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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: OILERS v HURRICANESJune 6, 2006Peter LavioletteRALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Practice Day Q. In talking to a lot of the players in the dressing room after practice today, it seems like obviously everybody is happy they won Game 1, but there seems to be a real sense of, I don't know if you would say, dissatisfaction about the way things went last night, is that a fair assessment of maybe where the team is about last night? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Well, I think it's probably an honest assessment. You know, we've been pretty honest all year long I think, and there was a lot of times in the game I don't think we played very well. So I think the win is behind us and it's in the bank, but I think we need to be a little bit better. Q. Do you remember the first time when you got here and you met Rod Brind'Amour, what you thought of him as a person, and can you sum up how much he's meant to the team this year? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Geez, I've got a short memory. It's not so much I think what I remember him the first time I met him but just through the course of time. It's hard not to respect the way -- respect his professionalism, I guess, and the way he comes to the rink every day. You know, he constantly is prepared, whether it's to -- off-ice work outs, game situations. He's been a great captain this year. You know, he backs everything up on the ice, which is important. Sometimes it's just talk, and what he does is he backs it up. You know, he's been a great -- I think he's been a great leader for young players in our organization, as well, Cam Ward and Andrew Ladd, Eric Staal, even Justin Williams, Joel Vasicek. He's done a terrific job this year being the leader of this club and he's everything that you would want your captain to be. Q. Another question about Rod: Can you talk about his positioning, the puck is in Fitzpatrick's skates for just a second and bang, he's there. They lose a defensemen last night and goalie collide, and bang, he's there again. Is it something about his positioning? Why is he getting to these pucks and putting them home in crucial situations in the third period? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Last night really was just a break. He was the first guy in on the forecheck, and there was a mishandle of the puck between the goalie and the defensemen and it popped out. I don't think it was a real -- I don't think it was a real steal by Rod's part. He was just doing what the first guy on the forecheck is supposed to do, which is pressure the puck, and all of a sudden it was there and the net was empty, so he brought it out and put it in. It was more I think just a fortunate bounce. Q. Can you talk a little about Ray Whitney and the two big goals last night. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: You know, I think Ray is a great goal scorer. A lot of times he passes and he makes nice plays. I think he's one of our more skilled players in a small area of ice. He's quick to dance with the puck. He's got great vision. But, you know, I mentioned to him at least, you know, a half a dozen times, ten times this year, to keep shooting the puck because he's got a great shot, and that goal last night, I think was a perfect example of that, where it was just a high, hard shot, it was perfectly placed. You know, he had a tough year as far as injury goes. It seems like he was in 15 games and then out ten games and then in for 20 games and then out for four games. You know, it was just broken up through the course of the year with injuries that he had. When he got in there and got back feeling good about his skating and his game, he was very effective for us in scoring goals. Q. It looks like the Oilers have lost Dwayne Roloson for the rest of the series, I know it's still a long way to go, but how does it improve your situation? Is there guarded optimism on the part of the Hurricanes or how do you look at it? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Well, you know, whichever goaltender is in the net, we're going to have to be better I think offensively. But obviously, he was playing very well for them. You know, he had excellent numbers, win/loss, save percentage, goals against. He had come in and done the job for them. I think any time you take a main player out of your lineup, you're going to feel the effects of it. Erik Cole, you see him out here skating in the blue Jersey and he looks pretty good, but he was, you know, one of the top players in the league in my opinion, at the time of his injury, and it's tough to lose a guy like that. It maybe even gets magnified a little bit more because it's a goaltending position. Q. In the second intermission last night was it a case of you saying something to the team or letting the players talk amongst themselves to straighten things out? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I just think we talked about the things that we had to do and we were missing -- just seemed we were missing a little bit of jump. But in saying that, it was my opinion, and what I told them, is that if we could get the next goal, we could win the game it. Wasn't even if we got the next goal we could win it; we would win it, just based on the fact that we would generate some -- we would generate some excitement, the building would become alive again, and we can use that. We've harnessed that before in the past. That's what happened at that point. Once we got the lead, we went flat a little bit again, and they picked it up. But I guess that was the message, along with trying to fix a couple of different things and trying to be a little bit more aggressive, changing a couple things in the system just to try to put more pressure up ice and on the puck. That next goal in the third period was going to be, for me, probably a deciding goal. Q. Talk about Cam Ward and his progression through these playoffs, it seems his demeanor has not been too far one way or the other. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: No, it hasn't. Q. And how he's conducted himself? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: It wasn't last year, and Tom Rhodes down in the minors in Lowell, it's been the same through training camp and through the regular season and the playoffs. His play in the playoffs has been consistent. He came in and saved our bacon in Montreal and he played extremely well up there in Game 3 and Game 4, gave us an opportunity to get back in that series and we ended up winning that series and moving on. You know, you guys have met him and talked to him, he's a great kid, as well. You meet his dad, his dad is in there, like last night, very good up-bringing and seems to have a very grounded family and that usually rubs off on your children. His demeanor is very calm, cool and collected in there. Q. You talked a little bit about when you lose a player, especially a goalie, it can hurt a team, what does it do for the psyche of your team who likes to put the puck in the net and skate and put a lot of pressure on what does it do for the psyche? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I don't know if it does anything for our team. Obviously we know if Roloson is out, like has been reported, you know, it's a big piece, and I think we see that. We can actually see that if he's out and he doesn't start the next game. But again, I think our team's success is based on how we play the game, and we've had to go through some good goalies to get to this point, Miller and Brodeur and Huet was playing really well for Montreal. For me it's not so much about the goaltender, it's about our game, and our game has to be better than what it was. Q. At the risk of a "no comment" on injuries, you had three defensemen not skate today. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: We have no injuries to report other than Erik Cole. At times on the day of pregame skate or the day before practice, throughout the entire playoffs, we've taken guys off the ice to rest them. We've kept some of the veteran defensemen off tonight, today, just to give them the rest that they need so that we can be ready tomorrow. They will be out there in the pregame skate tomorrow, I'm pretty sure, anyway. Q. Your thoughts on Glen Wesley, thinking of that one shift where he got hit with a couple of pucks and limping around out there, the kind of leadership at that point in the game you needed? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: You know what we need more of that, honestly. That's guts right there. We could have used more of that last night. He got dinged with three in a row, and that's exactly what you have to do in order to be successful, and I don't think we had enough of that last night. Whether it's physical play or blocking shots or crashing the net, whatever it might be, I think we need a little bit more; just not enough. I think Ray Whitney mentioned it best, "not enough jam." Q. You talked about Cam Ward's demeanor, but last night can you lend a perspective on his performances, one of the most spectacular performances of a goalie that gave up four goals in a game. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: He played great. Some of the saves that he made were -- you know, usually if you get one highlight reel save in a game, that's a good one to get, but he probably had four of them. You know, empty net, back-door goals where somehow he got across and he got a piece of it. He was very focused. I mean, he played great, he really did. Q. You sound like you're not certain whether Roloson will or will not play. You said if he does not play tomorrow night -- COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: You know what, we just try to plan for everything. Injuries, goaltending changes for healthy goalies -- we talk about everything so that nothing really catches us off guard. Again, I guess we'll find out tomorrow whether he is or he's not playing. Q. Can you talk about Ty Conklin and memories of the way he played for you Prague, may not resemble the same right now but he was really good that year. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: He played really well. Ty, we went into that tournament in the World Championships, and some of the teams had real powerful teams on paper. That Czech game, the quarterfinal game, the cross-over game, I think he had 45 shots on net, and it was in Prague, in a hostile environment and he played extremely well. He had a good World Championships. I think he was, if I remember correctly, I think he was Goaltender of the Tournament and played very well. Q. A couple of players were talking about the preseason when you went to this little wilderness camp and did the rope and all those things, can you talk about that and your philosophy in doing that, is it about team bonding? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Well, I think at that point, we were just trying to get guys together in any way, and that happened to be one way. But there was probably ten or 12 things that we did, whether it was just the players, or players and wives or players and dads. Again, just to bring more of a family atmosphere, get to know everybody, and in that case, it was just the players that we brought out there. We did it once before in Long Island. I thought it was good because, you know, they have players work in groups in situations where they have to work with each other and you find out -- you can see some leadership emerging from players, you find out who the funny guys are. We had 12 guys that were new to the organization and 12 guys who had been here, so we made sure that whenever the groups were mixed that it was split so, it wasn't like 12 and 12, new and old, it was six and six mixed and we'd mix the groups again. The ropes course was kind of neat because I think it just challenges yourself. It's a really tough game that's played out there, but when you get 30 feet in the air, it challenges you in a different way. Then the coaches went up and the staff went up, so everybody went up 30 feet in the air and you try to do this ropes course. You see guys out here who are willing to block a shot face-first, but yet they are 30 feet up in the air hanging on to two ropes walking a tight rope and you can see them shaking and they start turning shades of white. It just challenges you in a different way. And then the encouragement of your teammates to get through certain things like that. It was a good day for us. It was still a day that we had to work, so we just decided instead of going up and down the ice, we decided to work in a different way. But, you know, as far as all the things that we did, again, it's to try to bring some unity to the players, their families. I guess everybody is on the same page, but my "everybody" may be a little bit bigger than others. And in the end, I said this yesterday or the day before, you've got to have good guys in the locker room. You can bring them together all you want. But if they end up cliqueing off, you're stuck with it anyway. Pretty unique group of guys in there as far as personalities and camaraderie. Thank you.
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