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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: OILERS v HURRICANESJune 12, 2006Peter LavioletteEDMONTON, ALBERTA: Game Four Q. Can you just talk about your decision to scramble things a little bit, get Cory back with Eric at times and was that to sort of avoid some of the matchups or just to shake things up and what was going on there? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Actually it was for both. Trying to spread Cory around a little bit, just I mean everybody -- well, you would know that Stiller and Staalsie and Colesie were together for most of the year. I think there's a little bit of chemistry with Cory and Erik. But it's tough to break up your top line as well, and I think that Rod and Willie were clicking pretty good with Cory. So what we tried to do was really mix the lines up completely to try and avoid matchups. But I think most of the combinations that we threw out there had played together at some point in the year together and so there shouldn't have been that. They were totally unfamiliar with each other or how they play. And you know we were able to, I think, accomplish that by splitting Cory between the two lines and popping Josef Vasicek or Cullen or Ladd or whatever it might be on different lines at different times. Just really trying -- I guess, what you said, trying to accomplish both things. Q. Talk about Eric's game, probably his best game of the series, and also the way he was able to maintain some composure because Moreau and a couple guys were trying to get under his skin. COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: He's been pretty composed all year. Again, it seems like with, I mean, he had 100 points in the regular season, he's leading playoff scorer, so if he doesn't put up any points for a couple of games it automatically goes to a slump. I don't think that that was the case. I think that he was still playing good hockey, he was playing hard and some nights they drop in for you and some nights they don't. He made some nice plays tonight. I thought he had an excellent game and, you know, it was nice to see him do that. And I just think that the biggest thing for him is to continue to play with confidence because he's a great player. He's been a great player in the regular season. He's been a great player in the playoffs, and you know people start talking about a slump and I don't see it. Q. By the end of the second period did you have a little conversation with the team at all about taking penalties? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Well, we actually had a conversation after last game and that didn't work, so we had another conversation after the first period and it worked a little bit better, I guess, but we got we have to stay out of the penalty box. Q. What was it about Vasicek that you had enough confidence to put him in after 12 games off and not just to put him in and stick him one place but kind of move him around a bit into different versatile roles? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: As far as the versatile roles, a lot of our players can play different positions. I think we have six centermen on our team, and six centermen in the lineup tonight. And those centermen can play left or right wing. We have done it through the course of the year, so I guess you are not really experimenting in the Finals of the Stanley Cup, it's something that they should be familiar with, playing with different linemates and in different positions. I think the biggest key to that is making sure the line coming out next knows exactly who they have because it was so jumbled all night. But as far as Joe goes, he had major reconstruction on his knee. There was a question as to whether or not he would be back this year at all. He's worked extremely hard to get to this point. I think the assistant coaches have worked him hard on the ice, worked him hard off ice. I think the last 10 days or 12 days or so he's really started to feel good on the ice, pushing himself and doing some plyometrics. He came to me a couple of days ago and said he wanted to play. I said "Well, I may only have a five-minute role available." He said, "I don't care. I want to play." When a player comes and tells you he wants to play, he was our leading scorer two years ago, you should probably listen to him and put him in. But he's looked good. Q. You said with Eric Staal you wanted him to continue to play with confidence. Did you talk to him in the last couple of days, just to remind him of that? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Yeah, like I said Eric Staal, we wouldn't have finished where we finished in the regular season and I don't like singling out players, but just speaking in terms of his confidence and him as a player, he's a huge part of the success of the Carolina Hurricanes in the regular season and at the time of all this talk and he reads it and he feels it and the media is coming back to him talking, you haven't scored, you haven't put up points, you only have one point, he reads that and that affects him. I guess my conversation to him was, "I have all the confidence in the world in you. If we needed to put somebody on the ice to win a game, you'd be the guy I'd call on. So go out and have fun. You have a God-given talent. Use that to your ability but have fun doing it." He's going to be here for a lot of years, hopefully back at this type of a stage for a lot of years, and he's a great player. I just wanted him to know that. Q. The first goal it's party time in the building, Stiller scores less than 30 seconds later, how big was that? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: Real big. It was -- power play, I don't think we would had it for 20 seconds, 25 seconds we got it in. We spread it out a little bit which we talked about doing, and again, the assistant coaches have done an amazing job, they both handled the meetings for each one of those power play and penalty kills. Penalty kill was excellent and the power play got a big goal for us. But we spread it out and got it back to Stiller for a one-timer and he put it in. Q. Usually five-on-three against is a pretty dicey situation. You have killed four of them. Have you ever seen a five-on-three that has been this good for you and also can you kind of give us a clue as to why they are so effective? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: I think power play -- I think power play when you have a power play meeting and we try to go by this, when you have a power play meeting I think it's good get the input from the players. You have some of the most creative, gifted players in the world in a meeting to talk about how to be creative, so it doesn't make sense to dominate a conversation. As far as the penalty kill goes, I think it is a lot more structure, I think that you have to have assignments, you have to have routes, you have to execute those routes. You have to be willing to pay a price by blocking a shot, head first if you had to. And I think the biggest thing is execution. Q. Have you thought about what you will do with your players to try and shield them from the commotion and all the expectations that will abound when you get home to Raleigh? COACH PETER LAVIOLETTE: You know what, the only thing I have been thinking about this is game right now. We have put an awful lot of emphasis on this game tonight. I asked my team to do the same thing. The coaches did the same thing. We worried about this and this only. We get tonight now to move on now and to focus on the next one. I said it before, it was great advice by Ron Wilson, who I talked to a couple of days ago, he just said, "Have your team keep their eye on the ball." Golf ball. Everything is golf to Ron. "Not look down the fairway and see the green, just keep your head down, keep doing the work," and that's what we did tonight. So we'll talk about how we need to protect them and shield him and go from there. To be honest, we just been worrying about this.
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