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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: DUCKS v RED WINGSMay 11, 2007Mike BabcockDETROIT, MICHIGAN: Game One JAMEY HORAN: Questions for Coach Babcock. Q. Tell me what Dan Cleary has meant to your team in these playoffs? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: He's a great person, a good, good player. He's worked hard enough over the last while in his career to get his game back. He's a physical guy for us. He played on our puck-control unit there with Draper and Maltby. He's good on the power play, real good on the penalty kill. He plays hard. He was a child phenom. It got away from him. Through maturity and work ethic, he turned out to be the real good player in the league that he is. Q. Kris Draper suggested one of the reasons this is a better team than last year is its willingness to go to the net and stay there. Is that your assessment as well? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, it's one of the things. I just think we're a team that plays on the inside more than the outside. But, you know, I've watched the two previous teams just by going through the tapes that played against Anaheim and they didn't have enough of that. Is that 'cause they don't let you or is that 'cause they weren't willing? We'll find out. That's why you play these series. Q. Just building off of that, do you expect even larger roles to be played by guys like Todd Bertuzzi and Tomas Holmstrom in front of the net to make sure that front is secure and everything there is taken care of? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: We want to have a net-front presence. In order to have a net-front presence you have to play in their zone firstly, then you have to be willing too retrieve pucks, get it back, get it back to the net. Those people have that ability but so does Frentzen and Cleary. Everyone on our team has to get to the net. You can't play on the outside if you're going to score at playoff time. Giguere and Hasek are not going to let goals in from the outside. They're not going to let goals in they see. You're going to have to at this point them, you're going to have to screen them, you're going to have to get seconds off them. In order to do that, you better get to the hard areas. Q. Can you comment on how Chris Chelios has handled the Players Association business? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: No, I don't know nothing about it. All I know is what he does here. I'm not trying to be rude. I got nothing. Q. For a lot of guys, it would be a big distraction. COACH MIKE BABCOCK: He has 500 phone calls a day. He's got more going on than anybody I know. You know, that's probably why he's played so long. He doesn't spend much time worrying about hockey. He comes, puts his stuff on, plays. He's got businesses all over. He's got more people, he's got more guests. You should have seen during the World Series and stuff. It's unbelievable how many people this guy knows. So he's a busy guy. JAMEY HORAN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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