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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SENATORS v SABRES

May 11, 2007

Daniel Briere

BUFFALO, NEW YORK: Practice Day

Q. What went wrong last night?
DANIEL BRIERE: What went wrong? Had a lot of little things, lost everything.
It's one of those games where we came out strong, we came out playing well the first, you know, two, three minutes, got a power play, and that's when it kind of everything switched around, turned around for us.
There's games like that. You just have to put it in the back of your mind and move forward and forget about it as quick as possible. You know, one of our biggest problems yesterday was definitely the turnovers. It's pretty obvious that turnovers were a little higher than they usually are and got us in trouble and gave them most of their opportunities off our turnovers.
That's an area our power play wasn't good at all. And the other area we have to improve in and, also, I think we have to hit the net a little more often when one is shooting the puck. Lot of pucks went flying wide or missing the net. That's another little area.
Like I said, it's one game. It's over with. We played bad. We know it. It's going to happen, and you can't be dwelling on that too long. We just have to move and move on and try to concentrate on the next game and try to be better.

Q. Danny, there's a lot being made of your ice time last night. Can you address how you're feeling and if there's any issues?
DANIEL BRIERE: That's not for me to decide. Lindy is trying to match up with Chris's line and Jason Spezza's line. So sometimes it's tough as a coach to get everybody happy. I'm not going to complain about it. That's not the time to complain about ice time. Everybody has the same goal. Lindy has the same goal as everybody else.
So I'm not questioning my ice time or anything like that. He's in charge. I'm a hundred percent behind him, and whatever he decides to go with, I'm onboard.

Q. How are you healthwise?
DANIEL BRIERE: Good.

Q. The time down the tube Game 6 against New York, your power play time dwindled. Guys are getting more time than you. Is that frustrating at all?
DANIEL BRIERE: You know what? At this time of the year, there's no really sense to waste energy being frustrated about your ice time.
You know, I don't really want to discuss that. Like I said, you know, it's Lindy's decisions. You know, you talk with Lindy about that. I'm not going to complain about it. I have nothing to say about that. He's in charge. He's the boss, and whatever he believes is going to make us win, I'm with him.

Q. Where do you feel your game is at right now? Aside from the ice time, no shots last night, and obviously that feeds into it, but just overall.
DANIEL BRIERE: Last night was one of those games where I -- I barely touched the puck, you know, where usually I'm in control of the puck, make things happen. Last night the puck just wasn't coming around, I never really - except for maybe two, three shifts, just wasn't there. I couldn't find the puck, and part of the problem, too, is I got to get open. I got to find ways and lanes to find that puck.
You know, I'm not happy with my game. Like I said, got to move on and get on to tomorrow night. I can't waste energy.
I wasted enough energy last night going through the game over and over again. Now today is a new day. I got to move on and concentrate on tomorrow and try to be better.

Q. Why do you think consistency has been a problem for you guys like going back to the first round?
DANIEL BRIERE: I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. I'm hoping - you know, you're always hoping it's the last time you're going to talk about it. But, you know, it's popping up again. I'm sorry. I don't know how to explain it.

Q. What is Ottawa's defense doing? Are they doing anything to limit your chances last night? Are they frustrating you at all?
DANIEL BRIERE: Five-on-five, we had a lot of good shifts, there's a lot of time where we did some good things, we missed a lot in the net a lot. I think - and don't get me wrong, they're a good group of defensemen. They're not easy to play against, but I think part of the problem, too, was ours, just with the amount of turnovers that we made. You know, instead of putting the puck behind them and making them work, we made it a little easier on them where we tried to go through guys and cause some turnovers where they didn't even have to work for it and the puck and the play just went the other way.

Q. Your coach isn't afraid to make changes, does that all the time, and it seems as though by this morning the lines are back. Can you talk a little bit about that. You're playing on the wing back at center, would that kind of help you get back to the comfort zone?
DANIEL BRIERE: We came in the morning, and you guys saw the lines with the colors on the ice. So I guess it's probably going to be this way to start the game tomorrow. But Lindy has many different options with the amount of guys we have around, and all the ones that we have, he's able to switch and change as he feels whatever is going to help our team the most.
So, no, I'm not going to complain on playing the wing or playing center. I had some really good games the first two games there on the wing with Tim and Al. We created a lot of chances, but last night it just wasn't there.
So you try to adjust. Maybe it will be a better fit against Ottawa with Jochen and Jason if they decide to go with that.

Q. Having the advantage of being around you guys to lot, I see you guys determined the last couple of years. I guess what puzzles me, I'm talking about the power play, not five-on-five, how we can see where we're still talking about efforts, winning battles and stuff on the power play when I've seen you guys play and I know what you guys got.
DANIEL BRIERE: You know what? Last night I have to disagree a little bit with you. I don't think it was a lack of effort. I think we were trying to do a little too much by ourselves, you know, rushing the puck up the ice and instead of dumping it, we try to go through one, two guys, get by the first guy, try to get by the other guy.
I think maybe we got a little too individual, and sometimes that's what - you know, frustration builds up and you just want to take charge of it and you try to do too much by yourself. You don't use your teammates. I think there's part of that problem was that, also. But we know we can be better on our power play.
The Rangers series was up and down. We had some good games, bad games. So I'm hoping that we're due for a good game tomorrow night.

Q. Did the Senators do anything last night different? Did you see anything different - everybody spoke about how they elevated their game. Seems like so far the word from the Sabres camp --
DANIEL BRIERE: Yeah. I haven't seen much of them in the playoffs. But from what I hear, they've been playing really well so far and their whole playoff has been good. We didn't see them for the last month, month and a half of the season.
So that was our first game in a while against them, and, you know, got to give them credit. They skated hard. They played well. They played well as a team. They didn't make very many mistakes.
We're not happy with our game. We know that. We know we can be better. But on their side, you got to give them credit. They played well and didn't turn the puck over, took advantage of their chances.

Q. Danny, Ryan Miller, he kind of cracked a joke and said "We wouldn't be the Sabres if we didn't make it difficult on ourselves." Your thoughts on that?
DANIEL BRIERE: Yeah. I guess it's us. We like to make it hard for some reason, but I wish -- like I said earlier, I wish we could have came out flying and we could play well every game and we could end every series 4-0 or 4-1, maybe, if you drop one. It's not the case.
I think we have to make the Senators work a little harder for what they got last night, and I think we made a little too easy on them. It comes down for us - I mean, we want to move on. We want to forget about what happened last night. We know we can be better once again. We've proved it when we were challenged in the Rangers series. So that's what I want to see the team get back to.

Q. How much pressure is on you guys knowing you really can't go back to Ottawa down 2? How much pressure is on you guys for a Game 2?
DANIEL BRIERE: We don't want to look past tomorrow's game. We don't want to look - we want to take it one game at a time. I know it's cliche, but you can't be thinking about going out there afraid of being down 2-0. We got to go out there and play like a team who has been challenged the way we've done every single time we've been challenged and think about tomorrow.
You don't want to see the guys go out there scared and afraid to make mistakes. We're a team that usually is very aggressive offensively and on the forechecking. That's what I want to see our team get back to.

End of FastScripts

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