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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: DUCKS v RED WINGSMay 15, 2007Mike BabcockTodd BertuzziValtteri FilppulaTomas HolmstromANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA: Game Three JAMEY HORAN: Questions for the players. Q. Tomas, your view on the hit that got you bloody. What happened? How tough was it? TOMAS HOLMSTROM: You know what, I don't really know. I think I had two guys on me. Fell into the boards, got hit again. Hit from behind. I don't really know what happened. Q. Did you feel it was a late hit or a dirty hit? TOMAS HOLMSTROM: You know what, got run into the boards, got hit again. I never see the guy come from behind, so... Q. Tomas, what did you and your teammates, particularly the fellow forwards, do differently in this game than the previous two? Did you feel you wanted to try to generate more speed and go against the Ducks' defensemen more? TOMAS HOLMSTROM: Yeah, the game at home, we didn't really get through the neutral zone as good, so we're coughing up lots of pucks. Tried to get deep on them and to run them. I think we were very successful tonight in that. Q. Can you talk about a dominating game like this, what it means for the team to build what was a confident team already? It was a very one-sided game tonight. TODD BERTUZZI: Yeah, I think as a team we were a little frustrated with the first two games. I don't think we played as well as we could. I think the key tonight was our start. We wanted to make sure we would come out strong. That's exactly what we did. We got the 2-0 lead. Carried it on from there. Q. Valtteri, can you talk about what you thought when you found you were going to be playing with Tomas and Pavel, whether you felt any extra pressure, what it was like to play with those guys? VALTTERI FILPPULA: Well, obviously it's a great place to play. Two great, great players. Pav can do amazing things with the puck. You just kind of try to stay - not go in front of him. They both give the puck really well in passes. That way it's easy place to play. I wasn't too nervous about it before the game. Q. The fact so much has been said the last couple days about even strength. Tonight you were successful. TOMAS HOLMSTROM: Yeah, you know, I think we were successful with all the four lines going. We started scoring from lots of guys, too. We had lots of speed tonight. We played really, really solid hockey game. You know, pretty sure Anaheim will come out and do a better game next game for sure. Q. Todd Bertuzzi, have your responsibilities changed at all? Are they different with Detroit than previous clubs you've been with? TODD BERTUZZI: No, obviously it's a little bit different here. They have their core group in place here. I was very fortunate that they thought enough of me to bring me in at the deadline to contribute. I'm pretty fortunate that I'm in this place right now. For me it's just a matter of taking advantage of what I've got, every opportunity out there. Obviously it's a different role with this team. You just got to do it to your best and help contribute. Q. Switching up the lines the way you guys did, what was the goal? What did you try to accomplish? Looks like whatever it was, you did accomplish it. VALTTERI FILPPULA: Go ahead (smiling). TODD BERTUZZI: I think when you switch up the lines, I think you put a little bit of pressure on yourself to step up. When things change, you got to be able to adapt to it, go out and play hard. I think that's what we did tonight. I thought the lines looked really good and played hard. Like I said earlier, I think the key was the start here tonight. Especially when you're on the road, you want to make sure you come out and play solid. Q. Tomas, was there any doubt you were going to come out for the third period, get back in the game? TOMAS HOLMSTROM: You know, they just want to make sure I didn't have a concussion. Get stitched up, yeah, I was ready for the third. Q. How many stitches did you take? They said two different cuts. TOMAS HOLMSTROM: 13. Q. 13 total? TOMAS HOLMSTROM: Yeah. JAMEY HORAN: Thank you, gentlemen. We're joined by Coach Babcock. Questions for Coach. Q. You take a risk when you split up two offensive players like Datsyuk and Zetterberg who have had so much success. Can you talk about the thought process that went into that. I assume you were pleased with yourselves, but maybe what you saw. COACH MIKE BABCOCK: We knew we were going to do that before the series started. We've kind of been prepared for that all playoff. If what we were doing wasn't going to work, we were prepared, kind of scripted what we thought would work. Early in the year, they didn't want to play together. They both wanted to play center. When things didn't go well for whatever reason, we put them back together, they were magic. We just didn't break it up. But, you know, we're not scared to go back with them together either. That was our plan tonight. Depending on how things were going, we were going to go away, and then back, make it hard. Just because things went the way we wanted to, we just left it like that. Q. If you can talk about the hit on Holmstrom. COACH MIKE BABCOCK: My problem is I haven't seen it a bunch of times. You know, I'm a big believer, you're supposed to finish your check. I'm a big believer in looking after each other. What I mean by that is, I don't care how much is on the line at any time, you have to look after the other player. When he doesn't see you and you decide you're going to bury his head off the turn buckle or whatever, that's a decision you make. We make lots of decisions. You know, once again, I haven't seen it. I want to be real careful here. But, you know, it's the same for our guys. I saw a hit in Buffalo, in the Buffalo game the other night, Alfredsson on Tallinder. To me, Alfredsson doesn't mean to, but it's a risky thing. No one wants to hurt anybody. People want to play hard; no one wants to hurt anybody. Q. What did you feel you could exploit tonight against Anaheim that you might not have been able to exploit in the previous two games? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: We didn't think we played at home in our two games. We thought we were fine, but we didn't think we managed the puck. We didn't think that we let our skill come out because we were slow. What I mean by that is when the puck's always going around the wall, they're forechecking, just grind, grind, grind, you never get out of your zone. When you do, you flip it out, you're chasing it, you don't have the puck much. That was our first two games. Dom found a way, and specialty teams, to allow us to be successful our first night. Our second night we never even get started until 25 minutes into the game. We just felt that if we managed the puck better, played our position better, competed harder, we were going to have an opportunity. Q. You inserted Kopecky tonight in the lineup. Can you assess his performance? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: That's a real good question. Kind of giggled there. The one thing we didn't want him to do was take penalties. He got off to a heck of a start that way. Wins a tough break, hooking call. We thought he skated, took the body, was very effective. He's a big guy, knows how to play the game. It's an important addition to our team and makes us quicker. Q. How important was it for your team to maintain its composure when Anaheim did not in the second period? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, I mean, you know, it doesn't matter what the other team's doing. We're always worried about our own composure. We thought we got distracted by yapping in the first two games. We thought we got distracted a little bit by maybe calls we thought should have gone the other way. All those things just get in the way of your plan. I mean, just play. If you play, you put your best foot forward, you play at the top of your game, normally you're successful. When you're not, you still feel good. We didn't feel very good about our games at home and wanted to improve, and I thought we did. Q. Can you talk about when you have a 5-0 win like this, it is a one-sided win, do you try to make sure your players don't read too much into a score like this? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: No. We got a veteran group. I guarantee you Chelios and Lidstrom, those guys looked after that already. They know it's a win. It's 1-0, 10-0, it's a win. My experience in playoff hockey is there's very little momentum carried from game to game when the series is tight. I mean, if it's 3-0 in the series, it's different. Like this, it just goes back and forth. There's a new challenge that's going to be presented in a couple days here. We just got to get rested and prepared for it. Q. How different are the Ducks without Kunitz, statistics aside? COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know anything about that. JAMEY HORAN: Thank you, Coach. End of FastScripts |
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