NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: SABRES v STARS

June 12, 1999

Lindy Ruff

LINDY RUFF: It is tough to explain, actually. I thought we were pretty tight. We were squeezing the sticks; didn't get many shots through, but we also knew Dallas, they are a darn good penalty killing squad. So they did a number on us tonight. Penalty killing, we didn't -- we weren't very creative and didn't get a lot of shots through and a lot of the credit goes to them. They did a darn good job.

LINDY RUFF: They gave us a darn good lesson there. Obviously they did it to Colorado. They suffocated us. We didn't skate well, but a lot of that has to do with how well they played defensively and that was a damn good lesson.

LINDY RUFF: Yeah, you know, you come into the game, we were pumped up to play; we ran around; tried to hit everything in sight. I think we just burned ourselves out. We were so pumped up for a little while that, you know, instead of chasing pucks and making plays, we ran around looking for hits. We overstayed shifts, just a lot of little things. That did look a lot like that game. They proved to be the more patient club. They weathered the storm and they won a typical Playoff game for them.

LINDY RUFF: Well, they looked better than we did. There is no secret there. I thought they skated better than we did. I thought we looked, for whatever reason, looked like a little bit slower club tonight. Two days of rest looks like it is going to do us good too at the same time.

LINDY RUFF: I guess so.

LINDY RUFF: Oh, I mean, that was one heck of a goal he scored, where he put it, I mean, you can't fault our goaltender on that one. That was just one heck of a play. He scored a lot of big goals. For us to climb back in this series, our big players got to play bigger. They got to score some big goals for us. Right now we are not getting it. But he has been there. If he hasn't been their best, he has been darn close.

LINDY RUFF: Well, I mentioned we weren't skating as well. I thought they skated better than us, for whatever reason that is, whether it is being at home, being a little tight, a little pumped up, too pumped up, we lost a lot of energy; that in that category of the -- I don't know what it is. We didn't win a lot of the one-on-one battles down low to help create chances. It seemed like they pinned us very easily. We didn't get any type of cycle going down low. If you look at their two goals, offensively outworked us down low and scored two goals. There wasn't many times we got in and did that to them.

LINDY RUFF: It's the first chunk of adversity we are going to have to face. I think that in the Playoffs, regardless home or the road, you know, you can play bad hockey game. We played a bad hockey game and you can't say a lot of times this year throughout the Playoffs we played bad at home, we didn't have -- if we played like that, we are definitely going to lose unless one goal wins us a hockey game, but we have to play a lot better. It is one game. We got to come out and win Tuesday night and got to see what happens from there.