work with them a bit on their defensive positioning because a lot of times your offensive players have a tendency sometimes to think too much offense and when you get into the Playoffs you know chances against are as important as chances for. So as long as they have got the puck and they are creating things and not putting themselves in a position where they are giving the other team chances, then by all means, I don't touch it. But when they are out there and they are spending 80% of the time in their zone, I don't like that as well.

COACH ROBINSON: I don't know, I think -- I think that is just the -- possibly the fact that they are focused and they realize the importance of staying out of the penalty box and that it means more to turn your cheek and win the hockey game than taking a foolish penalty and costing your team possibly a win. Right now the wins are much more important than the bruises.

COACH ROBINSON: I think both teams here are pretty good transition teams. A transition team is a team that I think puts themselves in a position to get the puck back and then once they get the puck back, they jump on offense. I think positioning has a lot to do with it being in a good position. If you are not in good position it's pretty tough to have any kind of a flow going or be able to jump on the other team. So I think just that we pride ourselves in being in good position. I think when you don't have the puck the first thing you got to do is get it back, so if everybody is running around, you are not in good position, you can't feed off of each other; got nobody to pass it to, so we try to be in good position. That is my philosophy.