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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SENATORS v SABRESMay 10, 2007Lindy RuffBUFFALO, NEW YORK: Game One Q. Lindy, do you think you challenged Emery enough tonight, 20 shots on goal, it looked a little shakey. He looked a little shakey. COACH LINDY RUFF: We missed the net, a lot of quality opportunities. It may have been 20 shots, but you have to make some good saves. I know we need to challenge him more than that, but from a standpoint after two periods, we made some good saves. Q. Lindy, how disappointed were you tonight after the way you played in the post-season? COACH LINDY RUFF: We weren't very good tonight with the puck. I think there were a number of players. If you wanted to look at our puck management, it wasn't very good, and I think it's probably the reason that we ended up losing the hockey game. We weren't good with it. We gave it away. We had a lot of passes that were just telegraphed passes and casual passes, and those type of situations usually end up hurting you in the long haul, and we were fortunate enough for two periods to sit there for 2-2 with the number of giveaways we had. A lot of them were unforced in our hands. It even turns out the game winning goal is an unforced turnover where we had full possession and just made a disappointing play. Q. Lindy, does that go at all to the guys not being ready to play, mentally ready or nervous? COACH LINDY RUFF: I think we came out great in the game. I mean, if you want to look at the start of the game and the energy we put in the game, I thought we came out great. Was it nerves? Maybe they got a little rattled. I don't know. But we had some guys that uncharacteristically, you know, gave up the puck in some situations that don't normally give it up. Q. You always talk about you don't want the negative energy on the power play, to give up the shorthanded goal and just one shot on the power play. COACH LINDY RUFF: That hurts you. We've got to be better there. There's no doubt. That's an area where you know they've been very strong in the killing department for the most part and very aggressive. After we had a couple bad ones, I think it just snowballed on us. Q. Were you concerned at all that you guys lost some key face-offs in your own zone, and were you concerned at all with the play in your own zone today? COACH LINDY RUFF: No. I was more concerned with the amount of times we gave up the puck, and the type of opportunities we gave up were end-to-end opportunities. It wasn't a lot of the defensive zone stuff leading off the face-offs. In fact, we actually won or scored the tying goal off a face-off. Q. Lindy, what do you think you could do to get the power play turned around in Game 2? It didn't seem like it generated much tonight. COACH LINDY RUFF: I think it just dealt with the power play. We'll work on it. Q. Lindy, this is the first time in three series you're down to begin. Anything that changes strategy, anything that changes the way you approach things now being, you know, losing the first one? COACH LINDY RUFF: No. For us there was situations in the game that we have to clean up. I think it's a seven game series. I know when you lose the first game, there's a great amount of disappointment. I think it's up to us to put that behind us and make sure that we come out and win Game 2 and, you know, you go 1-1, and pressure goes back on them in their building. Q. Lindy, why did Daniel Briere play so few minutes tonight? COACH LINDY RUFF: I think if you look at all the penalty killing situations, Danny got caught behind some of those shorthanded situations and didn't - the fact we were trying to roll four. After two periods with the number of penalties, I think we had five, that's ten minutes of shorthanded time, it cuts into Danny's ice. I think that's an area that we got to stay out of the box. We want our key people on the ice. Q. Can you comment on Afinogenov-Vanek line - I'm sorry, Roy? COACH LINDY RUFF: I thought he had some real good shifts and good energy for us. Again, there was a few times uncharacteristically we coughed it up going through the neutral zone. They gave us some real good energy. They got one of our goals and for the most part were creating opportunities for us. Q. Lindy, with Kalinin, you know that sometimes he gets off to a slow start and things go downhill for him. Do you feel confident he's going to bounce back from this, or do you have to get in his face and tell him to forget it and move on? COACH LINDY RUFF: I don't have to get in his face. I think that - everybody saw it. I don't think he was the only person that struggled out there. I think he was one of them. We're a team that we've won together all year long, we're going to lose together. Thanks. End of FastScripts |
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