	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: OILERS v HURRICANES

June 18, 2006

Peter Laviolette

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Practice Day

Q. Your players in the dressing room were saying that they felt that the way they played really didn't deserve to win the last two games. They said they sort of have to get -- they have to play Hurricanes hockey.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I would agree with that. We were pretty lousy on all aspects. That's yesterday's news. We have got a big game to look forward to definitely.
Didn't have our energy in our legs, in our skating, all the things that have won our trademark for us all season long. I think it's important we get back to that first of all, try and execute our game plan a little better.

Q. History of Game 7s suggest a home team in the Final always wins like 11 and 2. All the games are usually very low scoring. Do you change anything as far as the strategy as a coach is concerned as opposed to early in the Playoffs, because they are all 2-1, 3-1 games Game 7s?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I think it's real important that we show up, play our game. We're not going to change anything. We tried to make a couple of tweaks we were doing for Game 6. I think regardless of what you try and do, if you are not skating and competing as well as the other team is you are going to find it difficult to be successful.
And really those were two areas where we were lacking. We're back in our building where we have had a lot of success. Our fans will be here. There will be a lot of energy. Obviously, everybody knows what is at stake. Season is over tomorrow night. Our guys will be ready to have some fun.

Q. In his return Erik Cole played decent number of minutes. What's your expectation as far as how much you will be able to lean on him in Game 7 for ice time?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I would expect that it's probably somewhere around the same. Hard to give exact numbers or minutes, but probably somewhere between 15, 20 minutes depending on the game, how he's playing, and how he's feeling.
I think the good thing is getting him in Game 6. One, the players now know that he's in there as well, or as of yesterday afternoon, showed a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not he was going to play.
Players left the morning skate and team meal not knowing if he was in the lineup as I did. Good clearance later in the day, but it was good to get him in there for his teammates. I think for his point of view to get out there and get a hit and take a hit and get his legs under him a little bit.
But I thought he played pretty good for two periods, and then you know, we didn't really get a whole lot going in the third.

Q. Didn't ease into it though?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: He's been playing -- he's been skating a lot and working out a lot. He's in tremendous shape, and I don't think that you can get all that timing back after being off for close to four months.
But when you are skating for two months, every day, after practice with the assistant coaches and the guys that aren't playing as much, your conditioning can be fine, and his conditioning was okay.

Q. You mentioned that you guys didn't maybe play with energy, really didn't have your legs under you in Game 6. Sounds like maybe a fatigue thing. Is that the case? If so, how do you get rid of that tomorrow night?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: It's hard to explain that, honestly. Some nights you are fatigued for whatever the reason may be. Maybe it had to do with residual effect of Game 5. I am not making excuses; no excuses to be made this late in the season.
But for whatever reason we didn't skate very well. They definitely skated better than we did. The game is about skating, about the puck, and the best way to get it is to skate or to keep it is to skate. And we, just like I said, two areas I thought that we were missing were the skating and the competitiveness.

Q. Brind'Amour last night sort of called himself out. He said he hadn't played well the last couple of games. Is that him trying to be a leader?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Rod is always probably a little harder on himself than anybody else. And I would agree that we, in general, the whole team, collectively did not play our game last night.
I don't think you will find anybody that's making a case for that. But Rod has been a rock for us all year. I would expect him to be a rock for us tomorrow night.

Q. Last time we were here back there with Cole you said the level of healing that his neck was at you weren't playing him. Too big a risk family and future. He didn't say his neck got better yesterday, but he said it's not going to heal anymore. Did your standards change on this?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: No, if you go back to what I said based on the information that I have from the medical staff, Erik Cole will not play. That held true up until yesterday when I met with Dr. Richardson, who is the local doctor who's been looking after him, and a CT scan came from Denver the day before.
He evaluated it at probably 3:30 in the afternoon. He said that at this point, which was yesterday at 3:30 in the afternoon, Erik is as healed as he's going to be. Basically, you can go in now or in training camp next year. But the healing process by his standards, done.

Q. How much of tomorrow night is about not being paralyzed by the moment, not worrying about every shift because the magnification of every shift is now, and sort of at its ultimate. How much does presence of guys like Wesley and Mark Recchi and your Game 7 experience, which is significant, play into that?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I hope all of our paralyzation is out of us after last night. We were pretty paralyzed. The veteran players we certainly will count on. We got, as a group, we have got one Game 7 experience from Buffalo. It was here, was successful.
I remember a friend of mine calling me up from Tampa Bay's organization saying he couldn't understand why we lost Game 6 to Philadelphia in the third round, I think it was, the last time we played, and we had to win a Game 7 in the third round back in our building.
You never know why things happen, but they happen for a reason. So we have that experience to draw on, but not only do we need the veteran players, we need youth and our exuberance. We need guys coming back from an injury. We need a lot of things in order to be successful things that we're missing.
Again, to sum it up, if you are not skating and you are not competing as well as the other team, then you are going to have a hard time winning that game. But games change, as you guys know, they change from game to game. Nobody sets out in the season and wins every game they play. They change from game to game, and they change from series to series. I would expect a marked improvement in our game.

Q. You have lost two in a row, but I would imagine you can take the whole one-game-for-it-all approach to erase what has happened in 5 and 6.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Well, 5 was tough to swallow. In overtime we were set up to win it on our power play and it didn't happen, so it was really -- it was a tough one to get over. Maybe the toughest that we have been through. It has been the toughest we have been through as a group.
And then Game 6 was just terrible. I guess, obviously, it is a one and done for both sides. That's why I guess you look back at the season. You try and find a game somewhere in mid-November that was on the road and was five games and seven nights that you were able to come back and win and get the points that you need for home ice advantage somewhere, you know, it's in our building. This is where we want to be.

Q. Before Game 1 you were asked about Fernando Pisani I thought you paused and gave a diplomatic answer. Do you need a Fernando Pisani type guy to step up on your team, maybe a role guy? If so, who might that be tomorrow?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I think I gave that answer about Fernando Pisani, because I don't really know -- we don't see Edmonton that much, and I'd be more apt to give you a better answer on somebody from Tampa Bay or Boston; wasn't to be disrespectful to the player.
We have never based our team's success on one individual person. We based it on the fact that on any given night anybody can step up, and we need a lot of people to come through with big games tomorrow night, you know, who will ultimately step up and score the biggest of goals tomorrow night, I am not sure.
But all year long somebody has done that for us. And we have been counted out from Day 1, and probably here counted out today. But there's a lot of confidence in that room. There's a lot of winning experience from this year and we expect great things tomorrow night.

Q. If someone were to suggest that you guys are both mentally and physically broken down, what would you say to that?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I would say don't count us out, you know. It's one game. It's a one game shot. We have won an awful lot of hockey games this year, more than anybody else in the National Hockey League.
This team knows how to win. They know how to win on home ice. You know, people might have counted us out after two losses to Montreal at home, and that was a mistake. So, you know, we can't -- I guess we can't control what people think or what people say, but we know there's a lot of confidence in the locker room to win hockey games.

Q. A couple of times in Game 6 it looked like maybe some of your defensmen, when Edmonton was forechecking, might have been looking over their shoulders anticipating a hook. Do you get a sense that they are looking for that and it's affecting them how they play on the road?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I am not sure about what you are saying. There's a good chance that we were getting hit because we weren't skating very well; we didn't go back hard enough on the puck when we got it; we didn't skate hard enough with it and move it up to our forwards; and sometimes our forwards didn't get back.
We were -- it was not a good game for us. Like I said, I don't think anybody is making a case for that. Again, that's yesterday's game. We have won a lot of games. Our defensmen have won a lot of games for us and tomorrow is a new day.

Q. Does your team have to win the game for your goaltender who last night kept the score respectable. I thought they hung him out to dry last night.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I don't think they were here to win one for Cam. I think they were here to win one for this team. Most importantly the players as a group, because they have come a long way; they have very close knit group. One of the best teams that I have ever been associated with.
When we do it tomorrow night we'll do it for each other.

End of FastScripts...

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297