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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: FLYERS v BLACKHAWKS

May 30, 2010

Peter Laviolette

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Practice Day

Q. Peter, is there any reason for you not to go back to Michael Leighton tomorrow?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Let me start this press conference by saying that we will keep everything internally with regards to lineups, lineup changes, lines, goaltenders, anything that's internal, we'll probably keep it internal. But thank you for asking.

Q. Are you confident that Michael Leighton, if he plays, can bounceback?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: We're confident in all of our players. We wouldn't be here if we weren't. We're confident as a group, the way we play the game. We're a confident group, generally speaking.

Q. Peter, for the most part, last night, do you think that the majority of the goals were the responsibility of the goalie or the fault of the defense in front of them?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I said last night our team has proven to be a group that wins as a team, and we play really well together; and we also loses a team. When we lose as a team, typically everybody could have done something better.
I think last night is a perfect example. Sure, our defense could have played better. Our forwards could have helped out a little bit more. Our goaltender probably would like a second look at some of those. We need to tighten it up.
We didn't give a whole lot of chances against. The ones that we did -- we even had coverage on a lot of them. Some of them were one on four, one on three. We have to do a better job in front of our goaltender, making sure we are competing in that area. That's the area we need to tighten up.

Q. Do decisions get tougher, is it tougher for to you make a decision on a goalie when you've seen Boucher come in and play, you've seen Leighton come in and play, and you've kind of had a guy just come in and he's been unbelievable? Does it make a decision tough where guys have come in and can do the job?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Those decisions are always the tough ones when it comes to telling players they can't be in the lineup or they're not going to get the call that night. Danny Carcillo is a perfect example. He went through it. There was no reason for him to come out of the lineup. He's done everything we've asked. Based on numbers, those are tough decisions. They're also decision that is, you know, you look at and you're fortunate to have to make them. It means your team is playing well, and somebody has to come out of the lineup.
If you're talking goaltending, for instance, and having to make a decision, it seems like we haven't had to make a decision since I've been here because there's really been one. The other two have been injured. Ray has been injured. When Ray came back and he was healthy, somebody else was injured. There wasn't a lot of decision-making going on with the goaltenders. It seemed like we covered each other just enough injury-wise to get through to this point. Tough decisions are sometimes good to have to make.

Q. Peter, Blair Betts said this morning that he was surprised the lack of mental preparedness by all the centermen on the face-offs last night. Did you see anything on video? Because a couple of players mentioned they want to go back and look at videos of face-offs.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: They had us pretty good in the first period. Maybe in the 20 percentile in the first period. We got it up to 37 through the course of the game, 39, somewhere in that area. Certainly not good enough. Face-offs, a lot of times, not only do they give you possession of the puck, that's the obvious; but they also kind of give you the state of the team and where they're at. That's where -- hockey is about just -- it's a very competitive game, and it's about one-on-one battles and winning those one-on-one battles. Most originate in the face-off circle. To me we have to compete a little bit better.

Q. Peter, you scored five goals, you matched their speed in a lot of ways. At the same time, would you prefer it not to be such a fast game?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I don't mind the fast game. Like I said, when we went back and looked at the chances, there weren't a lot for them. I think after two periods there was six or seven quality chances. Five of them ended up in the net. The game is going to be fast. We're not going to change the way we play, as far as the speed, and try a countering game all of a sudden.
We got here because we play an aggressive game. They do the same thing. They send their forwards hard into the offensive zone. They look to counter quickly. The game went back and forth pretty good. If they tried to change it, or we tried to change it at this point I think you would get yourself into trouble.
The one area -- I'm sure they're not happy giving up five goals. I know we're not happy giving up six. We need to tighten it up defensively. They're probably saying the same thing.

Q. Coach, I know you're in the going to tell us which goalie is going in there, but when you look statistically at Leighton and his bounceback games and he was 3-1-1 during the season after getting yanked, and then he had that shutout after getting beat in Montreal, do you ride those numbers at all? Do you think about that when you're a coach?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I think you evaluate everything. You evaluate numbers, you evaluate practices, you evaluate what your players are saying when you're talking to them. And you take everything into consideration and make the best decision that you can.

Q. Peter, now that do you have a decision to make, do you tell the goaltenders this afternoon? Tonight? Tomorrow morning? What's your strategy on that?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Our goaltenders will know well enough in advance to make sure they're ready.

Q. Can you draw on the experience in '06 when you kind of had the magic touch. Gerber for some games, Ward for other games. You can drop on that, but you made the good decisions and obviously had a good gut feeling most of those situations.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I can tell you whoever is on that ice in the lineup tomorrow, and I say this wholeheartedly, there's 100% confidence that the people that we're choosing to go out and represent our organization were very confident in their ability to do the job. And whoever gets the start tomorrow night is really going to -- is really going to shine.

End of FastScripts

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