NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: CAPITALS v RED WINGS

June 16, 1998

Ron Wilson

COACH RON WILSON: No. He's going to obviously call Scotty Bowman first. He congratulates the winner first. They're not off the ice yet.

COACH RON WILSON: Well, I'm a fan of hockey and that's something you dream of seeing. There is no point of going and running and hiding in the back room and avoiding that. I want to see it and you want to see the Stanley Cup up close and dream that next year it's going to be our team holding it above our heads.

COACH RON WILSON: No. Never, really. I mean, you lose three one-goal games and we didn't get any breaks tonight. I'm disappointed we lost four straight but I'm very proud of our team. We have come a long way in a short period of time and we've seen a lot of good teams in the last few years lose four straight, the Red Wings being a prime example. And they learned from it and came back stronger and better from it and that's what we're going to have to do and that's what we plan on doing.

COACH RON WILSON: Nothing. They seemed to beat us in just about every area. Not by a large margin, but in a lot of ways. Obviously, the experience of playing in the Finals and handling that, maybe having played some tougher opponents a little more so, sort of hardened them a little more than we. They were challenged in the earlier rounds -- and no disrespect to the teams we played and they were challenged, but not to the extent Detroit was. They came in and new exactly what to do and how to bend and not break. And we made some mistakes that we haven't made and every time we made a mistake was -- each game the first scoring chance they had went in. It was kind of strange to see that tonight. We came out and we were flying, they scored a powerplay goal and then a goal that -- you know, their forward interfered a little with Ollie, it was a goal nonetheless and seemed to knock the wind out of us at that point because we had come out and played so well. We'll bounce back.

COACH RON WILSON: No, I really don't know. I mean, obviously, this is the first time I have been a part of one. It seems like when it starts to slip away it slips away in a hurry, the other team gets hungry and it can be very frustrating. You know, I think this series might have been closer than some of the others, at least they were one-goal games. Last year it didn't seem that way and when New Jersey swept the Red Wings, there was 3-2, 4-2, 5-2, 5-2. But I really -- I really can't explain four sweeps in a row.

COACH RON WILSON: Yeah. I think people -- although I was looking around -- I saw a lot of people wearing red and white. I don't know if a lot of people came with two jerseys tonight and decided at some point to switch sides a little bit. But that didn't matter. As long as we had people coming to the games, I understand it's a transient city. Had we had the three to nothing lead, everybody would have been wearing blue and white. No, I think everywhere I go people are talking with our hockey team and that's a real positive. There is too many things to do here other than hockey and I cannot fully well understand that. There is a great sport tradition here and now we've got our own little niche.

COACH RON WILSON: They are a very good team. They're solid from top to bottom. They've got great goaltending. I think Ozzie in this series proved that he's a top notch NHL goalie and he made some fantastic saves tonight and the other night as well. Their defense is a very experienced one and probably -- you know, they're going to have a few problems there because they are on older defense, but up front they've got four solid lines.

COACH RON WILSON: The MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, not the Finals. Stevie plays well at both ends of the ring, and my understanding is he's an outstanding leader. He scored points, he kills penalties, he's on the powerplay. He is obviously their most consistent and important player and he deserves the award. As far as -- you know, I think Olaf Kolzig deserves some points in there. We wouldn't have got hear if not for them. He was just outstanding. Crozier was the MVP one year in the Playoffs. Just as easy, Ollie could have been the MVP had we won a couple of games.

COACH RON WILSON: I think that's outstanding. It's a very tight-knit group and -- I mean, when you have somebody like that to rally around, what the heck can we say? There's no speech you can come up with or story you can tell that equates anywhere near what that team has gone through and -- that's outstanding what they did. It's absolutely outstanding. You know, I would never wish that that happen to one of the players on our team. And I know any hockey team -- any hockey player thinks about that accident and Vladi and the massaeur and that was a very emotional but professional thing that they did. You would only see that in hockey.

COACH RON WILSON: Well, you're disappointed obviously a lot to get this far and so close to realizing a dream, but I'm very proud of our team. We competed. I know they'll be cynics out there. It seems like 90 percent of the people are cynics but I'm proud of what we did. I'm proud of our players. I'm proud of our organization. And I know we'll be back. I've read somewhere where we should be embarrassed by what's happened. How can you be embarrassed or say that we're losers. We're not losers. There's 24 other teams that would have died to get swept four straight games in the Stanley Cup Finals. I know that for a fact. I'm very proud.

COACH RON WILSON: Well, George and I were lucky coming in because the foundation can essentially be laid, obviously, with the building, and we just had to come in and, as George said, move the furniture around. My job was to instill a new attitude and we're well on our way to that. I'm disappointed in myself that I couldn't really get our team to really believe in the Finals, that we were good enough to beat the Red Wings and that's not that we're a better team than the Red Wings, but that we were good enough to beat them. I never really saw that look that we had in the other three series. But we're -- we'll rebound. It's a great learning experience for me to be this far into -- to be playing in June and see what it takes. It's been -- it's even better more so for our players because you have to taste this sort of disappointment to understand how sweet it would be to win. And I think a lot of our young players on the bench in the third period suddenly started to realize what maybe it takes the little extra, tried taking a hit, keeping your game simple, sacrificing, doing little things like not getting frustrated. We learned all of that in this series and hopefully it will make us a better team next year.

COACH RON WILSON: Thank you.