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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SABRES v HURRICANESMay 28, 2006Rod Brind'AmourCory StillmanCam WardRALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Game Five Q. Can you talk about the goal and what you saw when it came off the end boards there? CORY STILLMAN: Well, I thought Ray was going to actually put it in. I think the goalie thought show, too. Jumped over his stick, I got a whack at it and put it in through his five hole, Q. Cory, second O. T. goal this year, fourth career. Is there any rhyme or reason to how guys, like yourself, seem to be in the right place at the right time in these situations? CORY STILLMAN: Everybody wants to be a hero. So far I have been lucky some nights. You'd like to score every time you went into overtime, tonight I was in the right place at the right time. Q. How much chance or luck and how much, you know, skill putting in a goal kind of off the boards, a wide shot like that with the ricochet? CORY STILLMAN: It's almost like a pass when it hit the end boards and comes out. It came out flat and you can one-time it. I had a chance earlier in the game and it got blocked. We did a great job blocking it. It found a way through. Q. How did you make the stop on Afinogenov on the breakaway? CAM WARD: Just one of those things where you are trying to take away as space as possible. He was coming in with pretty good speed, I just was fortunate to get a stick on there. It kind of rolled out by my stick. I don't know if it's exactly where he wanted to put it, but fortunately I was able to get in front of it. Q. What was the better save, that one or the one on Hecht early in the overtime? CAM WARD: Doesn't really matter which save was better. The most important thing is, you know, was able to get a few stops here and there and help your team, give them a chance to win. Q. Cam, you guys were down 3-1 when you came in, what did you see from your teammates? CAM WARD: It's kind of been the whole story of the whole year is our character. Once again, it showed coming on the ice, no sense of panic. It was just, you know, go out there and try to do the best that you can. You feed off the atmosphere there. Once again they are tremendous. Q. Did you sense the team get a lift when the goalie change was made? ROD BRIND'AMOUR: Well, I don't know exactly at that moment it was a lift. We had just been scored on, but like Cam said, it's the situation we have been in a lot this year. I don't think we ever felt we were out of it, and I guess when we play a lot from behind, you get used to it a little bit, which we did all year. It wasn't a panic situation. We definitely got a lift when Cam started making a couple big saves. I think -- that gives you a lot of confidence. Q. Cam, talk about just the idea of being able to get back in the series and back in the playoffs and just how tonight would have compared to all the other remarkable things you have done this spring. CAM WARD: This is exciting but we don't want to forget Marty's great game in Game 4. He's a big reason why we won that game. It's just the life of the playoffs, you never know, you have got to be prepared for any sort of situation to come in and perform. But any goaltender will tell you, you definitely want to be on the ice. You want to be out there helping the team, as much as you can. If not, you are doing the best to support them on the side. Q. How good would it be if you win one more hockey game, you get to play the team in your hometown? CAM WARD: It would be great. I think it's important not to get too ahead of ourselves. We still got a lot of work ahead of us. We know that Buffalo is going to throw everything at us back in their home building. Q. 4-1 in overtime this year, anything you can attribute that to? ROD BRIND'AMOUR: These two I guess. No. 1, you have got to have goaltending, everybody knows it. He made some huge saves, especially Marty mentioned it, but that penalty kill right off the hop in overtime, and I mean that's the game right there, and he makes the big save and it enables us to keep plowing along. Still makes another in overtime. We get guys that just seem to step up. A lot of times it's a different guy every night, but we have got a lot of guys that have just done the job this year. Q. Coach Ruff said he liked his team, he said that he felt that they showed something, do you think there was any difference between them this game? ROD BRIND'AMOUR: I thought they played hard, played well, and I don't know how well we played, to be honest with you. It felt like one of our worse games of the series. When you have goaltending and timely saves, it keeps you in the game. So yeah, they have played good every game. I don't know that you can say that this was better than any other games. I felt that they played hard all the times. Q. Rod, when you said it maybe felt like maybe it was one of your worse games, what does this say for the team to come out and fight through that? ROD BRIND'AMOUR: It's the way hockey goes. We killed some big penalties this time around. When you are not at your best, you need every little thing on the outside to kind of be good. I thought that was what happened tonight. We didn't give up any power play goals and we actually got a couple. So it kind of takes away from the overall game of how you are going; if you are not going so well, you can be good in those areas.
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