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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: FLAMES v LIGHTNINGMay 30, 2004Darryl SutterCALGARY, ALBERTA: Practice Day Q. Is it fair to say that the series last night turned to such a physical element now, that you are going to take away some of the skill of Tampa's players and probably this would benefit, you know, if it gets into like a street fight? COACH SUTTER: Well, I think the way I felt after the game was, we didn't play as aggressive as a game as we wanted in Tampa, but we have to play a very disciplined game and I thought we did that last night. I think that -- I thought both teams in the first period probably were more physical than they had been in the series, yeah. Q. Then that does benefit you? I mean you are going to take the skill out of the series for them. Some of their skilled players are not comfortable in this environment. COACH SUTTER: I don't think you base that on one game or one period or one shift. I mean if they had won the game last night, then probably the opposite is being talked about this morning, you know, were you too physical? So, I don't think that's -- they have a style that they play and they can match that type of game. I said it yesterday morning, they can play that way. It's basically a one-goal game. It's no different than Game 2; it's 1-nothing and so I'd say it's pretty well matched. I think that, you know, when you talk about their skill, well, obviously they have more skill than we do. We have some real skilled players that can't play. They are out -- we're not going to have them in the playoffs. So we have to -- we have had to make adjustments and hopefully they work for us. Q. After watching the tape of that game, where would you rate that in terms of games you played in this series and of the playoffs? COACH SUTTER: I want the perfect game. Q. How close was that? COACH SUTTER: I don't like taking a penalty in the first 20 seconds. I thought our special teams were really good. I thought Kipper was really good. I think we have some wingers that have to play better. We still ask a lot of our -- it's like when they talked about Jordan playing better the other day, everybody thinks that's criticism. Well that's not criticism. We all want to be better. Our young players, there's a lot being put on them in terms of demands, and who they are playing against and they have to be able to raise the level of game. I know we have to play better in some areas tomorrow than we did last night. Q. The tradition of the game is such that teams are supposed to go through losing experiences, they are supposed to accumulate knocks along the way then that prepares them for this ultimate win. What have you seen in your team during this run? How have you seen them grow and how have they been able to prepare themselves through this process which is supposed -- COACH SUTTER: I have said it before, it's steady as she goes with this group. You go in the room after the game, you can't tell if they have won or lost. That's how they handle it. They will deal tonight with having to find ways to get better for tomorrow. I mean, it's about -- we didn't get here by you know -- anybody who thinks that you are not the underdog, we are the underdog. We know that. We believe that. That's fine. That's all right. So we have handled that really well and there's games where we have got our rear ends kicked in the playoffs and we have bounced right back. That's the mindset of a strong team. Q. Did you suspect they had that in their makeup coming into this? COACH SUTTER: Into the Finals? Q. Coming into the playoffs as a whole. COACH SUTTER: Well, you don't make the playoffs by accident. You don't realize how hard it is to make the playoffs. I mean, you look at a team like Edmonton, what they did in the last two months and they didn't make the playoffs. That tells you how hard it is for over a period of time to get in. When you look the 16 playoff teams, there's probably an average of somewhere between 41 and 43 wins. You think about that over 82 games, you've lost a lot of games, haven't you? You know, you basically won one, lost one, then maybe won two somewhere. So does that surprise you or surprise me or did I expect that coming in the playoffs? Well, you have scratched and clawed all year, so once you get there, you just try and do it again. Q. Your team is just two wins away from a Stanley Cup Finals championship, and I know you have talked about this before, do you have any concerns that you are going to have to calm them down? COACH SUTTER: No. Q. Are they looking beyond at all? COACH SUTTER: No. I don't think that -- it's not an issue with this group. They are remarkable like that. I have said it before, I mean, we have some great strengths that, you know, might on paper that doesn't show up on paper. I said it during the San Jose series, they are the toughest mental group I have ever been associated with. Just overcome what they have to overcome all the time. Q. You have pieced together this tough mental group with guys like Chris Simon and Donovan and Nieminen and Nilson, guys who were expendable and spare parts. What do you look for when you are taking a guy from another team that they are willing to get rid of? What are you looking for in a guy to make him a part of this team? COACH SUTTER: First of all, I don't think they were looked at as spare parts. I think they were looked at as players on teams that after Valentine's guys weren't going to be playoff teams, so the business of the game is such that if you can move some money to get a draft pick or move some money to take lesser salary in, that's what you do. You know, when you talk about Si and Nemo and Marcus, they are guys obviously that we had interest in last summer, Chris Simon and Nemo were both unrestricted free agents. But we couldn't get in the bidding war for Chris so that -- we moved past that. Nemo chose to sign with Chicago after a qualifying offer in Pittsburgh. And Marcus, I have always liked, and the organization I was with before really liked, so that's a player you pursue if you get the money. Bottom line is with our team you are not going to trade actual assets for a player. That's not how I believe you do it. So when we were able to get him for a second-rounder, then you do it. Q. Did they share something mentally? Did they fit in with this puzzle? COACH SUTTER: First of all, Nemo and Chris Simon are both guys that players in our room had played with, so you talk to the players and it's not like you make some great decision yourself. You talk to guys that have played with him to see if they can fit in. Obviously Marcus Nilson, you know, he comes from a background of management coaches down there that I knew. So they are going to give you the absolute what he's about and they are the type of guys that can fit in our type. They are playoff-type players, put it that way. When you get guys first of March, either you are getting young guy you know that can help expand the nucleus of your team that can be there for a long time, or you are getting guys that you feel are playoff-type players that can help you come playoff time, those guys have. Q. The acquisition of Kiprusoff and what is happened since, how much was good management and good luck was it? And talk about his mental aspect. COACH SUTTER: Obviously when Roman got hurt, and you didn't know how long he was going to be out. He was going to be out a minimum of three months and possibly the year. You didn't know how it was going to respond. That put us in a position where we had to go look for a goaltender and you know, the philosophy that we use is the same thing I just told Mark, I wasn't going to trade a good young player to get a goaltender. That was bottom line, and obviously we weren't in a market to go buy -- there were some older goaltenders, some higher salaried goaltenders out there that were at that time being shopped around, but obviously we couldn't get into that. It kept coming back to two or three guys, and Kipper was one of them and in the end it was what we're willing to give up and the familiarity, I think, of knowing him. Q. Can you talk about Rhett Warrener and obviously the effort he had last night and what he brings to the team as well as Jordan Leopold. Would you say he played more of what you expect from him in these playoffs last night? COACH SUTTER: Yeah, I think it was Jordan's best game of the playoffs. I think that Rhett's play speaks for itself. He's our Mr. Steady. He's the unsung player in our locker room. I think anybody that's followed our team all year knows that. Q. Back to Kiprusoff for a second, at what point in the season did you realize how special or how good he really was? COACH SUTTER: Well, what you are doing, you are getting or a player that's 27 years old that has something to prove and knowing the organization that he came from there's no -- he was number three in their depth chart, but for most organizations he's at least two and pushing one, so he wanted a chance to prove that. It's that simple. It was a point in his career where you know, the No. 1 guy, there was the No. 1 guy and rightfully so. He had proven it. So now it was time for Kipper to find some other place to try and do that. Q. Early in the Stanley Cup Finals you don't see a lot of fighting. We have already had three fights in this series. Why do you think we have had more fights in this series as opposed to more? COACH SUTTER: I have no idea. I didn't know that that was an important stat. Q. You talked about the importance of the first goal. During a season a first goal, it's just a goal. Right now it's so important, the first goal -- COACH SUTTER: I don't think during the season it's just a goal. How many shutouts are there during the regular season? How many games are decided by one goal? How many games are decided by who scores first? How many games are decided by who has the one-goal lead going into the third? I don't think a goal is just a goal. Q. Can we say that right now it's more important because -- COACH SUTTER: Well, sure because at the end of the day historically, if there's anything that you learn from history and watching, and if you want to take anything from stats, you know, goal scoring is -- hey, you interview guys after the game, right, but in the end the best defensive teams are playing, they aren't the guys who score the big goals and are on those teams and -- that's what it is about. So if the first goal or the one-goal game or the overtime goal is -- it's about teams having the ability as a group not as individuals to shut other teams down. Hey, I mean, the most consistent team over the past decade, for sure, regular season and playoffs is New Jersey. So that's a pretty good model to try and follow. Q. At this point in the playoffs when it's about a two-month grind already at this point in the series, when you have seen the same team four or five games in a row, is there much things happening between games besides rest and recovery? COACH SUTTER: That's pretty well it. Reload, rest, recover. That's pretty well it. I think that you know, especially some of your guys it's good for them just to be right away from the rink. I don't think that you know, because it's now about the mental part of it for the players. Some of them are beat up and there's a lot of guys on both teams that probably under normal circumstances would get a game off, and they just can't do that now. So they just do everything they can to convince themselves that they are ready to go to war again tomorrow. Q. What is your view of the sequence that let to Fedotenko's injury, did you think it was a borderline penalty situation? COACH SUTTER: It wasn't a borderline penalty situation at all. I watched it many -- it was a clean hit by Robyn and you know, he cut his head in the worst part he can, right on the dasher. So you know, three inches one way or the other and he probably doesn't even feel the hit at all. Q. You talked about wanting the perfect game. How close does this team come to being your sort of ideal team? I mean, you talked about with what seems to me, I don't know, with a lot of affection? COACH SUTTER: I'd like to win by three or four goals. That's not so hard all the time (laughs). If you are not seeking for one player or somebody to be better, then you are not getting better. We're not going to beat the team. We're playing because we thought we played all right last night. Q. In terms of its mental makeup, this team, how close do they come to your sort of -- COACH SUTTER: I know how well they prepare and I know how hard they work, and if ever they have -- hey, the only issue they ever have in terms of perfection is, you know, and it's natural when you get 25 players in a room, you know, there are times where they don't -- I shouldn't say they don't. There are times when they can be more demanding of each other. Q. Can be? COACH SUTTER: They can be more demanding of each other. Q. Given the importance of Jarome Iginla to your hockey team, how fine a line is there from a coach's standpoint of enjoying watching him go out and fight and then worrying about him breaking a finger in a fight and possibly being injured? COACH SUTTER: It's four times a year, just happened to be four in the playoffs, you know. I have never even thought about that, quite honest. Q. The guys you brought in during the season, how much did financial considerations play into that with the budget? COACH SUTTER: You mean the players we brought in during the year? Q. Yes. COACH SUTTER: Huge. I am not going to get into it publicly. I can't tell you to the nickel what it was. You look at -- hey, you know to bring in Chris, who is I think he was a million and a half, so you break it down -- it's not easy you put what the guy make and figure out by the day and what is going out and what is coming in and that's it. For example, a player like that was a straight wash for us when you look at it for what went out and what came in. That's what is still, you know, -- doesn't matter. Our market and we're not unlike a number of other teams, we deal at a different level than a lot of teams. It will be great to make whatever deal you wanted to make and not have to worry about what it cost you, but you know, there's some of us that have to work on that schedule.
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