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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: OILERS v MIGHTY DUCKS

May 26, 2006

Craig MacTavish

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day

JAMEY HORAN: Questions for Coach.
Q. Craig, are you guys still feeling relatively comfortable about your situation?
COACH MacTAVISH: We never felt comfortable.
Q. No?
COACH MacTAVISH: At any point did we feel comfortable. We got a lot of work ahead of us, and we felt fortunate that we were up 3-0, sure, but at no point did we ever feel comfortable. And comfortable is not a word that coaches use very often. So we've got work ahead of us. We all know that it's going to be a tough game to win.
Q. How important is Georges Laraque in terms of leadership to the team and how difficult is his job?
COACH MacTAVISH: Nobody -- I said this to somebody the other day. Nobody has ever come to me and I said, "I want Georges Laraque's job." There's a lot of guys that want players jobs on the power play and whatnot, but nobody has come forward and said they want Georges Laraque's job. Nobody at training camp has said that they want Georges Laraque's job, because that's a dangerous pastime.
He's played well. There was a big goal the other night for us obviously, but he's skating better than he has at any point since I've been here.
Q. Where is your team's energy level right now? Where is your team's concentration and physical level right now?
COACH MacTAVISH: Building in all departments. Energy level is good. We were winning when we were sick, now we're pretty healthy the other night and got beat. But you need that once in a while. There can get a certain amount of complacency in your game, and when you're winning a number of games in a row, you can start cutting corners, and you continued to that because you get away with it. And we had been getting away with it, but that came to a painful conclusion last night. It's a good lesson for everybody and we know that we definitely have to be much better than that to win.
Q. Coach, the Ducks three times have faced elimination and three times have won to fight on again. Obviously you don't want to let a tam like this get too much momentum. You want to get them down once and for all?
COACH MacTAVISH: Well, we're hopeful they can't face it six times. We're going to have to play a real good game to make sure that doesn't happen. And, you know, in my estimation Anaheim's playing -- they're on top of my game right now. May get some questions from their coaching staff in terms of what they feel, but they're a team that's played very well the last four periods for sure. And we're going to have to turn the tide and stop the momentum. And we're going to need that -- we're going to have to do that with our best game.
Q. Craig, how do you turn the tide and stop the momentum? Is it by playing a more physical game, some different things, what do you do?
COACH MacTAVISH: Well, we have to -- like for us, and it has throughout the year, most of our problems stem from -- and I think most teams are very similar, most of the inefficiencies stem from the other team engaging in their forecheck and us not being able to break the puck out cleanly. We have to turn their forechecks into our breakouts and we haven't done a real good job of that the last four periods. They've had quite a bit of success.
Albeit except for a period in the second period the other night, it looked look the game was ours again. And we take a penalty to stop the momentum and then we take another one after that. And you know, you can't ever stop that momentum because you never know when you're going to regain it and we never did. We had it, we were pressing for the goal, and we took the penalty, and we took another penalty, the momentum was gone and we couldn't recapture it.
So we have to make sure that once we do get our game going, we don't derail it by taking bad and needless penalties, and we took a lot of those last night.
Q. Can you talk about the two goaltender. First of all, the Ducks are talking about, Hey, the goals are finally going in for us now, maybe we're getting to them. To me, it didn't look like Giguere was that solid really. Just go into both sides?
COACH MacTAVISH: Yeah, well, we have to continue to press the game. And I mean, they've been getting to us because they're spending a large degree of the time in our zone and we've often said that bad things happen when you play that much time in your zone and they do. Spac kicked the one in on the first goal, but that's a product of spending too much time in your zone.
So if we can tighten that up and tidy that up and, you know, when you do that and they storm the net, you factor your goaltender out of it to a certain degree. And we have to make sure that he's allowed to be effective. And we do that by not allowing them the same territorial advantage of what they've had for the last three-plus periods.
And we have to put a lot of pressure on Giguere. I don't know whether he's a more confident goalie today than he was yesterday. You'd have to ask him that. But I think he's probably at a similar level. And we want to make sure that he doesn't start to get confident, more confidence, because we know what level he's capable of.
Q. Craig, I'm certainly not implying at all that this whole deal isn't a hard thing to do, but after that first period there, was there any sense in the room that, okay, this is going to be harder than we're thinking or -- you know?
COACH MacTAVISH: Yeah. I think that's accurate. It was -- we didn't play very well, obviously, in the first period. And it was Murphy's law at its finest form in the first period, and largely because of the way they've played. They're playing very well, and I don't want to discredit them by any stretch. They're a team that has impressed everybody in terms of the resiliency after being down 3-0 with that effort.
So we know that the game's not going to fall to us for sure. We're going to have to take it. And after the first period, all the penalties and the five-on-threes, you know, it was very disappointing. We were responsible for most of it in terms of the penalties, but we got to be better.
Q. In the Detroit series, didn't you jam the neutral zone more than you have since, and if that's true, is that something you might consider doing the rest of this series?
COACH MacTAVISH: Well, we don't anticipate that. But we want to make sure we're getting to our forecheck and we're not having to retreat. That's our goal. And we continue to think that we can apply pressure to their defense, but we haven't done it to any great degree, with the exception of the half of the second period or three-quarters of the second period.
Q. Craig, I have two questions. First off, Dwayne Roloson said he was sick between periods last night and he didn't want you to know. He told Ty just to be ready?
COACH MacTAVISH: I didn't want him to know either. I was sick (laughter). No, no.
Q. I mean, I guess there's that line between whether a guy should be out on the ice playing. He obviously felt he could.
COACH MacTAVISH: Yeah, and he played fine. That's what I was getting at other day talking about players playing through the flu. A lot of times you play well because you are -- you're thinking yourself around the game. But I mean, it was a pretty -- a real travesty, really, that he had to play as hard and as long as he did in the first period. And we got to make sure that we -- everybody has respect for the job that he's done for us and the way that he's played, and we have to make it an easier game for him for sure.
Q. My other question is are you contemplating a change on the back end?
COACH MacTAVISH: We'll see tomorrow. I don't want to talk too much about lineup. I wanted to get Dick some minutes back there in practice in the rotation. He played very well in here in Game 2 in my estimation before he got sick. So it's possible, but we'll see tomorrow.
Q. Craig, you talked about the complacency that you were starting to see and the players talked about shortcuts that they were starting to take as they were winning. Did you see some of that last night and were you taking steps to try and stop that from happening?
COACH MacTAVISH: Well, it's tough to take those steps when you can't practice. And the way we were feeling and the amount of hockey that we've played, really you try and address a lot of those things in video sessions. And we were doing that, but it's, you know -- now that we're healthy, it was easier to do and come to the rink today and practice. And a coach once said that when you're at the end of a winning streak, you're not playing as well, but you're getting away with it. And we sensed that, but we were getting away with it.
JAMEY HORAN: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts...

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