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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: PENGUINS v RED WINGSMay 30, 2009Mike BabcockDETROIT, MICHIGAN: Game One DAVID KEON: Questions for Coach Babcock. Q. Any status updates on Lidstrom and Datsyuk? COACH BABCOCK: Lidstrom and Ericsson will play, Draper's unavailable, Datsyuk's unavailable. Q. Do you have to be mindful of guy's ice time tonight, knowing they're going back-to-back tomorrow? Or do you just have to coach tonight's game and go with tomorrow when it is? COACH BABCOCK: I'm going with the second approach. We'll worry about tonight, tonight, and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Q. I just wondered what does it mean for you to have Ericsson back so quickly in, and what will he do for you to have him in the lineup? COACH BABCOCK: He just gives us, the way their centers play 20 minutes a game, you know, basically you need three sets of D to match up against them. So what we have with the situation we have, we'll either have Nick and Raf or Kronner and Stuey against 87 and 81. Or, sorry 87 and 71. And even if they play in the four hole, that leaves E and Lebs to play against Staal. Q. Datsyuk was hoping to play, but how close do you feel he was to being ready to go? COACH BABCOCK: When he first gets on the ice, especially in the morning he's really stiff to get his foot going. It takes him a bit to get going. Now we haven't tested it in a game time situation where you get there and you get warmed up and you do all that stuff yet. But we've tried a number of things and it hasn't responded the way we first anticipated. We thought he was playing the last series. So our medical people, obviously, are trying everything they can, and he's trying what he can. So he'll be back as soon as he can. That's all I can tell you. Q. Do you get a different sense ever team's demeanor leading up to Game 1 as opposed to a year ago at this exact same time? COACH BABCOCK: No. I mean, it's excitement. You play your whole life, and for some of our guys they're fortunate they've been in lots of these. But most of us are just thrilled to ever have the opportunity. And when you get the opportunity, you want to make good on the opportunity. So there's excitement. There's nerves. There's preparation, obviously, and you just look forward to it. Q. There's probably 20 teams in the league for whom it will be a crippling blow not to have a player like that. You have so much depth. But how do you grade his absence going into the final? COACH BABCOCK: Well, we'd like to have him but we don't have him. So, you know, the way we always talk about it here when you put on on the uniform, we expect you to play well. He's not going to have one on opportunity, so he'll be a little more nervous than the rest of us, probably. But the rest of us are going to do, you know, do the best we can. Play as hard as we can. And we think we match-up fine. Q. Is there anything different about a Stanley Cup Final that starts with back-to-back games in regards to different than maybe having a day or two in between? And secondly, I know that you and your team are so focused on hockey, but this area's been really hard hit with the recession. Do you know of people that have sort of lost jobs or just how you guys have just dealt with trying to be something to make the people around here happy during a difficult time? COACH BABCOCK: Well, I said to Kenny Holland before the end of the Ducks series is I thought it was very important that we won for the city of Detroit and for Michigan just because of that. I know tons of families that have lost their jobs and are losing their homes. My kids are all in sports and there's two or three people. And I'm not talking just your run-of-the-mill jobs. I'm talking guys that have worked for companies for 20 years, been engineers and don't have jobs and are losing their home. We know one family that's moving out of their home this weekend. That's going on all over Michigan, obviously. So is a lot of those people aren't going to be at this game. They obviously can't afford to come, but they'll be at home watching TV tonight, and we'll do our part. What is the other part? Q. Back-to-back games, I know you don't like it being so quick, but does it make anything different? COACH BABCOCK: Well, I wouldn't know that because the previous times I've been in this situation they don't do it. So we're just trying it out. Q. When I asked Chris Chelios and Nicklas Lidstrom if they're nervous tonight. They said they are. I'm curious to know if you are as well. COACH BABCOCK: Yeah, there's always excitement about it, and then nerves prior. Then when they drop the puck you get to do what you do and relax. And I think that's really important. They're the same way. If you didn't get excited about it, you wouldn't be playing. And it's just a great opportunity. The level of excitement in the finals compared to the playoffs is a whole 'nother level, and then compared to the regular season especially like February, it's night and day. Q. You guys did such a great job on them in the first two games of last year's final. Is there anyway to repeat that or try to come close to repeating that to start this final? COACH BABCOCK: Yeah, we haven't thought much about that. We've just got to plan for this year, for their team and for our team to try to be successful. As much as they have real good players, our focus is always, I'd say, 90%, maybe even 95% on on ourselves and what we're going to try to do and execute our game plan. And that's no on different here tonight. End of FastScripts |
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