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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: DUCKS v RED WINGS

May 13, 2007

Mike Babcock

DETROIT, MICHIGAN: Game Two

JAMEY HORAN: Questions for Coach Babcock.

Q. Mike, Chris Chelios has talked repeatedly about how he's been happy to accept whatever role has been given him, et cetera. Can you describe the process that you went through with him in terms of outlining what you wanted him to do in terms of his minutes, and especially this year, just how that came about, why you think it's been important at this stage of the season?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, I think the first thing is when I first arrived here, you know, when I met with him, it was outstanding, but it's not like I identified anything. I just wanted to see what took place.
We told him kind of he was going to be the sixth D man. He said, no, he's going to be the fourth D man. Then everyone got hurt; he was the fourth D man.
We met with him last spring at the end of the season and we said he was going to be six or seven, and he said, no, he said, I'm going to be four. We said, well, Cheli, you're ready to be six or seven and you're not going to play all the games. He said, no, I'm going to play all the games and I'm going to be four (laughter). I said, good.
At least we cleared that right up (smiling).
Then the year went on. We sat Cheli out three times this year I think just to try -- initially what we did is we thought back-to-backs, but that -- after we did it, we didn't think that was a great idea because you didn't get freshened up anyway. What we did, we played in the middle of a week one time, we could give him a whole week off, we did that three times.
You know, I don't know if that makes any difference to Cheli. What I found is as I've been here in Detroit, the guys in the over-40 club, maybe 37 club, is they want to go every single day. As long as they keep their motor running, they're good.
The other thing about Chelios is you don't win the Norrises he has, you don't have the points he has without great instincts. I use Trevor Linden as an example. Who led Vancouver in the playoffs in scoring? Trevor Linden did. The playoffs are like the fountain of youth. If think they're jacked up in exhibition, if you think they're jacked up game 65, they're not. They might borderline be asleep. But they're jacked up now and they're competitive people. The reason they've been so good is they're so competitive and their instincts when the game is on the line are as good as anyone.
When they're tired, they flat out know where to stand.

Q. Given that goals are going to be hard to come by here, how much more important does that make Holmstrom's role in front of the net?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, Holmer can stand there all day long. If we never get the puck there, it doesn't do much good. Last game, I didn't think we got the puck there for him at all. As a group, last game our power play was very effective for us. We got two goals. When you throw it to the net, the puck went in the net. We're going to have to get lots of those goals, not two of those goals. But we got to get to the net way more often than we did last game and spend more time in the offensive zone.
Last game we spent too much time playing defense and not enough time on offense. Part of that was sitting in the penalty box all night. But another part of that was just not having the kind of jump in our legs and being as assertive at their blueline as we should have. We turned the puck over too much there and got held up too much at their blueline instead of fighting through the little hold-ups. We accepted them.

Q. When you talk about puck possession, you said you didn't do enough with the puck last game, didn't attack. Do you expect better puck possession from all of your lines or mainly skill players?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Our skill players were good last game. There was nothing wrong with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. I think their line had I don't know how many shots. We need more from everyone else.
Everybody in the media talks about all the puck possession we have all the time. You know, I haven't seen that at playoff time myself. I think the team that works the hardest, gets on the forecheck the most, and is in their zone the most hangs on to the puck the most.
In the new NHL, in my mind, what they did is they moved the trap back to the blueline. So the blueline stacked up. Carrying the puck in is a lot harder than it used to be. Puck possession now is you put it behind 'em, hang on to it as long as you can because they can't touch it, or it's a penalty. Or it was in the regular season.
Our focus will be to get back at it.
JAMEY HORAN: Thank you, Coach.

End of FastScripts

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