|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v SHARKSMay 15, 2010Patrick KaneJonathan ToewsSAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day SCHULYER BAEHMAN: Questions for Jonathan and Patrick. Q. I know you haven't been there since you played in the last regular season game. Heard about different ice surfaces. How is the HP Pavilion? I know you haven't been there in a while, but what's your recall? PATRICK KANE: I think it's pretty good ice there. From what I remember, it's a pretty bright rink there. It's always nice when the lights are pretty bright. We had some pretty good games there. 2-0. We had a big win there, too. I think for us, we'll probably see it. I know they had a concert there Thursday and tonight. We'll see how it is. But I don't think it's anything you need to worry about. Q. Jonathan and Patrick, do you get a sense the guys in the room realize how big a deal this is as far as getting this far with this team? Some guys have never been this far. Do you get a sense of the urgency, especially with what might happen, that this is your one opportunity? JONATHAN TOEWS: We all understand that. We had a great playoff last year; no one expected us to make it this far. But, again, all year coming in during the regular season, even in playoffs, everyone's expected us not only to get back to this point, but even to go beyond it. I think we all understand how difficult it is because we've all been through this season with the pressure and the expectations. We've battled all that type of adversity to get where we are now. So we have this opportunity. We're here to take advantage of it, nothing else. We definitely want to start this series on a different note than we have the last two, so we're looking to be ready tomorrow. Q. You have guys on the other team that you were on the Olympic team with. Thornton said he enjoyed meeting you, John, but can't wait to hack you tomorrow in Game 1. What is the mindset from sharing those special weeks with a guy to he's the enemy for the next two weeks? JONATHAN TOEWS: No, he's a good guy. I'm looking forward to giving him a few whacks, too (smiling). You know, it's a special thing. It's a short-term thing to spend a couple weeks with new guys, new teammates at the Olympics. Come together so fast, win a gold medal, silver medal, doesn't matter. It's still a special thing. Now you're back with your teammates. It's something you worked towards all year, is to win a Stanley Cup. I think with this type of team, you go through so much more together. I think when you win, it means a lot more in that sense, too. Hopefully we'll get the best of him this time. PATRICK KANE: I got to know Pavelski pretty well. We shared some funny stories about Adam Burish. They played together in Wisconsin. We talked about him a lot. He's a good kid. He's obviously really hot right now, a guy we have to eliminate. Like John said, it's kind of nicer when you're with a team for the whole year, you have a chance to win, instead of two weeks. It would have been great to win that tournament. Meet a lot of new friends there. But this one will be way sweeter, I think. Q. Along those lines, the prevailing idea was that playing the Olympics would somehow take all the gas out of everybody's tank. There are 14 Olympians in this series. Did it in some ways helped that experience? JONATHAN TOEWS: Well, I think the experience of being there and playing under that pressure, that microscope, definitely helps when you get to this time of year. You look at their team, you look at ours, the reason we're both still standing is obviously there's a great supporting cast, great players, that obviously weren't at the Olympics that had that two-week break. I'll admit, the last handful of regular-season games were tough to get through. We all kept pushing because we were kind of looking forward to the playoffs. Unfortunately, we came close first place in the regular season, but that's behind us now. We got as much wind in our sails as we need right now. Q. The Blackhawks have lost the first game of each of the past four playoff series. What can you do to reverse that? Everybody says just try harder. How can you really do it? PATRICK KANE: We tried some different things for this series as far as preparation. Hopefully that works. I mean, last couple series, like you said, we haven't had great success in Game 1, which is no excuse. But for three out of the four series we prevailed, played pretty good, obviously won the series. It's a different time of year right now. It's fun. I know both teams are going to have their rest. Both teams might come out a little sloppy, but I'm sure we'll find our game pretty soon in the series. I think it's going to make for a great series. I think there's a lot of great players. Two interesting teams. Every time we play together, I think this year at least, there was an interesting story from each game, especially a couple overtime games. We're feeling pretty good. I'm sure they're pretty confident after getting through a lot of, I wouldn't say more like media slack on them where they've kind of been all over San Jose, but they've got through the first couple rounds, seem to be playing really well right now. Q. John, you guys came up against a pretty veteran team last year in Detroit. You were considered the younger team. What do you think the biggest lesson you learned from that series, watching the way that veteran team that had won before, went about their business? JONATHAN TOEWS: The number one thing is you look at the way we played, won those games, won those first two series in the playoffs against Calgary and then Vancouver. It just seemed like no matter how many mistakes we made, we still found ways to win games. Especially against Vancouver, we gave up a lot of leads. I think we were down, if I can remember correctly, 2-1 in that series. We somehow just kept coming back. Against a team like Detroit or San Jose, that's not going to fly. You got to correct a lot of those little things. We were a young team. To everyone, that was our knock. We didn't really buy into that. We kept playing hard, played for each other. But I think this year we're much more mature, much more solid as far as the way we play, and win games. We understand what it's going to take to win this time of year. I think we got that extra push I think that it's going to take to get through this series this year. PATRICK KANE: You know, I think it's more of the same thing. Like Toews said, last year we came in, it was almost like we weren't supposed to be in that situation. We found a way to get there. We were playing an experienced team like Detroit who kind of took it to us that series, teach us a lot about our team, how far experience goes this time of year. This time of year, it seems like we've had a pretty long year, went to Finland, long regular season. Obviously some of us played in the Olympics. Now you're two rounds in and it seems like you're just getting started. I think it's a pretty exciting time of year. You love to play at this time. The experience we gained from last year is huge. Q. Even though you guys are still the younger team this year, do you feel like because you were here last year there's more pressure on you to get to the next round than it is on the Sharks? JONATHAN TOEWS: Well, I think, like Kane said a second ago, you look at the Sharks situation, the criticism they have to undergo for how good they do in the regular season, the past couple years, things haven't worked out for them past the first round in the playoffs. They have the pressure on them, and we have pressure on ourselves as well. Two teams that want to win. But again, yeah, that experience to us definitely helps us. I think right now these last couple days thinking about that series against Detroit, a lot of people ask us about it. It's definitely fresh in our mind, even though it was pretty much exactly a year ago. It's up to us to find a way to use that experience and to remember what it feels like to end up losing what you feel like is a premature loss, I guess. We got to believe we got what it takes to get through this round, but we're not going to look too far ahead. We'll take it one game at a time starting with tomorrow. SCHULYER BAEHMAN: Thank you. End of FastScripts |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|