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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: FLYERS v BLACKHAWKSMay 30, 2010Daniel BriereMichael LeightonCHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Practice Day Q. Michael, just your thoughts about getting an opportunity to bounce back tomorrow. MICHAEL LEIGHTON: I don't know if I'm starting yet. That's kind of up in the air. I haven't talked to the coach yet. But if I am, I'm just going to kind of approach it the same way I did the last game, just keep doing what I've been doing, and try not to think about what happened last night. Q. Michael, how much of last night was a case of nerves for both yourself and a lot of your teammates? Was it the first time they had been in a Final game? MICHAEL LEIGHTON: Surprisingly, I wasn't nervous at all. I wasn't -- that wasn't the way I would say -- the reason I played that way. For my team, I don't know. But maybe it was that we had a couple of days off, and it just took us a little while to get into the game. We just didn't play our game last night. We're going to regroup and have a good one tomorrow. Q. Just to follow-up, you mentioned you hadn't talked to Peter yet. How disappointed would you be if you didn't get the opportunity? MICHAEL LEIGHTON: Obviously, I would be disappointed. We're in the Stanley Cup Finals. That's not the time to be mad at someone if I'm not starting. If Boucher goes in, he did a great job going in the other night, if he gets the start, then I have to support him. I'm not going to sit there and pout on the bench, because we're in the Stanley Cup Finals. My goal is to win a Stanley Cup starting on or off the bench, so... Q. What do you learn in a game like that that might help 2 days later as you move on to Game 2? MICHAEL LEIGHTON: For myself? Q. Yes. MICHAEL LEIGHTON: Well, me and Jeff Reese went over some video this morning. He showed me some positives and negatives. We went over something and said, all right, we have to change this a little bit or watch this and watch that. For the most part, you know, if we -- we know we're going to play better defensively in our zone. A couple of times we had four guys in front of our net, and they had one guy come in and get a clear shot, and that's not our game. We know we're a better defensive team than that. We're definitely going to show it next game. Q. Michael, what didn't you do well, in your mind, after looking at the tape? MICHAEL LEIGHTON: Well, I didn't let any really bad goals in. That's the way I look at it. I didn't make some big saves. That's pretty much what it came down to. Every good scoring chance they had, they scored. And a couple of them were good shots. There's one or two that I was mad at myself for what I did. But that's the way it goes. That's the game of hockey. JAMEY HORAN: Thank you, Michael. Q. Danny, Jonathan Toews pretty much cleaned up on the face-offs last night against just about everybody on your team. What is it he's doing that was so effective? Was he cheating, or what? DANNY BRIERE: I don't know. I had a tough start against him, I think my first four face-offs. And then after that we were able to settle down, and I think as a team we did better in the second and third period. But definitely in the first period, I don't know, I haven't had the chance to pay much attention. We knew coming in that he was a good face-off guy. But in the morning that's something I was planning on doing, taking time to kind of go over all the face-offs that were taken last night. Q. What did you see? DANNY BRIERE: He's strong, he's quick, and he's strong. That's what he seemed to be doing last night. But that's why I want to look at the tape and see if there's a way we can improve. Q. A couple of things, first off, how much did nerves play into at least the first 20 or 40 minutes of this game, and some of the breakdown that is occurred first off? DANNY BRIERE: I think both teams seemed to feel comfortable offensively, but in the defensive zone, I don't know if it's the nerves or guys too excited and running out of position, chasing guys down the wall, leaving the slot area open. Not just on our side, but on both teams. So that was probably nerves and excitement at the same time. Q. And secondly, talking with some of the Blackhawks, they didn't really say whether they thought that we may not see another game like this. There's nothing to suggest that it won't be another high-scoring game, whether it's Game 2 or somewhere down the line. Do you feel that way? DANNY BRIERE: You never know. You look at the two teams playing now. Both teams can be good defensively. Both teams can be good offensively. So sometimes you get running like last night and things -- everything seems to be going in. I mean, it's tough to say. One thing I can tell you is we want to tighten up defensively. We want to play better defensively. And I'm sure they're going to try to do the same thing and they're going to go over tapes and try to improve. The chances that we gave them with the bad coverage in our zone, we're not going to be winning too many games playing that way, and we know that. Q. Danny, a lot of the Hawks believe they may have stolen one. You guys led three times through the first 40 minutes, outplayed them in big stretches. Is it hard to recover from a game when you feel like you should have won like that? DANNY BRIERE: I don't think so. Every loss is big in the Playoffs. I'm not going to lie about that. But at the same time, coming in, everybody was talking how good the Blackhawks were. And not too many people -- I haven't heard anybody giving us a chance to win this Series. What I liked is, last night we proved we belong with them. You know, maybe not to all the hockey experts, but in our room, I think we realize we can play and we can stretch the Series and definitely come back in it. Q. Danny, lots of focus from our side on who's going to be your goalie tomorrow night. What's it like in the room for the players who have won with both guys this these Playoffs? DANNY BRIERE: Honestly, to us it doesn't matter. Both guys have played well. I think they're six wins apiece. So it doesn't matter who is going to play for us. But the one thing, I mean, if there's players that should take the blame for last night, it's certainly not our goaltending. The chances we gave, the shots we gave in dangerous areas, we haven't done that too many times in the Playoffs. Like I said last night, not too many goalies are going to be successful when especially with the shooters that they have also. Not too many goalies are going to be successful when you give point-blank chances to score the way we did last night. Q. Ville Leino is listed as a rookie, but obviously he's not playing like one. What are some things about his game, some of his strengths, that make him look like he's not a rookie and doing this for the first time? DANNY BRIERE: You're right. Until we started the Playoffs, I didn't even know he was still considered a rookie. What he does well, I think he's very strong on the puck. Sometimes it will be a one-on-three, and he'll find a way to keep the puck or extend the play. A lot of time you think the play is dead, and they're about to break out, and he'll strip the puck and keep it going. Me and Ville, for some reason, seem to have found that chemistry as soon as we started playing together. I like playing with him. We seem to be thinking alike and finding each other in the offensive zone. Q. Danny, if it is Michael Leighton in there tomorrow, do you look at it his bounceback statistics where he's 3-1-1 during the season after being pulled in the next game, and the fact that when his only loss, up to this date, that he did suffer in the Playoffs, he came back and recorded a shutout. As players you must like the statistics. DANNY BRIERE: Definitely. That's exactly what I was going to say. The last game -- the last time he had kind of a rougher night was in Montreal. And he came back with a shutout the next night or the next game. So I mean, he's shown a lot of character. And for a guy that's -- had to go what he went through the last few years, I think it shows his perseverance, his character that he's still here, he's still fighting. And he still wants to make it and make a name for himself. I'm not too worried about him. Q. Danny, can you talk about this entire season and what it's like with Philadelphia goaltending? Because it seems like it's almost about a crisis management from day one of the season. DANNY BRIERE: There's things that are out of your control. Like injuries. And it seemed every time goalies started to play really well, they suffered an injury. So that's out of your control. There's nothing you can do about it. But at the same time, looking at it today, we still have two guys that have played well at times for us throughout the year and into the Playoffs. So to us it doesn't really matter. We have two guys that we know can play. So I feel it's a big advantage. Q. Danny, can it help you guys with what you've been through, not just in the Playoffs but the regular season, to realize it is just one loss and you know you guys have kind of been in the situation before? Does it help the mood in the room? DANNY BRIERE: Well, what it does is it gives us confidence that we know we can come back, that it's never over until it's completely over, and we hear that cliche all the time. I feel it's never been as more true as it is with this team. So, yes, even being down 1-0, to us, we know there's still a long ways to go in this Series, and we feel confident that we can come back. JAMEY HORAN: Thank you. DANNY BRIERE: Thanks, guys. End of FastScripts |
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