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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: FLYERS v BLACKHAWKS

June 5, 2010

Peter Laviolette

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Practice Day

DAVID KEON: Questions for Peter.

Q. Peter, I don't know if you had much of a chance when you were doing your media bit to watch Matt Carle and see what he was doing. If you did, maybe what surprised you when you started to coach him, and maybe about his game and things that maybe you didn't realize he was capable of or whatever?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I think sometimes he gets lost when he's next to Chris Pronger, because Chris is such a dominating player on the ice. I've said this all year, Matt has to play against the same players that Chris is playing against, and they're usually pretty good players.
For somebody that doesn't have the same stature and size as Chris on the ice, he's a smaller player, he defends very well. He uses his -- he positions himself well in the defensive zone. He never really puts himself in a bad position. He makes it really good first pass. He gets himself out of trouble with his skating. They've been a really good pair the entire year. They've been together probably 95% of the games, since I've been here, anyway.

Q. Pete, obviously you guys have to win in this building if you're going to win this Series. What do you do differently tomorrow that maybe you didn't do in Games 1 and 2, and do you draw any positives from those first two games considering how close they were?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I've already said that. I liked our games here. They could have went either way. In the second game, I don't think we took advantage of some of the opportunities that we had to score. We have to bear down when we get some of those chances.
The first game was a wild game. Probably nobody expected it. We certainly didn't. I'm sure Joel and the Hawks didn't expect it. You guys didn't expect it either. It's hard to say. If we had tightened up a little bit we could have won. But that one is over with.
I think we're confident on the road and confident with our game right now.

Q. The confidence that this team has now after taking the two at home, coming back here and for the Blackhawks knowing if they lose a Game 5 here at home, you guys can go back home and finish it off, do you think you've put some pressure on the Blackhawks now?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: There's a lot of pressure. I mean, when you lose a game, or you lose a couple of games, you go home and you are wondering if you'll win the next game. It's just -- it's human nature more than anything else. Usually desperation kicks in at that point.
So I would expect that Chicago is going to come with a pretty good game tomorrow night. We know that we've got to win here. We know we have to put one in the books on the road.

Q. Peter, did you have any issues at all with Campbell's hit on Leino last night?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: It was -- I don't know. I thought it was a bit dangerous. It was from the blind side. That's just my opinion.

Q. You talked last night about some of their lineup changes they made going into the game, and then within the game they break up the Toews line. Do you see that as that you're having an impact or Chris Pronger is having an impact because it's forcing strategic changes within the game itself and giving you an upper hand?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: There was quite a few changes, I thought. You know, they changed their lines. More than once. They stopped changing for for the match, which they did for Game 3. They didn't do that in Game 4. I thought their system and their approach to the game had changed. There's quite a bit of change from Game 3 to Game 4. They are trying to play a more aggressive game.
I'm not sure what other changes. We'll see.

Q. Peter, is there a concerted effort by your club following a Chicago goal to respond right away? You've had two key ones in Game 3 and 4 after the 2-1 goal in Game 3, and then the Ville Leino goal in Game 4.
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I think those certainly were big goals. You can take an opportunity to grab some momentum and quickly turn it back to our advantage by doing that. It's not something that we talked about. Although we constantly talk about scoring goals, constantly talk about pressuring the offensive zone, pressure on their goaltender. Just so happened those two opportunities came pretty quick after they had scored.

Q. Peter, it seems like in games you guys get stronger as games go along and all these Playoff Series you guys have gotten stronger as the Series has gone on. Why do you think that is? Are you wearing teams down?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I can't speak for the other teams. I know we're good to go. I think at that speed and that pace for three or more periods if we have to. I'm not sure about the Hawks. I can't speak for them and what they're comfortable with and what they're not comfortable with.
But we're comfortable with that. Even last night, I think our game was pretty good right up until the time we took that penalty. Then it went five on three and they scored a goal and then they started to press us in a little bit.
There was 12 minutes of really good hockey. I think we had the chances at 5 to 1 in the third period. I was happy with the way we had played up until that point. Then they had probably four or five good quality scoring chances on the power-plays and just after that.

Q. Coach, what has been the key to your success against Kane?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: I don't know necessarily if -- we talked about everybody from Chicago and all their players and their personnel and what they're doing. We don't tailor our system to Kane. We play a defensive system and a defensive style. We play certain style offensively, a certain style defensively. We try to play with energy. We try to execute to the best of our ability. We try to look for matchups that we can get at certain times. I don't know. I don't really have an answer for that.
DAVID KEON: Anybody else?
COACH LAVIOLETTE: Thank you.

End of FastScripts

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