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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: FLAMES v LIGHTNING

May 30, 2004

Dave Andreychuk

CALGARY, ALBERTA: Practice Day

Q. Have you seen Fedotenko? If you have, how is he and if he can't play how do you guys adjust?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I saw him after the game I saw him this morning. I had breakfast with him. He seems fine to me. He feels good. Obviously last night he -- you know, he took a blow there and he went down, I think he was more scared than anything else. But he seems fine to me.
Q. John was just here talking about the Vinny fight. He said maybe it didn't get the team going or anything, but it was a hell of a fight. He said he would not necessarily like to see him fight again but if it happened it would be okay. Is that a part of the process of maturing, Vinny doing that, not necessarily the fight but that he tried to do it for the team and it's just part of building yourself into being a star player in the league?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: Definitely. You know, we talked about going into this series about he wants to be a lead dog, and to be a lead dog you got to take on all the other comer. Obviously Iginla is a top player in this league and he will be, but Vinny wants to get to that echelon and that's the process that he's going through right now in his mind. Whether he's fighting or whether he's battling, people are going to notice.
Q. As much as Vinny going against Iginla with teams trading hits, pretty tough first period. Was there any sense that you kind of lost a little of your identity there in the sense that the forecheck wasn't there, and you almost got more into their game and kind of forgot what got you here?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I think our first period, I believe was what we wanted to do. We wanted to go and establish ourselves, and we knew that they were going to come out strong. We would have liked to have gotten more chances that we control the play, but we got to continue to try to get chances. Their defense has done a good job of keeping us away from the net. But for us, our identity is our forecheck, our speed on the forecheck and causing turnovers. I thought we did that in the first period. We just got to continue that for 60 minutes.
Q. Do you think your team has given as good as it's gotten physically in this series and given the makeups of the two teams, is that necessary? Is it necessary that that's even?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: The physical play?
Q. Yes.
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I hope we got more to give. I just believe that these are two teams that are going to battle very hard to try to win games. It's pretty obvious, the intensity level in these games. So for us on our side of the fence we're going to continue to keep battling. That's the way we're going to win this series.
Q. Coach Tortorella, you have been around him longer than anybody in the room. When he was an assistant with you in Buffalo, did you sense that he was going to be head coach and why do you think he's been so successful?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I think there was a sense that he was going to be a head coach. I think it was a good process that he went through. I don't think he could have jumped right to a head coach from then. His intensity was there. His personality is the same. But I believe that he's learned to deal with players better. His honesty is something that you can accept it, but it's sometimes it's not nice. Sometimes it's brutally honest. But as players, that's what we want and I think he's done a great job of motivating his players to play.
Q. John was just in here said point blank his players, your best players, have to be better in Game 4. Do you wonder how the response will be, and do you think this will go a long way into defining your team?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: He said that before. (Laughs). He said that after almost every time that we lose. That inspires his players. There's no secrets. We know that the guys that have carried us, and they will respond.
Q. Darryl Sutter said this morning he -- that his team can't get into a run-and-gun shootout with you guys. Based on what we saw last night, the play, it seems that their strategy now is to turn this more into a street fight and take the skill out of the game. Do you see it that way?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: Well, I see them getting better defensively. I definitely see that there's no outnumbered situations. They are going to use their speed to chase pucks down, but other than that, they got four guys back. We're going to have to grind it out. That's the way we're going to win the series. That's what wins. That's what wins in this league is defense, and that's what they are playing right now.
Q. John was talking about the first goal and the numbers prove, you score that first goal you always seem to win. From a historical standpoint in your career, do you remember the first goal being this important in the past? Do you think that it's changed because the game has changed? What would be your assessment on that?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I think it's changed, definitely because there's not as many goals being scored. It's tougher to score goals now. Penalty killing is so much better. You know, in the playoff series, my past experience is that the first goal, everybody knew that we were going to score a goal eventually. Now there's so many shutouts and chances are down, so that's why the first goal is pretty much key now.
Q. In 22 years you obviously played with a lot of goalies, Patrick Roy among them. How good is Khabibulin? Is he getting better through the years that you have been together?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I think Nik has taken some great strides in his game from the day that I stepped in with Tampa. Mentally he's very sound. I think he has the ability. He has the talent but I think it was mentally what he needed, you know, some stability in his game. And, you know, he went through a little bit of a tough stretch this year. But that made him stronger going into the playoffs. He's a top goalie in the league and he's going to be there for a while because of the way of how mentally strong he is.
Q. There were no outnumbered situations because they are just not there or because when they are you guys haven't -- seemed like last night you made the one tape-to-tape pass to Richards it was there. Game 1 you didn't make those passes, Game 2 you did. Are they not there or they are there and you are not taking advantage of them?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: They have a lot of guys back. They have very good back pressure. Obviously they are talking about it in their room when the puck is turned over, you have got to head back. They have three guys back all the time. It's not just their defense. So we got to continue to try to get outnumbered situations. We have got to continue to get the puck by them. But when there is a chance, we got to make a good play to get an outnumbered situation.
Q. When you guys were preparing for the series, I know you guys do a lot of work with video. Watching the series that Calgary had, did you see anything where they were physically trying to take certain players out of series or out of games? And how much was that stressed or discussed on how to react to that or to take the fight to them first?
DAVE ANDREYCHUK: I don't think we noticed any of that. We noticed their speed on the forecheck and how they chase pucks down. We noticed them flipping the pucks out and them chasing it down. I think that's the physical part of the game that we were aware of. That they are going -- they have good speed, they are going to chase pucks down. But I didn't see in the San Jose series or any of the other series that they played in that, I think they -- that they went after somebody to try to get him out.

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