NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: SABRES v STARS

June 17, 1999

Lindy Ruff

LINDY RUFF: He missed the first couple of games, but he got there for the home games and I think it is great. It is an opportunity of a lifetime for both of us and it is great to enjoy this time of year with him, spend a lot of time as a little kid hauling me from rink to rink, along with my three other brothers. Finally gets to reap a little bit of the benefits 30 years later.

LINDY RUFF: We are not going shopping, no.

LINDY RUFF: Well, obviously we thought there would be a chance he would be taken. It is going to happen again this year. Dixon has been good player for us and we are going to lose another good player. We didn't want to lose Bob Boughner to tell you the truth. He was kind of the heart and soul in the back end for us, but obviously with young players coming, you have got to expose guys that you think in a year or two may not be here anymore, guys that are going to become unrestricted free agents, whatever. Dixon was an important part of our Playoff picture last year and regular season this year and has been an important player in the Playoffs again for thus year.

LINDY RUFF: Well, the matchup we got at home with Modano and Lehtinen, that line there was Primeau, Rasmussen and Cunneyworth who played against the most and can do a pretty good job..... I think the matchups in game -- I don't think it would have mattered who we matched up with who, we just didn't have a very good game in Game 3. So we are not going to get all our matchups tonight. We will get one and if we change on the fly to get Peca against Nieuwendyk, obviously other lines are going to have to play against whoever. You can't just change on the fly or we will spend too much time in our own end. But I think every line can be reliable. Primeau really played well at center for us in Game 4. Curtis Brown has been one of our better two-way centerman all year, and Brian Holzinger is very capable of playing against anybody. So we need a huge effort out of all four centermen tonight regardless of who they are out there against.

LINDY RUFF: I don't think it has been an issue at all. I haven't heard anybody talking about expansion in the room. I know it is going to come upon us pretty quick. I think it is nine days or eight days away really. But I think the players understand it is more jobs for the players. The League expanding is going to extend the careers of a lot of players. Although you are losing a teammate, players look at it that another 30 jobs have been created and two years from now it will be 60 jobs; instead of players playing four, five years they will probably stretch it to eight or nine. I think in that sense the players are glad for expansion.

LINDY RUFF: They played extremely well for us. I don't think you can call them a fourth line the way they played the other night. Really almost played as a number two line, the Peca line playing against Modano. I think that was a pretty big task for them. You got Erik, first year player, and you got Cunneyworth played 17 or 18 years, and Wayne has been a good player for us really throughout the last two Playoffs, kind have had a so-so regular season but stepped up his play in both Playoffs since I have been here. So that line is going to play a big role for us. We mentioned earlier we are going to have to play two or three of our lines against different lines tonight so we will get a lot of the matchups, but if that line can help create and help shut down it is going to be a big plus for us.

LINDY RUFF: I think one thing they have to do is respect it. One thing you can do with counterspeed is make sure you got tight gaps. I think we caught them in transition a couple of times. If you are caught halfway you got no choice with you to back in and I felt at times that happened. But very seldom you have got a lot of ice against them. In the times they did their defense is smart enough to back off and keep them wide.

LINDY RUFF: It is best of 3 right now and now we are into the heart of the series where we have got emotions going both ways. There are a few veteran matches out there. There has been players that have built up little rivalries with other players; there is all the little games inside the game now. I think Game 4 we hit a lot better than we did in Game 3 but hitting has to come under control where we don't just run in there and three guys are trying to hit the same person; we stay in control; take the hits when they are there and make sure we finish all our checks when available.

LINDY RUFF: I think it is really exactly what we thought. We all said from Day-1 it is going to be a long hard series; after four games nobody is ahead here. It has mostly been a roller coaster ride. You can see how high our team was before Game 3 and how disappointed after Game 3 and then we pick it right back up again for Game 4. Now everything is even again. We were up; we were down. I think one thing we have done is kept the emotions in check, where it really hasn't fazed us too much. Game 4 was a huge test for our team because of the way we played in Game 3. I thought we responded well; we stayed levelheaded about it. Even though we won, we knew we hadn't accomplished anything. All we had done was even the series up and give us a chance to take the lead in Game 5.

LINDY RUFF: No, I think there was a time when it was -- all the talk was Dominik, but even throughout this Playoff, until this series, all was mentioned Dominik has been good; he doesn't have to be unbelievable for us to win. We won the Toronto series because we are a very good team. We didn't rely on goaltending; two games we were without Dominik. In the Boston series, once again, we had some absolutely dominating periods where we outshot the opposition by a wide margin and controlled play and we were the better team. I think the game that set the Playoff straight for us was Game 1 against Ottawa where he played unbelievable and won us a game and got us in the right direction and that is what your key players have to do. After that, the players got down and really played well in front of him. I think he would be first to admit that it has been a total team effort. There has been a lot of players that get recognition through this stretch and they realize when a two-time MVP makes those saves, he is going to get a lot of recognition for it. We still know that he is the backbone of our team in the same sense.