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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BLACKHAWKS v SHARKS

May 16, 2010

Joel Quenneville

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Game One

Blackhawks Â– 2
Sharks - 1

SCHUYLER BAEHMAN: Questions for Coach Quenneville.

Q. Your penalty killers were pretty busy today. Talk about that. And also at the end, looked like the referees might have got the wrong guy, you ended up with Bolland on the ice.
COACH QUENNEVILLE: Certainly 5-0, you got exposed against a top power-play like that. You know, I still thought they did a nice job tonight in the high-quality chances, Antti made some big saves to complement the PK tonight or today. Got through it. The last kill was a dangerous one as well.
So, you know, we'll look the at it again and see how we faired [].

Q. How much momentum did you get from Antti?
COACH QUENNEVILLE: I thought it was big. First period, they come in here, and we know that that was the toughest challenge and hurdle, the building, the energy, the enthusiasm. The crowd gets into it. And I think, being off there, and they were off, too, as well. But we had to kill three. We were three shorts in the first, they scored on the one. Only down 1-0 in the first period, we probably felt fortunate.
But I still thought we would have got our feet going in that second period, representative of how we have to play going forward.
We were good in the last couple of periods. The pace of the game throughout was definitely high end, and what a game.

Q. At the end of the second period they had a big rush against you, last 12 stops in the second period. How important was Antti's play?
COACH QUENNEVILLE: He had some key save there. He looked big. Took away big parts of the net, dangerous plays, a couple of turnovers, couple not getting it in deep. But I thought we had a significant part of the period, had some high quality as well. It was their turn almost from the first part of the second to their part at the end.
But the game was on the line throughout the game. The next goal won, and Byfuglien scored a big one.

Q. Leading up to the Byfuglien goal, there was some fancy changing, flip-flopping your lines a little here and there. Were you surprised they were willing to go power-on-power with the defensive zone? How confident were you in a power-on-power situation tonight?
COACH QUENNEVILLE: Well, I think Johnny's line when they're out there in the offensive zone, they can make plays. They got patience with the puck. Still comfortable with Johnny against anybody. Know that Bolland was trying to work on the matchup all night. Wasn't easy. I think sometimes you're going to be exposed to not the perfect matchup when you're trying to get it on the road. Sometimes not even easy at home.
At the same time, you know, we got a fortunate break on the goal, retrieval, nice pass, great shot. Anything can happen when it's a tight game.

Q. Joel, of course it always takes four to move on. Can you talk about finally taking the first one in a series and having the advantage early on.
COACH QUENNEVILLE: I like our preparation all week, the focus and concentration, that was our motivation, to get the first game. We weren't happy the way we began the last two series. We wanted to continue on with the way we felt we approached Game 6 in Vancouver. I thought the guys were good going into that in the game, the last three or four days.

Q. What was the thought process of putting Toews back on the ice after you took his line off? Just because he's your best face-off guy?
COACH QUENNEVILLE: Johnny was about .500. I think you don't want to deny offensive opportunities for that line. Made a nice little play, Byfuglien got it away quickly. A situation you got to be aware who is on the ice. Sometimes you can get the matchups. Sometimes you don't mind it in the offensive zone. At the end of the day, we had to work for the matchup tonight.

Q. I don't know if you saw it that close, but it looked like Bolland was the one who took that tripping penalty. Is that a bit of a fortuitous break?
COACH QUENNEVILLE: You could talk about that. You could talk about 5-0 against us in power-play. It's one of those situations where it was a couple, three guys' sticks in the same play. I don't know at the end of the day. Still have Toews and Hossa, pretty good penalty killers right there.

Q. Did you feel like you didn't draw a penalty?
COACH QUENNEVILLE: I'm not complaining (smiling).

End of FastScripts

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