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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: FLYERS v LIGHTNING

May 13, 2004

John Tortorella

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Game Three

Q. You said this morning it wasn't so much about intensity and emotion but about composure. Is that what you were talking about when Lecavalier scores early?
JOHN TORTORELLA: I thought the most important part of the game was handling their surge in the second period. I thought our bench was composed. I thought Nik was composed. That was the key. It's not always going to be going your way through a 60-minute hockey game against a very good hockey team you're playing.
I thought that was the most important part of the game, and obviously when they get their crowd back into it early in the third, answering right away. But our bench was pretty much dead on as far as just keeping themselves together when we were going through some tough times in that second period.
Q. Talk about the play of your goaltender and how he responded after a tough Game 2 and talk about his ability to come back tonight.
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, his play speaks for itself. I thought he was rock solid.
I thought we did a much better job in front of him blocking shots tonight as we did in Game 1. But Nik, even when he was making the saves, he looked very confident and solid. I think that's the best word you can use when you watch a goaltender, where you know he feels comfortable, he just looks solid.
Q. Yesterday I asked you about playing the perfect road game, was that first period a near-perfect road period for you guys?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, we found a way. I thought, obviously, the first -- with Philly coming back in their building after splitting in our building, we expected quite a bit of those the first 10 or 11 minutes, we just tried to keep it simple, got a couple of lucky breaks as far as which ends we were going to play in, and just went about our business. That was important to allow the guys to regain some confidence after a tough Game 2 loss.
Q. Do you find it amusing at this point for people to question Khabibulin's resolve, his resiliency, after the career he's had at this level? Is that amusing to you, do you get upset about that?
JOHN TORTORELLA: It's not amusing or you get upset about it; I don't understand it.
Like we always talk about in our room, it's not about what people are thinking about you as an individual, thinking about what the hockey team is about; it's about the room. It's about keeping things in the room and what we think of one another.
Our team, Nik is just worried about what his peers think about him, and at this time of year, that's the most important thing.
Q. You can tell right from the beginning that there's a tremendous pace the first 10, 15 minutes after; could you tell from the start that you had something special going?
JOHN TORTORELLA: I thought our team was ready to play. You know, I thought Philly was, too. I thought Philly did some really good things. You know, we end up scoring that first goal, and I know Bobby wants to get that one back, but first goal is a first goal. I think that helped us a little bit, but I thought we did some good things. I thought we -- again, it comes down to battles and deciding which end you're going to play in, by the battles in the neutral zone. First period, we run our share, second period, they took over a bit, and that's where I thought our defense played well and obviously Nik was strong.
Q. When you talk about your team, how do you define your team resiliency, and how much tonight do you reestablish your team identity a little bit?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Well, we have confidence in our club. During the regular season, we went into a little bit of a swoon there, we found our way and won some games. And we've gone through some adversity through the regular season and through playoffs here.
It doesn't surprise me. I think, like I said, I think both teams, I think we have two quality teams here. They are trying to get to another spot, both teams, and the road isn't big enough for both. Each team is fighting away, trying to find their way to win four games. We get Game 3 tonight; now we prepare for 4.
Q. You talked about needing your best players to play their best hockey in the big games, can you just talk about the play that Marty and Vinny made?
JOHN TORTORELLA: Yeah, I thought the second half the games, I thought we started playing better. It was a great pass by Marty to Vinny, and it's a huge goal. It's a big goal for Vinny, get him off the (inaudible) here in this series and hopefully he'll start feeling good about himself and start scoring some more through here.
The building here, once they score that first goal, that was obviously a pretty important goal for us to answer right away and it was a great play by Marty. Marty fought through it tonight in the first half of his game, but your best players make big plays at key times and I thought that was a very important one.

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