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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: FLAMES v LIGHTNINGMay 31, 2004Shean DonovanVille NieminenCALGARY, ALBERTA: Game Four VILLE NIEMINEN: First one, I finished my check and unfortunately that he was two feet away from the board and lost the balance. Q. Do you think it should have been a penalty? VILLE NIEMINEN: I have no comment on that. I didn't have a chance -- Q. Did you feel you were a little overaggressive in putting him into the glass or into the board? VILLE NIEMINEN: No, I didn't feel anything like that, just the speed of the game. I didn't have the speed on that hit and just a board battle, and tried to get him out of the way and take the puck. Q. Clearly there was no intent to drive him as hard as you could; that wasn't your intent? VILLE NIEMINEN: No, I didn't take any strikes or anything like that. Q. Was discipline (inaudible)? VILLE NIEMINEN: I think discipline all around, not just as the penalties, but I think our 5 on 5 play in the second period, we were really good, but first and third, I think we a little bit lost our confidence for 5 on 5 hockey and they really took our time and space away, and at times we got a little overanxious and, so, they killed the game really good in that third period, and I think that's why we lost the discipline tonight, and we got out of our system and all those -- we didn't do the little things right tonight. Q. Was the officiating shaky tonight? VILLE NIEMINEN: I have no comment on that. Q. I know you were asked this before, it wasn't an intent to injure? VILLE NIEMINEN: I just answered the question. Q. Could you answer it again? VILLE NIEMINEN: (No response). Q. What you are saying is what made it, was his distance from the boards, so when you hit him? You know what I mean? VILLE NIEMINEN: I just say it was probably. Q. That's what made -- VILLE NIEMINEN: Two or something feet away from the board and he was just turning, and I was going to finish my check and go for the board battle. SHEAN DONOVAN: He made the saves when he had to. They played a good game. Q. I wonder about the chance of blowing the chance to go up in the series 3 -1, how that affects you? SHEAN DONOVAN: At this point obviously we'd like to be up 3-1, but the thing is, it's now a three-game series for the Stanley Cup. If they would have asked us at the start of the year that we would have a three-game series against Tampa Bay Lightning, I think both teams would take it. So everybody wants it more. Q. Were you surprised at the officiating at all? SHEAN DONOVAN: No, they did their job. We didn't kill the 5 on 3, any of that stuff. We'll get our breaks the next game. Q. The team had opportunities to score. Just couldn't bury those? SHEAN DONOVAN: Lots of good shots. We know we needed to bury them. Got to have killer instinct. We knew that all year. We knew that going in. We know the next three games we have to have that killer instinct if we want to win. Q. (Inaudible)? SHEAN DONOVAN: Everybody is playing their best. Nik played a good game. He obviously is a great goalie. We knew that coming in. It's a goaltending duel and both goalies played great tonight. They had the upper hand tonight and they won. Q. Anything to say about the no call on Conroy? SHEAN DONOVAN: You can't look at that now. Nothing we can do about it, so the refs are doing their job. It's a fast game. You work hard, you get your breaks and in the end, you know, next game we'll work hard and hopefully get our breaks. Q. Looking forward to a couple days off? SHEAN DONOVAN: Personally I'd rather be out there tomorrow, but maybe some guys need some days off. Maybe it will do some guys good but personally, no. Q. Do you think you generated enough scoring chances tonight but they just didn't go in? SHEAN DONOVAN: Obviously when you don't score any goals you didn't generate enough good ones and we had chances but I don't think we had, you know, real good scoring chances, and we need to get better scoring chances and obviously that killer instinct when we did have them.
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