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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SABRES v HURRICANESMay 27, 2006Peter LavioletteRALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Practice Day Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: We talked this morning and it's obviously very tough for all of us. He's a really nice person to be around. He's a good person. He's a good hockey player. He has got a great family. He's a part of the Carolina Hurricane family and this is very difficult for him to deal with, being such a big part of this team and then not being able to contribute at the most important time of the year, and to get the news yesterday is difficult. But I think I meant what I said when, you know, I think the game of life was the most important thing for his family and for himself and then his career, which I think is going to be okay as well through time, and then third it was about trying to get back for the playoffs. So the top two are still in good shape and that's good news. We should try and look at the positives from a devastating injury, and a tough one to take is the fact that he won't be able to join us for the rest of the Stanley Cup run. We talked about it. I asked him to come on the ice because I think the players enjoy seeing him on the ice and enjoy having him around the locker room and knowing that he's okay and that he's still a big part of this team. I personally enjoy having him on the ice and in the locker room. Q. (Inaudible)? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Two of them aren't, two of them are. Edmonton running with Roloson and Buffalo is running with Miller. Anaheim switched and we have switched, so I don't know if there's a right or a wrong way. I think again it's more of what we built here where we need everybody. We need all the pieces contributing to the ultimate goal. Last night we asked Marty Gerber do the job for us and he got it done in a big way. Q. You spoke the other day about how everybody wants to play, talk about how well Marty handled things. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: He was mad. Cam is mad today. You can't blame him. They want to play. They want to be here. You can't ever fault somebody for being upset that they are not the guy. You want them to always be the guy. Then it's how you respond to that, I think, which is real important. Martin Gerber, through it all, you can tell that he was upset because he wants to play. Ultimately he wants team success and every day in practice, he worked as hard as he possibly could. I am not just saying that either. It's an actual fact. Cam today went out there and he did the best that he could and worked as hard as he could because you just don't know. Nobody ever knows what is going to happen. I don't have a crystal ball and the players don't have a crystal ball, so you live every day and you have got to do the best that you can on that day. I think that Marty did it and now Cam has got to do it. He has got to keep working in case we call his number again. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: He wasn't going to come out and take himself out of the lineup. I think it's just the competitive nature -- he was battling a bug, he was down I think eight or nine pounds from it and just not feeling himself. Q. Definitely Gerber for Game 5? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I didn't say that. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: This one was tough. I knew, honestly, I knew and I had talked to Jim about it in the past that in my gut I knew Marty was ready. Like I knew he was ready. The decision wasn't really about Cam Ward. It was more about Martin Gerber and what I saw. I think it was a tough decision because Cam had played so well and really did not play poorly. The times that he got pulled in New Jersey, he got -- I mean, he was getting hammered. He was in a hostile environment in Game 3 and he made big saves and there were some goals that he had no chance on and defensively we have had some holes and breakdowns and they got opportunities and they buried them. They have some talent up front, in Buffalo, that's capable of scoring goals. It wasn't an easy decision from that point of view, and I think it's a tough decision because Cam, like I said, his numbers are good in the playoffs. He has got a lot of wins and he built this team up. We needed a build goaltending performance back in the Montreal series and he gave it to us. He carried us for quite a ways. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: If you followed Eric for the entire year from Game 1, you would have loved him and you would have been impressed with the way he played the game. There was a reason why he was one of the top scorers in the league and for a while there he was hanging around the top three in the league and he was not too far behind Jagr. I think it was, at the time, you wonder if Erik Cole had not got hurt if Staal might have pushed for the -- because Erik Cole was definitely on top of his game at the time of his injury and he was on pace for 40 and 40. They were a good tandem and Cory Stillman was a great player on that line as well. You don't know what would have happened, but this is just, I mean, this is just more of the same and I don't say that to be so blase, like it happens all the time, but this is what we expect now from Eric Staal. He's proven himself to be a great player in the regular season and now he is proving himself to be a great player in the playoffs. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: We're here for one reason. Whatever it takes, and it's going to take different peoples -- people doing different jobs at different times. Doug Weight is used to playing 23 minutes a game. He's not near that now, but I will tell you what, he's been impressive with the way he's playing. Mark Recchi had another big goal for us, he was playing 22 minutes a night in Pittsburgh, and he had an awfully big goal for us last night. And it's not about individual achievement right now. It's been those individuals being great, but for one common goal and that's to try and get to the end. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I still think we need to turn up the heat offensively. I have said that they are a good team. Their offense, they are pretty dynamic offensively. I don't think they will be that -- you know, they had 52 wins which is tied with us, third or fourth, second, I can't remember, most in the league. They are a heck of a hockey team. I don't think you are going to -- like I was saying, I think I said it last night, I don't think you are going to see the shots Carolina 55, Buffalo 14, it's not going to happen at this point in the playoffs. They are going to be good games, and we're going to have to play the way we did last night, but I do think that there's a little bit of room for us to rachet it up offensively and that, to me, is when we're really on our game is when our forwards are really popping down in the offensive zone from the top of the circles down. Q. Is there a situation on defense, I guess, that exacerbated that opportunity? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I mean, it didn't last night, you know, they held us -- I mean, we were trying but I still think there is more to go. I can tell you that we haven't changed the game plan based on an injury or two that they have had on defense, but it certainly is something that we would like to execute better. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I think that Andrew had a tough year based on injury. He got injured in rookie camp. He got injured in our training camp. He got injured while playing up here and came back and we sent him down to the minors for a little bit. He got his game going down there a bit, he came back up. He had knee surgery here. It hasn't been like a real smooth year for him where he was just able to keep stepping up his game and improving. I think he had to deal with a lot of things and with the time lost, at different times, I think that, you know, you lose your conditioning a little bit and what I think what Andrew is really doing right now is he's skating and being physical, and when you are doing that, you are putting yourself on the puck. He went to the net hard last night. He made a great play in the neutral zone, probably went unnoticed. He took a pass, redirected it through his legs, Doug Weight picked it up on the other side. Doug grooved his own, put a nice hard low shot on the net but Andrew never stopped at that point and his skating took him from the blue line to the crease pretty quick and the rebound came out and he popped it in. But I think that his skating, because he's been practicing a lot and playing more and feeling more confident, his skating has gotten better and I think it shows in the games. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: We have bounced the lines around, I mean, Andrew had played with Eric Staal for a bit. He had played with Rod Brind'Amour for a bit. Doug Weight's new -- he's played with different people and I think that's one good thing about our lineup is that we have mixed and matched so many pieces through the course of the year and put people in different positions that it is not set in stone that these three players have to play together and they can't play with anybody else. So we can put Matt Cullen, who's been a center all his life, on the left wing of Eric Staal. We can take Andrew Ladd, who has always played left wing, and put him on the right wing. We can take Eric Staal, who is going to be a centerman here for Carolina and real good one for a long time, and we can just pop him down in the right wing once in a while with Weight and Whitney. I think that that's a good thing that we bounce things around through the course of the year where we don't -- it doesn't have to be a certain way. We can mix it up and it's been set, I think for the last few games, maybe last 10 games, 12 games, the lineup has been pretty much set, but it can change. I don't think there's a problem if it did, but it doesn't have to be right now. Q. (Inaudible)? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Ultimately they are the same type of players; they are big, strong power wingers. You watch Erik out on the ice, he gets it done with that lightning speed down the wing, Andrew is more of a -- he powers it forward through somebody and gets to the net. He can get to the front of the net, he has got the hands to put in goals, like you saw last night. But you know, honestly I don't know if there's a lot of players like Erik Cole in the National Hockey League. I said it back a while ago, I just thought that at the time of his injury coming back from the Olympics, which he played well in, he came back here and he was playing for us and just before the Olympics, the month prior to the injury, in my opinion, he might have been the best player in the league. He was dominating. Q. (Inaudible). COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I think it was the relief effort in New Jersey, it was the relief effort in Buffalo, it was the way he looked in practice, his competitiveness and his "I dare you to beat me" mentality in the crease. Like I said, he set a franchise record for wins here. It shouldn't surprise people what he did last night. He's been a very good goalie for us all year.
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