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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: OILERS v HURRICANES

June 16, 2006

Peter Laviolette

EDMONTON, ALBERTA: Practice Day

Q. You have a lot of old guys compared to the other team. Do you feel any fatigue going into that Game 6, mentally, physically maybe?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I would say no, no more than anybody else at this point. I don't think a game or two matters when you have played over 100. I think it's too -- the amount of games, once you get over 100 and this far down, I think it is too insignificant.
I think they played one less game than us, maybe two, I believe. It's too -- I don't think that one game matters.

Q. To leave -- as great a screen as Raleigh was to leave some of the additional distractions that go with that behind you and have had the whole experience of a championship winning game behind you, does that add to what you bring tomorrow, and maybe better equipped to get the job done tomorrow night?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: You know, we're focused. We are focused and ready to play a game. Lost in overtime. You have got to move on. I think the big thing you have got to separate from game to game. I think we have been able to do that so far the entire Playoffs.
Game 2 against Montreal in our building we lost in overtime you got to separate Game 2 from Game 3. And if anything, I think the two days off helps us. It's just time away from something that didn't go our way and tough for everybody to handle that night going to bed. But that's so far in the rearview mirror right now.
Really the only thing that we can and should focus on is tomorrow night, making sure we come with a good effort.

Q. I know you are always hesitant to comment on injuries, but the guys in the room were all talking like Doug is done.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Doug will not be available for us for Game 6.

Q. Possibly Game 7?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I have no comment on that right now. But for Game 6, he's not available.

Q. Can you talk about what that means and what you do, who comes in perhaps to take his place, and what the loss means to the team?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: We can either insert Chad LaRose or add an additional defensemen. Or switch the lineup from there, still insert Chad and add an additional defensemen and take somebody else out.
You guys should be able to figure it out just based on the players remaining. And we'll make that decision tomorrow:
As far as Doug coming out of the lineup, obviously it's a tough loss for us. Doug is part of the reason we have gotten this far. If you look back through the Playoffs at some of the big plays that he's made and the big goals that he scored or the big passes that he made like only Doug Weight can, he's a big part of it.
In saying that, I am not sure that many teams sustained as many injuries as we did through the course of the year. I know some were hit pretty hard with injuries; our team was one of them. We had, I think, close to 270 man games lost through the course of the game, but yet we were always able to maintain a winning attitude and record.
It didn't seem to matter who was out. We had enough depth and we still believed that we do have enough depth to cover that. I mean we have been -- we have done this without Erik Cole who you have heard me say I believe is one of the top power forwards in the game, if not the top power forward, and it's not easy.
You can't replace Cole. We won't be able to replace Doug Weight. He's a valuable part of this team. We're going to have to. Somebody else is going to have to step up. We have got lots of centermen that can move around to any position. We played out of position so many times through the course of the year and tried different things and still always seemed to find success with it.
The fact that Doug is out, we could move Kevin Adams up or Josef Vasicek into the middle, or Matt Cullen back to the middle. I guess that's a good thing about having 6 centerman, 6 or 7 centermen on your team is that you have those options.
As long as they can play wing, which they all can. So it's easier to take somebody that's natural in a position and just bring them back.

Q. This morning your guys seemed pretty jovial and loose on the ice. Did you expect them to respond any different coming in here today?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Again, I think the best thing is just to separate game by game, and that game is over with. We won't talk about it again. We won't think about it again. And there's a big game coming up here tomorrow night, and we're pretty excited to be in it.
We did -- we moved them up and down the ice for the first 20 minutes, purposely had a little fun out there at the end. The guys enjoyed it. We're ready to play some hockey.

Q. Does Doug Weight have a separated shoulder? Nature of the injury?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: We have no comment on specific injuries. Doug has an upper body injury.

Q. You want to describe your one-on-one against Cam today he said you guys thought were better friends than that?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I made sure I went up to him and told him that there's a lot of cameras in there and not to embarrass the head coach. I made sure that he shot the puck every time so that I didn't do a toe pick right into the corner.

Q. This is one of maybe the second longest Stanley Cup Finals at this point from the lockout season, '94, the local football team is playing, the World Cup of soccer is on, the spring.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Training camp is in ten days.

Q. Is this going on too long they have got to do something about this?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: You know what, there's no place in the world than I'd rather be right now. There's a lot of people I think that wish they were here. So is it long -- it's the middle of June it's getting on the 4th of July, my favorite holiday of the year, and there's no place I'd rather be.
I think that you can check with the players there as well. I think you can check with the players that aren't here, and we got an opportunity for greatness and we got to make the most of that.

Q. If you had rolled the Oilers up in five games -- I am sure the Cup is gratifying no matter how you do it -- but the fact that they are stretching you the way they are does it make that much sweater that you have got such a high caliber opponent and you are being stretched to the limit to get the job done?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I don't think you go through the opponents that they went through without respecting them and they played well. They play hard every night. They are a good hockey team. Like I said, I think -- after it was 2-0 I think if we had won it 4-0 we would have scratched our heads and wondered how that happened, and we expected a long series and a hard-fought battle against a team that skates well and plays physical and they compete and it does not surprise me that we're in a Game 6 in Edmonton. A long series does not surprise me.

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