NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: SABRES v STARS

June 10, 1999

Lindy Ruff

LINDY RUFF: I think it is obviously intent. Skrudland's only the hit of the game. Just happened to be our goaltender; that is the only guy he can track down.

LINDY RUFF: Yeah, Dominik made four or five tremendous saves on that 5-on-3. We knew that they would be looking to get it to Hull for the one-timer and just -- you get down two men; not a lot you can do about it. We were hoping maybe defensemen could block a couple of them, but you know, we thought that might be enough to get us. But, you know, Hull got an opportunity; one of our players screened; Dominik actually came out from behind the net, Ward lost coverage on his man and Hull just ripped one.

LINDY RUFF: We didn't see that. So doesn't surprise me it the didn't get called though.

LINDY RUFF: Well, if you are going to treat players like the goaltenders like defensemen that means when Belfour is behind the net you just run him over, I guess. But the rules say you are not allowed to. We got the calls. You can't treat him like a defenseman, the rules say you don't treat him like a defenseman. You got to try to contain him, but the League is trying to protect the best players in the game, he happens to be one of them.

LINDY RUFF: Where he put it was unstoppable, really. I think Dominik might have had a chance, but I think it was a defenseman for Peca or somebody kind of slid in front of him just before the shot and he didn't have a hope, he didn't see it. I think if he sees it, he doesn't go down. But I think when our player slid in front of him he went down; take the low part away, just a perfect shot.

LINDY RUFF: Well, obviously the teams are very close. I love the way our hockey club played the first two periods, hitting-wise, special-teams-wise, the way we played in our own end. We didn't really let them test Dominik. Obviously in the third period you get pummeled with a few penalties 5-on-3 and you know you are going to get ten or fifteen shots against you in those circumstances. But our team battled hard. They battled to the bitter end. We are going to do more of the same when we get back to our building.

LINDY RUFF: A product of powerplays. You know, our team was ready to roll, we had four lines going, you get the powerplays against you, got us on our heals a little momentum for them. They teed up 6 or 7 shots in the 5-on-3. They just kind of rolled after that.

LINDY RUFF: Our team showed a lot of discipline tonight. I wasn't disappointed with our discipline at all. Our discipline was great for two periods our discipline was unbelievable. I don't think it changed in the third. You can't do a lot about marginal calls. If you get them, they got to go both ways. I can't criticize any of my players or the penalties they took.

LINDY RUFF: I am not dissatisfied with our effort at all. I thought our effort was great. I thought to give up the number of shots we gave up in the first and after two periods, we were battling hard and we knew it wasn't going to be easy, but we still realize this is going to be a long series. Nobody said it was going to be a 4, 5 game series. So we are disaappointed we thought we had an opportunity and an opportunity got away from us late.

LINDY RUFF: Well, I mean, obviously the officials saw it; they are going to call it -- Modano slew-footed him first of all. You are not even allowed to do that to a defenseman. If they want to treat him like a defenseman - it was definitely a cheap shot by Modano. He went through the crease and slew-footed Hasek. It is just a cheap shot. So you know, there is ways to combat it. I don't even want to talk about it.

LINDY RUFF: I think there is pressure every game. There was pressure going into tonight's game. Dallas obviously felt the pressure. There is going to be a no runnaway here. It is going to be one-goal games. Games are going to be won late. They are going to be dictated a lot by special teams. It is going to be a roller coaster ride. At home we have got a lot of distractions family relatives, friends, we got to keep our team focused. But they want to come into our building and hopefully try to get a split, we haven't lost in our building yet. I think that is a big plus for us. We have been extremely focused and played very well there. So we are looking for more of the same.