	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: LIGHTNING v BRUINS

May 16, 2011

Claude Julien

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Coach Claude Julien. Questions?

Q. You talked a little bit about Tomas Kaberle and trying to help him work through maybe some extra pressure he's putting on himself. How do you do that? I'm wondering, is it talking to him? Is it extra stuff? I'm just wondering how you go about trying to get him to the level you need him at?
COACH JULIEN: I think it takes the cooperation of both. He has to try to push himself and be the player he can be. At the same time, it's up to us to help him through that. I think he's got to have the confidence of our group here, and I know how well he can play when he's at his best. And certainly him feeling our support is going to help him reach that.
And have discussions with players at times and you try and pick them up when they're down and you try and take the pressure off when there's some on, and that's just part of the coach's job more so nowadays than ever.

Q. I have to ask about Bergeron, out there skating with the team a little bit. Can you talk about how his progress is coming and how good it was to be able to do that today?
COACH JULIEN: As I said the other day, we're going through the protocol of what he has to go through and there's not much more to update you guys on, except that I think when he is ready to go, you guys will know it. It's just something that you can't predict how quickly or how slow it's going to be. It's just one of those situations where right now you see him going through what you saw him going through today, skating.
But that's protocol. And right now we're not ready to make any comments because he's just going through those stages.

Q. So would you rule him out for tomorrow night?
COACH JULIEN: No comments. I don't know. Is that better? I don't know.

Q. You might not comment on this either. If Bergeron is available, is there a chance Seguin comes out? Or do you think based on his performance that Seguin likely stays in?
COACH JULIEN: I can't answer yes, obviously, so there's nothing for me to say more than what I just said about Bergeron and the ifs and that, we'll answer those when the time comes.

Q. Can you just talk about Rich Peverley being up with Recs and Marchy and your thoughts on that?
COACH JULIEN: Just moving guys around a little bit. I think it's important that if we're going to do that that they get used to playing with each other. And Kelly has an opportunity to play with that line and has gotten used to them a little bit, Peverley does, and now I have some options and just giving some thoughts to maybe different combinations if we need be and tomorrow we'll decide which one we want to go with.

Q. Coach, back to Bergeron, though. You had Seguin work on the power play this morning. You pulled him aside at one point. You were kind of directing him. What kind of things were you telling him out there on the power play?
COACH JULIEN: We also had Bergeron there, too.

Q. I was going to get back to the Bergeron thing in a second.
COACH JULIEN: Like I said, we got different looks. We got different players. We wanted to make this power play work. It's never a bad thing to have those guys go through it. And if at one point you need them, you need them. And what I said yesterday was exactly what we wanted to do with Tyler.
He hadn't played a playoff game yet and we give him a little bit to chew on and then we give him maybe opportunities if need be in other areas, but he's a young player that we care about and want to make sure that we develop him properly, and that's part of the decision we've made as an organization is not to rush him through anything. And the example is probably Van Riemsdyk from Philly, how good he has been this year and yet he was healthy scratch a lot of times last year and he's turned out to be a pretty good player.
So everybody has an opportunity to develop their players the way they want. And we're doing that. We understand the quality of player we've got and what he can bring and what he's going to bring in the future. And those are part of the things we keep doing with them and do with them all year is make them participate in all those areas where he's going to be hopefully a big factor for us in the future.

Q. You kind of addressed this a little bit yesterday. I'll just mention it there. But the expectations for Kaberle when he got here were just so high. Do you know what he's capable of, what you saw of him in Toronto? Is this mental? What do you think specifically that he seems to be struggling with in terms of his game?
COACH JULIEN: I don't know. I think there's no doubt people have looked at him as a savior because their power play had been struggling. He's just a piece of the puzzle. And it's unfortunate, but there's the other guys on the power play had the responsibility to do the job as well.
And he's one of those guys that is probably feeling the pressure because people seem to think he should be carrying the power play. He's an important part of it. And I think if he finds his game, it's going to be an important part of it.
But he's not the reason that our power play isn't going at the rate we'd like it to go. And we've got to take some pressure off him and just let him play his game.
I think if he plays his game, he's going to help us a lot.

Q. I honestly hate to do this, but apparently when the Bergeron question was asked that's when the microphones went out. So your thoughts on what you saw from Bergeron today and the prognosis going forward?
COACH JULIEN: As I said earlier, it's the protocol that we're going through and the process that he has to go through when you see him skate now for a few days and that's basically it. We don't have anything else more to report because there's nothing else to report in regards to him.

Q. Could you speak about Tampa, the kind of team - 11 forwards and seven D's, so their forward lines tend to change pretty frequently. How do you not necessarily defend that, but what's the alertness level got to be like on your side as far as knowing who is out there and what it might change for their lines?
COACH JULIEN: I think the alertness always has to be there no matter if teams have set lines or not. And that's something that shouldn't really change our focus on our game.
And I think right now it's so important we really focus on our game, and for some reason everybody seems to think that we have to adjust to them. We don't believe that. We have our game. We have on your team. We've gotten this far. We believe in what we do.
And we've got to keep our focus on what we have to do here. And that's basically it. So whatever they want to do, that's their -- those are their decisions. From our end of it we've just got to stay sharp and put the right players on the ice.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297