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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: PENGUINS v RED WINGSJune 7, 2009Mike BabcockPITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: Practice Day Q. Mike, given the psychologists' role in a head coaching job, and given the potential in swings this series has taken beyond just playing hard and playing smart, what are some of the nuisances going into your particular thought process to prepare this team for a desperate situation on their home ice Tuesday? COACH BABCOCK: It's the same as always. It's stuff that you guys, it doesn't have a enough player for you, but it's the facts. And living in the present is no different than what I'm doing right now. If you're here, you might as well do a good job of it. It's the same in our preparation, as much as everyone wants to get caught up in momentum and carryover and all that stuff. I've said many times I'm not a big believer in that. I'm a big believer in being prepared, getting focused and executing. If you do all those things, you have a chance to get lucky. Q. Mike, going into your sixth, or your third, Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, you've been here now three times. Compare the emotions or words on what it's like to be this close and win it and not win it? COACH BABCOCK: Well, not winning it is absolutely devastating. It's devastating in the fact that let's be honest, in a Cap world you don't know if you're ever going to get a chance to be here, period. You have to get so fortunate with injuries. All you have to do is look at Pavel. Most times -- we've left Pavel, Nick and Rafi in this playoffs, most teams wouldn't be playing. So the teams are so close now, your opportunities, I think, are so few and far between that you'd like to make good on the ones you get. So I think that goes through your mind. And I think players, and all of us get caught up in what you do if you won and all that kind of. But the reality is that just gets in the way of executing and preparing. So if we want to be good as a group, we've got to prepare individually to do what we do, and then we have a chance to do that. When we get all caught up in the other stuff, you don't win. So enjoy today. It's a great day. They didn't have to come to the rink unless they wanted to. It's a family day. Enjoy that, and then let's get ready to get focused and get prepared. Q. You've got one player who has maybe a little different dynamic than your other players. Marian Hossa made a huge career decision last year with what he was going to do with this season. Can you imagine the swing he must be looking at, the validation of the second guessing depending on how this goes? COACH BABCOCK: Yeah, but I don't know if he's second guessing. And who matters? He's a man, he made a decision. I think he's really pleased with his decision. You know, in some ways it's probably as difficult a situation for him as it could have been. There could have been a lot other teams we'd be playing and it would have been easier and we wouldn't be talking about this stuff. But I'm a big believer in life, when you make a decision, it's a good one, because you made it. You thought about it, and you made the decision, now you live with it and you enjoy it. And I think that's what he's doing. And I thought he was excellent last night. Q. You talked earlier about the injuries to some key players you guys have had to overcome. Can you just talk in general about the depth this team has shown in this series? You're getting contributions from just about everywhere, and then Pavel comes back. But just the idea of the depth that the Red Wings have exhibited? COACH BABCOCK: I think both these teams wouldn't be here unless they had good depth. We're fortunate these guys contributed. You have to have a good run at playoff time. I would say the same for them. They've changed their lineup and everybody's found a way to contribute. That's what you want. Sometimes if you look at teams that can't sustain for long periods of time or can't win night after night in our league it's usually because they don't have enough players that can do it. And if you're relying on one or two guys all the time, in the end you can't win night after night. We're all human, and it just doesn't work like that. You're too easy to be checked, too easy to be injured and too easy to be shut down. So I think that's important. But the other thing in the Cap world that I'm a big believer in is you're drafting, Jimmy Nill and his people are so important, but Kirk Fraser on our farm team is so important because of the development of your players. If you don't have guys coming that are prepared like Abby has and Helm has and Ericsson has and Leino has, for us, you can't win. So if you take Helm and you take Ericsson and even the contributions of Abby and Leino out of the line for us, we're not playing. Q. Will Hank and Pav be playing on the same line again in Game 6? COACH BABCOCK: I have no idea yet. We're going to break down the tapes right now, and we'll go through all of that and we'll see. We'll just try to put ourselves in the best situation to get the kind of match-ups that are advantageous for us. The more depth you have, the better match-ups you get. If you play from behind, you never get what you want. If you play from ahead, you always get what you want. So all those things go into control controlling the game. For us, if we can get started on time in Pittsburgh, you have a way better chance of having success. Q. With Pav coming back last night, the job that Ozzie did kind of flew under the radar a little bit. Can you talk about how he played in the early going there? COACH BABCOCK: Well, in the early going we gave up three chances on the one shift. The third guy dove in, and Malkin got some space, and we had a fire drill going on our end there. They got three chances or whatever. And the one, Fedotenko was on the back side there when the rebound game came, I thought that was an important play. Goaltending to me has been -- the goalies have both been better at home than they have on the road and the teams have, too. Maybe it all works together. Ozzie has to find a way to be as good as he can in Game 6, and so does our team to help him out. Q. On the Hossa thing, it's not Dave Andreychuk or Ray Bourque at the end of their careers and they never won. It's not that kind of routing point. But it's a guy who left a lot on the line and his pocketbooks to come to your team. Has there been a rally around that at all or do you tend to maybe use that in your big speech in the next 24 hours? COACH BABCOCK: No. I haven't thought about that. You know, I think the guys that put on the uniform here every year -- I think every year their teams start with the same expectation, but some are real. And we're about winning here and we want to win each and every year. Every guy in that room wants to win for a whole bunch of different reasons. But to have success you have to want to do it for the guy next to you, and the guy across from you, and the guys you're playing with. You become a tight-knit close group when you go to battle night in and night out. There are lots of different theories on team building, go and have some beers together. But winning together, paying the price, getting hurt, getting the puck out when someone's rolling over the top of you, laying down the blocking shot, to me that's team building. That's doing it for one another. That's what this is all about. You win together today, you walk together forever. I'm a big believer in that. You never forget the guys you've won with. And Hossa has an opportunity, and if we all play well to remember this group of guys. Q. After Game 4 you said there was a way to beat the Pittsburgh forecheck, and you had to do it. Did you do it in the last game, and if so, what were some of the things you did? COACH BABCOCK: Well, what we did in the previous game is we didn't handle the puck at all. So when you don't handle the puck and you don't execute, suddenly the other forecheck gets better. So what we did even as late as yesterday morning after the pregame skate, we had done it twice as a coaching staff, we went back and did it again. What are they doing on the forecheck that's giving us trouble? And we didn't see anything we didn't see all year long. So we just thought that getting back and executing was the most important thing. That happened most of the night. The one shift I talked about didn't happen. When you turn over pucks and you're not in good positions, their forecheck is better. If you're in good positions and you don't turnover pucks, their forecheck isn't as good, and it's about executing. Q. How is Datsyuk's health after returning to the lineup? COACH BABCOCK: Pardon me? Q. How's he doing a day after returning to the lineup? COACH BABCOCK: Yeah, I asked him. He said he's feeling good. He's in there hanging out like everyone else. No one has given me or Pete hasn't given me any reports that there's anything did negative. Q. Dan Bylsma recalls vividly the details of the clock ticking down in 2003, losing the Cup there. Because you and he have that shared disappointment, should you win one of the next two games, do you anticipate that there might be the slightest twinge of regrets on your part knowing that this time he would have engineered his disappointment this time around? COACH BABCOCK: None. No, I mean, he'd have none. Either way I wouldn't expect it, so, no. Q. Your team seems to enjoy or appreciate a challenge. When they're told they're too old and tired they responded like last night. And I'm thinking specifically of Osgood who certainly faced a challenge in the regular season. Do you see that in him or in your team that's unusual in any way? COACH BABCOCK: I don't think so. I don't know if you're team's responding to anything anybody said. I think our team's doing what it's supposed to do, play well, and play hard for one another. Ozzie's doing the same thing. Being a good pro, and you dig in and you bear down, and you challenge yourself. Sometimes when things don't go good that is the greatest reminder for getting her going again. We all in our life had some chances to be complacent, and when that happens things usually snow ball in a negative way. He's been able to get it stopped and really help our team and play really well. All the power to him. He's done a good job for us, and put our team in a good situation now. Yet it's a long way from done. We've got to continue doing what we've got to do. Q. Wanted to ask you about Malkin and Crosby. Sometimes star players when they get wound up and frustrated it leads to more success for them. But last night they were thrown right off their game. Is that something you think that was sort of building series wide or just last night when you took such a big lead they thought they might take a few shots? COACH BABCOCK: Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, we didn't do a very good job in the previous game in Game 4, and shot ourselves in the foot. Then they probably weren't as good as they would have liked to have been last night. Those things happen sometimes in a series. As much as you're talking about two individuals, it's usually all about the team. I don't know why it happened or what happened that way. Q. Can you appreciate what you've been able to do in the NHL or is that for down the road when you retire? COACH BABCOCK: No, that will be something over the summer. I think it's real important. I try to do this every summer with my brother-in-law, just sit by the fire, and when everyone else leaves you get a chance to feel good for a few minutes and then get on with it. But I think it's important to really enjoy all these opportunities. And I've tried to talk about that to our players, and I talked about that to my family and try to really enjoy these opportunities we're in. Because just like I said to you, you don't know when you're you'll get this opportunity again. The other thing is there's not a lot to pick between these teams. It's very, very difficult to win. We've got two really good teams playing very hard. You know, I think so far it's been a real good final. You're just always hopeful that it's going to come out on your side. End of FastScripts |
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