NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: CAPITALS v RED WINGS

June 11, 1998

Steve Yzerman

STEVE YZERMAN: No, not individually, no more than anyone else. Always we try to do get our lines turn over, and get -- create chances. Obviously, when you are behind in a game you have got to gamble a little bit more or press a little bit more, but, no, individually, I really don't feel -- our belief is that we will create scoring chances somehow or somebody will score at some point so. No, I don't feel any extra.

STEVE YZERMAN: Not necessarily, no. We feel we got to -- we don't go into games necessarily thinking that you know, that we can cruise and win. We have to really play well. I thought we had an excellent first period again tonight. Slow start in the second. They jumped all over us and after that I thought we played pretty well. But, no, I don't -- we believe that -- we are not going to quit in a game, particularly games of this importance. We will keep trying away. We were fortunate when Tikkanen missed the open net. That was kind of the break that we needed to. But, no, we certainly don't -- we believe we can come back at any time. We are not going to quit in any game.

STEVE YZERMAN: Yeah, well, I guess the Caps got up 3-1 and we were really forced to open up and take chances. Fortunately they didn't get -- they got the one powerplay goal, but they didn't get that many after that. But, the game for us opened up because we were down, but there really haven't been -- not just the Caps, or ourselves - throughout the Playoffs, there has been very little -- very few games that wide open. But what caused it, we had to open up to catch up.

STEVE YZERMAN: Well, I don't think -- well, I guess we are just playing for -- just to win. We have -- we enjoy the success we had last year. Our team is really competitive. We are just out there playing to win. I don't believe our team is really afraid of the consequences of losing or anything bad happening. We just have a really competitive team that we -- the Stanley Cup was incredible personally -- for our team an incredible achievement. And I think guys really want to do it again. We are just kind of motivated to win again for no other reason.

STEVE YZERMAN: No, I really -- no, I wasn't so much concerned with them. Actually they came out and played pretty well in overtime. But, they kind of fell into the same mode that we did in the last game with a 2-goal lead you are starting to sit back and not necessarily generate chances. Despite going down 4-2, I thought we were comfortable in that we were creating a lot of scoring chances and there was still relatively a lot of time left. The feeling was, I think we are going to at some point get another goal make it 4-3. I thought they responded well in overtime, but definitely, I thought the third period we got the momentum, but it was very even in overtime.