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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SENATORS v SABRESMay 13, 2007Ryan MillerLindy RuffOTTAWA, ONTARIO: Practice Day Q. Lindy, your group coming off the ice last night, they just looked stunned. How do you get them to get back into a more positive frame of mind before Monday night? COACH LINDY RUFF: There's always disappointment with losing in the fashion you lost. I think part of it is you deal with victory in the same sense, in the same type of game, and you pick up the pieces and move on. I think, you know, you look at a team like Carolina won the cup last year. They dealt with adversity. They went down 2-0 in one of their series and fought their way back. There's lots of examples of turning this into a great series still. Q. Is it disappointing that it seems that Ottawa is winning games the way the Sabres used to win games in the playoffs and in the regular season, just big goals, coming back from 2-goal deficits and things like that? COACH LINDY RUFF: Well, I think you look at it, you know, we got beat by a bouncing puck at the end. We got ourselves in a that situation. We worked hard to tie it up late, but at the same time, sometimes you got to be lucky to win, too. Q. You didn't get beat earlier in the game, the second period when they -- you were up by a goal and they dominated the second period? COACH LINDY RUFF: I don't think they dominated. I think the five-on-threes made a difference in momentum. Q. Do you have to change something in -- they score four goals and you weren't able to score? COACH LINDY RUFF: We had one taken away. Our power play did a lot better job. We didn't score. Obviously disappointed with not scoring but, you know, sometimes that happens. We made some adjustments. Our puck possession was a lot better. Our zone time was a lot better. We had some good traffic around the net. They scored two five-on-three goals, you know. Q. How is Henrik today? COACH LINDY RUFF: He's real sore. I look at that, probably if that's the regular season when I guy doesn't have the puck and gets run from behind head first into the boards, it's a suspension. Q. Is there any chance he could miss some time? COACH LINDY RUFF: It's possible. Q. Aside from him, could there be other changes? COACH LINDY RUFF: I'm not commenting on that line. Q. Lindy, when Afinogenov struggled earlier in the playoffs, you pulled him out. He's one of your better players, more productive players this year. What does it take when you see as many giveaways as some of your D had? Spacek, Kalinin has struggled there for you to reach the same point with them. COACH LINDY RUFF: I'm going to reserve -- I've already said that, I'm reserving what happened with Max as a special situation. Q. Okay. What about -- COACH LINDY RUFF: Dmitri has struggled a little bit the last couple games. I think that various - given the puck up at various occasions. It wasn't been just Dmitri and just Spacek. I think when you get in games like this, it's easy to point out mistakes. Q. How disappointing is that because your D was really concerned one of your strengths before the season, during the season, that they have had so many problems? COACH LINDY RUFF: Well, you know, at times I think we've seen it in the playoffs. We've coughed it up. I think right now I've got to get their confidence back to be able to make the plays in the tight situations. We've been a team that's relied on making plays in real tight situations, and I don't want them to panic. The easy thing to do would be to panic. Q. Is that what it looks like, when they're having problems they're a little tentative, a little unsure from lack of confidence? COACH LINDY RUFF: I haven't liked some of our puck support by our forwards. Their available outs should be quicker, and I thought a couple situations we weren't there for them. Q. How do you wrest momentum back? COACH LINDY RUFF: Win a game. Q. To win that game then - you played an almost perfect 1st period yesterday. COACH LINDY RUFF: Part of it is do whatever we can to stay out of the penalty box, too. I said you get calls, you don't get calls. We've got to hope we get some calls. Q. The five-on-three there that you talked about, them taking momentum, did you -- do you have a problem with either penalty being called? COACH LINDY RUFF: I have a problem with the second penalty for sure. Zubrus went right under his stick, lifted his stick up. He didn't get under his arms. Q. You didn't see the stick at his midsection there? COACH LINDY RUFF: No. No. If you're going to call Campbell for roughing, shouldn't Alfredsson -- let's level playing field. Q. Is there anything you can do about the Alfredsson thing? Do you appeal to them? COACH LINDY RUFF: I don't know. They say they review everything. Anybody in this room that watches it sees that Henrik has no idea he's coming. He doesn't have the puck and gets run from behind head first into the boards. I just feel they look at everything. Let's let them deal with it. Q. Lindy, yesterday you made a really impassioned plea and just commented on how you liked the game and the way it was going and better than 10, 15 years ago. After what happened last night, did it change your opinion? COACH LINDY RUFF: No, not at all. Q. When you get to this point, the other team is going to get some momentum. Is it a matter for you guys to get it back quicker? It seems when they get it, they hold it for quite awhile. COACH LINDY RUFF: They're a good team. They're a very good team. We have to wrest the momentum back at times. They've got a very good team. I said that before this series started. They are going -- they are going to be able to control a play at times, and that's when we have to, you know - we have to get some big saves. We have to sometimes hunker down and play a little bit smarter, but they're a good team. Q. Last round you guys were really - the Rangers won the two games in a row. Is there any comparison to be made to where were you against New York and where you are here? COACH LINDY RUFF: You know, I think you look at it, it's probably similar, you know. The Rangers were kind of living off their power play and overall we were having a tough time scoring. I think if we score 3, should be able to win a playoff game. I think if we tighten up a little bit and a little bit better in some areas, we should be able to bounce back. Q. What do you think of Ryan's performance in last night and overall? Are you okay where he is right now? COACH LINDY RUFF: When I said we need players to be better, I think Ryan needs to be better at the same time. You look at the Fisher goal, I thought there was one that you'd like to have back. Redden timing the puck from the high slot. The last one you watch what the puck did. It's a tough bounce. You hope that you can get it, but it's also a shot that's coming through traffic at the same time. It found a hole somehow. RYAN MILLER Q. Ryan, you said there's going to be bumps along the road. As you go on the journey, how do you guys handle this become? RYAN MILLER: We're going to have to handle it professionally, to put it aside and move forward. If you look back on most of the history of the playoff format, a lot of the champions go through a lot of adversity and, you know, just looking at last year, Carolina started out going down 2-0. They did a nice job of coming back and picking up their game and playing strong hockey. You know, it's kind of been the subject of a lot of the attention. We've had people keep stating we haven't played our best hockey yet, and I think we've played well and maybe we should take that as a positive. Double overtime, and, you know, Game 1 was closer than the final score. So that begs the question, then, I guess we're not playing our best. It's probably a good sign. Q. How about the fact that this team is who it is? You guys have been through things where you've had to come back from adversity the last two years and that type of thing. How does that help you guys now mentally as you prepare? RYAN MILLER: It's good knowing that we've been in these situations. We're going to have to improve and our game -- our game and just push forward. Really not hang our heads and feel sorry for ourselves. It is what it is. Don't want to get too cliche with you guys, but you really can't do anything about the last two nights of hockey, and moving forward we have to be in complete control of what we want to accomplish, and we're going to have to be smarter, stronger, and committed to do it. Just have to go play some hockey and see how it plays out. Q. To be one of the best road teams in the National Hockey League the last couple years, what does it take to be that? RYAN MILLER: I think we play a good simple game. We execute our system very well. I think that's why we made it this far, we execute our system very well, but now the difference in the last few games has been special teams, and we feel like we can improve on both fronts. My involvement is directly with the penalty kill, and myself, I need to make some better reads on some plays and give myself a better chance to make some more saves. Q. Would you say maybe on the Fisher goal more than Redden, wherever he is, he blasts the shot. I don't know what more you can do on that. Talking more on the Fisher power play goal? RYAN MILLER: Last two nights, Fisher goal, I probably could take another step, sitting back, waiting on Redden, and that's the situation where you just have to commit to the shot, you know. I got a big chunk of it, but it wasn't enough. Q. Where are you guys mentally right now, emotionally? 02 is not easy. RYAN MILLER: I want speak for everybody. I mean, we just showed up today at the plane really, and some of the guys went in for treatment, but I'd like to think that guys - they should take this to heart but shouldn't take it as something that couldn't cash it in. This is a bump in the road. It's a pretty big hurdle we have to overcome. We made the road pretty tough. It's still a race to 4 by winning hockey games. We can obviously prevent them from beating us there, so I think if you talk to most people, Senators are up 2-0. They have an advantage, and having an advantage sometimes is harder than it seems. We've had to close out teams in the past, and it's hard to do, and we've been closed out last year. We made it as tough as possible, and you know, I don't expect this team to react any differently than we have in the past. Q. Defensively I asked Lindy a minute ago, defensively you're seeing obviously I phrase the question to you a thousand times. There's been a lot of turnovers by your D uncharacteristically, that's considered one of their strengths all year. Are they rattled? What do you see? RYAN MILLER: I don't know what it is. Anytime turnovers happen, I think everybody is kind of in the same boat. It's not just the D. We have to work as a group. Maybe some things we're doing aren't working out as well as we wanted with our system. They do -- did a good job of pre-scouting us, and you can tell by the way a lot of their systems look. They're waiting for certain things to happen and pushing other situations. It's up to us to adjust and, you know - so I don't think guys are overly rattled. I think we just are looking for pieces in the system from pre-scouting. Now we have to work around it. Q. Lindy is not shy about pointing out players sometimes he thinks can do a bit better. Thomas Vanek the other day. He's made a point about your Fisher goal. Does it bother you at all that your coach does that? RYAN MILLER: He wants the best from us. I agree it wasn't the best goal to let in at the best time. You know, I made a read and didn't execute. So whatever. They're just amplified by the situation. So, it's just a case where, you know, he's trying to get the best out of everybody at the right time. It's nothing personal. It's the coach talking about a player is not Lindy talking about Ryan. End of FastScripts |
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