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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: HURRICANES v PENGUINS

May 19, 2009

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: Practice Day

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach Maurice.

Q. (Question regarding Cole and Ruutu.)
COACH MAURICE: It happened 12 hours ago. We're not going to know for a little while. Haven't seen the guys. Usually they don't take my medical thing anyway.

Q. Did you encourage the NHL to take a look at that?
COACH MAURICE: No, I nothing to do with that. I just coach.

Q. Would you expect them to do that?
COACH MAURICE: They do. They watch the games actually.

Q. If one or both can't play, who would be the replacement?
COACH MAURICE: It depends on how we restructure the line. It's not just the next guy in. It's this guy because we'll consider where Jokinen will go. Will he stay at center? Go to the wing? That will affect who comes in. We've got nine extra guys, so we're not going to be short bodies.

Q. In a team that isn't necessarily big up front, these guys are gritty, how big is the loss if they don't go in?
COACH MAURICE: Well, they're important for exactly that reason. Ruutu didn't touch the puck in the first two series. Erik, we felt, and we expect him to be coming. He was starting to be better, really move.
Those are important pieces to what we do in our style. But it won't change our style that much. We still play pretty much the same way for everybody.

Q. Could it be a rallying point for this team?
COACH MAURICE: I'll let you know.

Q. (Question regarding the hit.)
COACH MAURICE: I just felt by the time the collision had happened, they would have had time to readjust and not have to go there. Just didn't like it.
I don't know. That one is faster. I'm all for letting the battle go in front of the net for when a defenseman... Whether it was or not, those things happen over the course of a game.
That's a tough call.

Q. What is it about your team, just kind of bouncing back?
COACH MAURICE: We usually feel that things go bad in the game for us, we can fix. The mistakes that are correctible, and we also don't expect our team to play a perfect game every night. We don't hammer every mistake we make. We take the ones we think are important, go over them as a team. That way we can be positive about some of the good things that we do.

Q. Was one of those the fact that you looked at the last few minutes, that there were opportunities there to tie the game?
COACH MAURICE: Well, that's a good thing. But at the same time, they're just holding on at that point. They're not trying to do anything but bang the thing out in back. I don't think we look at that last two minutes and say, If we play our game, we're going to have 60 of those. It's a different game.
I liked the start of our game. We sagged a little bit after they scored that first one. The second period was pretty darn well-played for us. We generated some things that were real good.
Chances at the end of it were very close, even though it was 4-1 on the power plays.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Tim Gleason.

Q. (Question regarding losing Game 1's in series.)
TIM GLEASON: Been there, done that. Done it twice. Kind of like a routine of ours. We're obviously disappointed. We wanted to come out, and I thought we played a better game than we did prior to the first two Game 1s. It's disappointing. But we have to look forward.

Q. The thing about this team is bouncing back. Been your specialty, right?
TIM GLEASON: Absolutely. When you think you're going down and out, the first game, we always seem to compete harder, come back in a positive way, more positive way. That's what we have to concentrate on now.

Q. It didn't take long for the series to get emotional, to get physical, as predicted.
TIM GLEASON: Exactly. That's why it's playoff hockey. It's a blast out there. It's physical, scoring. You name it, I think it was played last night. It's something that I've always dreamt about. I have a blast doing, and the family loves it as well.

Q. A couple wingers down last night due to injury. Gritty wingers. They bring a lot of physical presence on a team that's not all that big.
TIM GLEASON: Obviously, both of them are big losses. I don't know too much about it. You know, they're pretty tough guys. We're obviously looking forward to hopefully seeing them back soon, if not tomorrow, Thursday.
Like you said, they're two, big, important pieces for us. We need them back as soon as we can. If they're ready to go Thursday, we're excited with that.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Chad LaRose.

Q. Didn't take too long to get physical out there?
CHAD LaROSE: Yeah, it was a fast, physical game last night. Pretty much what we expected.

Q. Can you talk about what losing Erik Cole or Ruutu would mean to this team if, in fact, they are out.
CHAD LaROSE: Well, if they are, those guys are irreplaceable. We're going to have to have guys step in and play. We have those types of guys.
Those guys are big pieces of our team. You don't want to say that they're going to be easily missed. It would be tough to lose 'em. But, you know, you got to move forward and have other people step in.

Q. Did you see the hit on Erik?
CHAD LaROSE: No, I did not. My dad saw it, when I talked to him, he said it was kind of awkward and his knee went in pretty hard. I did not see the replay yet, though.

Q. People have used 'relentless' to describe this team. You have bounced back a lot in the regular season, and certainly in the playoffs. Why is that especially in Game 2s when you have been down?
CHAD LaROSE: Well, you know, there's a battle effect in our room and we got a good core group of guys that have been there before, a lot of experience. We've learned in these playoffs that the game's not over till that buzzer goes, point two seconds still on the clock. You got to battle all the way to the end and anything can happen.

Q. Cam Ward has been critical in those Game 2 victories.
CHAD LaROSE: I think he's been amazing all playoffs. He's our backbone back there. We have a lot of confidence on our bench when he's in the net.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Cam Ward.

Q. I guess you got them right where you want them?
CAM WARD: I guess if we went to how things were in the first rounds, yes. But, obviously, no, we didn't want to be put in this situation.
But I think that we did show a lot of positives yesterday. I think we competed, we fought right till the end there. Could have gone either way.
With that being said, it's still a loss. We're not satisfied with that. We know we can play better, and hopefully we can do that in Game 2.

Q. Can we say it was your best first game?
CAM WARD: Yeah, I think it was. You know, we got off to a good start. Before they got eight breakaway goals on Satan, I thought we were controlling play. Fleury came up with timely saves. When a goaltender does that, it helps get your team turned around, coming up with saves like that when he did. Breakaway goal with Satan coming out of the penalty box, kind of confused us. We didn't know where he was on the ice at the time. They get that goal, they sail in, they play a much better game after that.

Q. Didn't take time for the series to get physical, as predicted. Kind of got ugly in a few parts last night.
CAM WARD: That's not surprising. This is the third round of the playoffs. A lot of guys out there are very competitive, obviously fighting for that chance to play in the Stanley Cup final. When that happens, you're bound to get some big hits. You know, hopefully we are on the bigger side, I guess.

Q. Not an update that we have, but Erik Cole and Ruutu are pretty gritty players. You'll miss them out there.
CAM WARD: Yeah, I mean, I just got up this morning and came down here, so I haven't heard what's going on. Obviously, those are two valuable players to our team. Hopefully they're ready to go in Game 2. They know their bodies the best, so we'll see what they have to say and then treat it appropriately.

Q. Did you see Satan coming out of the box? Were you banging your stick?
CAM WARD: I was banging my stick, yeah (laughter).
You know, I can honestly bang it so hard before I have to worry about breaking it. But I think it's just the awareness, just knowing the time on the clock, being aware. I don't know what our shift time was, but we looked a little bit tired. When we were out there, we were kind of tired coming back.
You know, it seems like that's happened before. It's something to be aware of. Made a great move, really did. Really made me look a little silly (laughter).

End of FastScripts

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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: HURRICANES v PENGUINS

May 19, 2009

Tim Gleason

Chad LaRose

Paul Maurice

Cam Ward