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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SABRES v HURRICANES

May 30, 2006

Lindy Ruff

BUFFALO, NEW YORK: Game Six

Q. Describe the effort that you got especially from Toni Lydman tonight, when you were down to five defensemen, especially?
COACH LINDY RUFF: We got a great effort. I thought we got a few shifts out of Teppo when he went down. The other five guys just battled all night. Toni back-to-back, the games he's played has been, you know, it's one of the main reasons we're still in good shape back there.
Q. Danny won't guarantee a win yesterday, but no surprise he would come through in a situation like that?
COACH LINDY RUFF: No, talking to Danny, I said, it's the time of the year where guys have to step up and actually used the line, I used the line "It's Mark Messier time."
Q. When?
COACH LINDY RUFF: Yesterday with Danny. Just said, "It's the time of year where you can make a difference," and we as a team may lose it, but we need the individual guys to make a difference in the game.
Q. In the first period you played about a perfect period. Seemed your guys were winning the faceoffs on the offensive and defensive end, how important was that?
COACH LINDY RUFF: It was very important. It's like I said, I said it this morning, we were going to come out hard, our fans were unbelievable again. The energy in the building was tremendous. That's a big boost for the players. We carried that momentum over from shift to shift. I think the disappointing part was we didn't take advantage of some real good opportunities. When you let a team hang and we did that, they got the break they needed and tied the game up.
Q. Did you feel that if you didn't score quickly your defensemen would be dropping from exhaustion?
COACH LINDY RUFF: We knew we still had Pominville (laughs). We used him for a few shifts, not tonight but we have had in the past. I think a little bit of the difference is we do use -- we get power play situations we use forwards back there, which cuts into a little bit of the ice time and gives them a breather.
Q. Pominville drew four penalties tonight (inaudible).
COACH LINDY RUFF: I thought the way he played, I really thought he played a workaholic game in Carolina at the same time. They are a team that often let's you get to the puck first, you chip it in behind and they like to try to contain you, and Pominville is just fearless.
It was a pretty cheap shot, the hit in overtime, I mean, he's defenseless and but I said we got to protect some pucks, got to play in their end. The draw, that was good.
Q. Talk about Teppo. What happened exactly?
COACH LINDY RUFF: There's no secret he has got a hip flexor injury, the muscle was -- it's been feeling better, it felt better today. I spent a few minutes talking to him after the warm-up. I guess it was risky, but he felt he could play and if a veteran like that feels he can play, you play him.
Q. After one period he decided that he couldn't --
COACH LINDY RUFF: No, he felt it pull again late in the first period. We just decided to keep him there to talk to some of the defensemen, equipment manager every now and then.
Q. Might be the third time you have blown a late lead here and won in overtime in the playoffs, what goes on in the dressing room? You don't seem to be deflated when that happens.
COACH LINDY RUFF: We just talked about we really felt we were the better team through the game, keep working at it. Keep playing our game, don't -- we talked about staying on our toes, let's make sure we're pinching, make sure we're forechecking and make sure we go after it.
We really felt -- somebody said there's probably going to be two power plays in overtime. I said, well, let us get the first one first, and that's what happened.
Q. Was another important difference Ryan Miller went back from being good to great again tonight?
COACH LINDY RUFF: There's no secret, you are going to need good goaltending. We needed him to play a strong game. He did. I thought, look at the game the other kid played, too. He played a great game, you end up with a 1-0 hockey game that gets tied up with three minutes left, so you don't get this far with goaltenders stepping their game up. We have got one more test.
Q. You can see on replay J. P. let out a big exhale --
COACH LINDY RUFF: That was a big start for us. The first period I thought kind of set the tone. I thought they really came with all five guys there for a while in the second and third period, which I think they wanted to test that five defensemen we were using, but for that line to go out and get the goal early. That was a good statement for a line that had struggled the night before.
Q. To what extent was that almost heroic or whatever word you use, the way the ice was, what they -- the legs they had left -- (inaudible)?
COACH LINDY RUFF: I don't know what word I used. You are going to have to take it off the tape somewhere. I just thought it was a gutsy performance, from the five defensemen's end, we had guys again blocking shots, laying down, all those little things led to big plays.
Q. (Inaudible) Doug played a good game.
COACH LINDY RUFF: Doug played very solid. But if you look at it, he was injured late in the year in Rochester and didn't play a lot. We threw him in. And I think the more you play, you catch up with the pace of the game. Even asking Adam Mair when he stepped in, he goes -- you can't duplicate that in practice.
That energy and that speed, I think that the little bit more he's played from game to game has given him more confidence.
Q. Tough part about being 3-2 in a series, you need to win two and sometimes you got to focus on the first one, now that's over with. Is the feeling now going into one game, winner takes all --
COACH LINDY RUFF: It's going to be fun. The focus is let's have fun with it. We have been in, I don't know, 10 of our last 11 games have been one-goal games, something like that, you know, stress level has been high every game. Every game has been tight and these guys just keep pushing through. I think we have been 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 6 overtime games now. It just tells you the effort, I said it, I think I said it yesterday, was you can stand back there and know you are going to get the effort, which is pretty special. Thanks.

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