NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: AVALANCHE v RED WINGS

May 31, 2002

Steve Yzerman

STEVE YZERMAN: Looking back on it, yeah, the fifth goal is where I thought where everyone kind of thought it was a huge goal. They're looking desperate being 4-0. They're looking in the second period to get anything to get them going, and that fifth goal comes and kind of nails -- kind of takes the life right out of them and doesn't give them a chance to get any momentum.

STEVE YZERMAN: No, we thought it would be a 1-0 game or go into overtime or 2-0 game. We're still thinking after the first period this isn't the way it's supposed to be, and we didn't have the opportunity to relax and think about it. Getting four goals in the first period, you couldn't plan or expect anything better. We went into the game thinking it's going down to the wire or overtime. I think we're surprised as anyone.

STEVE YZERMAN: I think we have a really motivated group of guys that really want to do well. We feel we were playing against the best team in the league and if we really hung in there that we could beat them. I don't know if we're a better team, but over this series we got stronger and the depth of our team revealed. But I feel we're a motivated group of guys. Despite what guys have accomplished or their age or whatnot it's really a motivated group. So our goal is to win the Stanley Cup, so being down 3-2, we felt pretty comfortable going in there. We felt if we stick with it, we can win a game and we'll worry about Game 7 after. We never started to doubt ourself going into Game 6.

STEVE YZERMAN: We had a lot of opportunity to watch a lot of their games. I think they opened everyone's eyes when they beat Jersey in the first round. I've pretty much seen every game they've played from their second round on. Guys like Francis have been there and won, Rod Brind' Amour hasn't been there and won, but he's been there. They've got some fantastic young forwards and that are playing well. They've got something special going, so they're dangerous.