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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: FLAMES v SHARKS

May 9, 2004

Ron Wilson

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Game One

THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. Do you like the pace for the rest of the series?
RON WILSON: Oh, definitely. We've got more where that came from. It's disappointing to lose the game the way we did, kind of a detail thing, a bad change. We didn't place the puck properly near the end of a shift, and they counter-attacked and took advantage of probably the only mistake we made in overtime.
I thought we were playing to win, and unfortunately we didn't. But I'm proud of the effort. We did what we wanted to do. We were skating, a ton of scoring chances. Some of our shot placement wasn't great. Actually, we turned up a lot of shots, too. 52 shots, I think we could have had 62 shots. We'll play the same way the next game, take our chances.
Q. Kiprusoff's effort, is that better than the way you remember him playing for Calgary?
RON WILSON: No, I've watched him play all year. He's played very well.
Q. Do you think fatigue was becoming an issue for the team at all?
RON WILSON: No, not at all. I mean, we spent most of the period in their end. Fatigue couldn't have been a factor. We pressured the whole night with a few exceptions. But the other team's going to counter what you're doing occasionally and have you under pressure. But our energy level was incredible. We were able to roll four lines and do a lot of great things.
Now we've just got to make sure we don't make some of the mistakes we made tonight again, and, I mean, I'm not disappointed in anything other than the result.
Q. A lot of stuff happened after that five-on-three in the first period. What did you think of your play?
RON WILSON: It wasn't very good. It was one of those five-on-threes, I think each guy wanted to be the one who scored the goal, and we didn't really do what we practiced. That's something that we addressed after the period. Not that I expected to get a five-on three anymore. Usually in a playoff game, that's rare. If you do get one, you're only going to get one in a game.
That's something that we'll work on. I mean, we didn't do -- we were taking the puck to the middle and we weren't passing the puck. It was a little bit too much individual effort.
Q. You scored to tie the game at the end of the second period, then a power-play. They had the puck in your zone for, I don't know, a good couple minutes before they scored. What happened there?
RON WILSON: Well, we didn't clear the puck. We had a couple of opportunities. They weren't in our end ever for more than, you know, 25, 30 seconds at a time. There were plenty of times when we had them hemmed in either longer than we had Colorado hemmed in. But we didn't put the puck away.
You know, we made a few mistakes. We were so much going on the attack that a few times we just didn't place the puck right or sense danger. We've got to do a better job of sensing danger in certain situations. You can't have turnovers in your own end or just outside your blueline. On that goal, if they went ahead 3-2, we turn the puck over three times, either just inside our blueline or just outside it.
It doesn't matter who you're playing, that could end up being a problem.
Q. How important is it that you'll have your home ice again on Tuesday?
RON WILSON: Well, I think it was pretty important tonight. The crowd was excited. I thought it was a very entertaining game, you know, a lot of speed, lots of scoring chances. You know, it wasn't two teams trying to trap or put a stranglehold on anybody. We went on the attack tonight. Again, I'm proud of the effort of our team.
Q. You guys have lost your last three overtime games. How frustrating is that?
RON WILSON: Well, it's a little frustrating. The last two -- well, in the Colorado series, we weren't playing to win. Tonight we did. So I don't have a problem with that, playing the way we did in overtime. I mean, Ekman, Curtis Brown, Korky, they all had numerous scoring chances. I think Patty Marleau even had one. We just got to stick with the plan and good things will happen.
Q. The play of Korky and Ekman and McCauley, they seemed to step up tonight. Are you happy to see that?
RON WILSON: Oh, definitely. We need more than one line scoring. And tonight we got some contributions from different lines. That was really huge for us. Actually, we had three lines score. Patty Marleau's line doing all the damage in the last round, didn't get on the score sheet. They had their opportunities on a five-on-three. We had a balanced attack. The minutes were spread around. We had lots of shots from every line. We stick with the plan, I believe it will work.
Q. Something like 89 shots in the game. Iginla had none, but he had the pass.
RON WILSON: Yeah, I know he made a great play on the overtime goal. That shows how well our defense can play when we identify who top people are. I mean, you can't allow a fourth line player like Krzysztof Oliwa score a goal. We kind of lost him there for a second in our end. He put one away. We can't make mistakes like that early in the game. We might have been a little tentative, but I still thought we were carrying the play, especially in the first period.

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