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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: DUCKS v RED WINGS

May 19, 2007

Mike Babcock

DETROIT, MICHIGAN: Practice Day

JAMEY HORAN: Questions for Coach Babcock.

Q. Mike, what do you think your team has been doing better as the series has progressed and what do you think that the Ducks have been doing better as the series has progressed?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Scored on the power play last game. Yet I thought they had a couple of power play goals in the series. The clock ran out and it didn't appear that way.
For us we just think we've skated better and handled the puck better, and so therefore we've had more speed. We didn't think we did a very good job of that in the first two games at home.

Q. Coach, Todd left the ice pretty early this morning.
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: At this time of year they get tired of the coach, don't want to hang out with him quite as long now (smiling). Just a little maintenance, that's all. If you went through our whole roster, through their whole roster, the game's tomorrow.

Q. Mike, can you talk a bit about the play of the Cleary line as it's evolved in this series? They seemed to maybe have their best game in Game 4, and what it is that made them better?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Cleary has been on a couple of lines in the playoffs and the line he's on is pretty good. So maybe that's part of it.
The second thing is I think as Bert gets more comfortable and plays better - I think the only thing with that line last game was the traded chances. I'm not interested in that. You play well defensively and you create your opportunities and you don't make hope plays, you make plays. That doesn't mean don't make plays; that means don't force stuff, take what's given, and keep at it and be patient.
I thought when we got behind last game - it's easy when you get behind, now you have to press a little bit, you force things a little bit too much. And so that line generated offensive and scored a couple of power-play goals, but they can't trade chances.

Q. There's some things you can't coach. One of them is will and intensity and effort, and at this point in any series I'm sure that really becomes a big factor. What has your team shown you in that category?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: I think - I don't agree with this statement, but I think you can - I think you build a culture all year long. If you think you turn on will right now or just turn on intensity right now or you turn on focus, you've been building that all year long. And maybe over a couple of years. And the same for them.
And how you can turn it up, you never know. But I know that the people in our locker room, whether that be Dom or Nik or Z or Draper or Cheli, is I think we have a good deal of determination. I think it's shown and it has to show again. That's the great thing about these now the best-of-3s and it's fun.
Both teams have a real good opportunity. And my experience in the playoffs is that the playoffs are one thing and then the excitement of the final is a totally different thing. We'd like to experience the excitement of the final. But we gotta play well.

Q. Mike, given that it's the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the West playing, is this series playing out about as expected, even just the nature of it going back and forth? I mean, these are the Top 2 seeds playing.
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: I don't know what was projected or predicted or any of that. I don't care much about that either. It's what we expected. We think we got a good team. We think they've got a good team.
And we even think - we thought they probably left Game 1 thinking they could have won. We left Game 4 thinking we could have won. It's even. So now here we go.

Q. Mike, after the giveaway early, it looked like Todd played both the most physical and strong kind of hockey I've seen him play since coming back. Almost looked like a giveaway trying to cheese them off and got them going. If he can play at that level, does that completely change the dimensions of your team?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, it helps us. Obviously we don't want to start with a turnover to get people going. That's not the idea. But in saying that, we feel as he plays more he gets better. And we're comfortable.
But the more physical he can be and the better he skates and the better decisions he makes with the puck, I think that's one of the key things at this time of the year is taking care of the puck.
When you don't take care of the puck, you don't play as much. When you take care of the puck you play more.
I thought that was good. I thought Cleary has been excellent all playoffs. And Robert Lang has the ability to make plays. The harder that group works and the more time they spend in the offensive zone the better are. I thought Bert finished checks, scored down low, scored a big goal for us. So we're looking forward to more of that.

Q. Are you more comfortable in trusting -
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Trust, that's a real good question. Trust for me is simple in that a guy just does it over and over again and he's doing the right thing. It's simple. And so I don't have a problem with that.
I don't think we've ever not trusted Bert. We just want him to be doing the things he's capable of doing.
And yet, for us, our expectations of him all along I think have been very reasonable. I don't think we've said, hey, you're going to be off all this time and have the back you've had and then suddenly be back. But we feel the longer we play and the better opportunity he has to help us. I don't know if that answers the question.

Q. There's a wider gap of good versus bad like what is he doing best versus - as opposed to most of your other players, you know the range.
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: As you get to know guys over a longer period of time, you understand that. But I also think when you're injured a long time and you're trying to get back to the level you were at, sometimes you pushing yourself forces you to make more risk plays than just "let's just stick with it." And so I think he's done a real good job of that.

Q. Can you talk about your line combinations for tomorrow and also how important Game 5 has been for you guys in the playoffs this year?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: I mean, my line combinations are going to be the same as they were in warmup, and we'll see what happens. And then Game 5, I mean, for us, we've been here before and we've got to play a good game. That's all there is to it. We've been comfortable with our games. Our goaltender was good in the Calgary series in Game 5 in the first seven or eight minutes. I thought our team was good in the San Jose series. And we all gotta be good tomorrow.

Q. In the LA Times quote on Holmstrom saying that of course I'm going to hit him in the head, he's quite a bit shorter than me, it's just the law of physics, do you agree with that?
COACH MIKE BABCOCK: We have one more question?
JAMEY HORAN: That's it.

End of FastScripts

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