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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: LIGHTNING v BRUINS

May 20, 2011

Guy Boucher

TAMPA, FLORIDA: Practice Day

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Guy Boucher.

Q. First, how much more do you have to make life miserable for Tim Thomas?
COACH BOUCHER: Wow. As miserable as you can, that's for sure. I think the team did a good job in front of 'em. I think they boxed out really well. So it does make his job easier, obviously. But you're expecting that.
First of all, he's a terrific goaltender. He's hard to beat when he sees all the shots. When he doesn't see those shots he's still very quick to where the puck. He tracks it really well. So whatever we're going to do, it's going to be very hard to beat him.
And obviously, if you want to beat a goaltender of that caliber, you need a lot of shots. You need a lot of scoring opportunities, and the numbers are going to make the difference, really, because sometimes you can prepare all kinds of plays to beat him, but stick something out that -- a pad, a glove, helmet, at the end of the second game, anything goes.
And he's extremely hard to beat. So it will hard. It will be really hard.

Q. Kind of tied towards that, does it take a stronger energy level or a stronger compete level to get to some of those areas? Just seems like you looked a little bit slower in last night's game where you just couldn't get to that part of the ice.
COACH BOUCHER: You're right, we were slower. We're a team that's used to driving the net extremely hard. Guys are relentless usually going to the net and having their sticks heavy there and fighting, and we weren't as good. We weren't as good in that respect. We were better defensively except for one or two big mistakes. The rest of the game we did very well. Didn't give them any odd-man rushes and stuff that they can capitalize on off the rush.
They did the same, though. So it looked like a neutral zone battle yesterday that both teams weren't going to fail at. So it becomes a battle deep in your zone and deep in their zone. And that's why we're expecting a tough series until the end.

Q. Is it overstating it at this point to call tomorrow must-win for you guys? If it is, how would you characterize it?
COACH BOUCHER: It's always a must-win. It's a must-win because it's the beginning of the series. It's a must-win if you didn't win the first game. It's a must-win because it's 1-1 or it's 2-0 for the opponent. They're all must-wins. It's a do or die every game. But it's a 4 out of 7. And one of these two teams has to win 4. It's not 2 and it's not 3. So we saw it in the first series, and they also saw it in their first series.
So we were expecting a long series, and we're still expecting a long series.

Q. You seemed a bit agitated last night on the Bergeron call on Krejci.
COACH BOUCHER: A bit agitated? (Laughter).

Q. Some of the players seemed a bit afraid. I wonder, how did you feel about that? Were you okay with that?
COACH BOUCHER: Well, I felt like I looked. But it's just in the heat of the moment. And I felt the previous game that there was a lot of penalties we didn't deserve.
And I was probably carrying that over to that game and probably wanted to make sure that we felt strongly about that one like we did the previous game where I stayed a bit calmer.
And sometimes you stay calm and it helps. Sometimes you don't stay calm and it also helps. And sometimes it doesn't help at all.
So I think it's important that I act according to what I feel. And it was a short burst. And it stayed a short burst. And when you look at the replay, I think I was right on.
I felt it was a clean check. But I thought the referees did a very good job yesterday. It was three power plays on each side. I thought they kept the game under total control.
Actually, I thought they were very, very good yesterday. So it was a playoff game well managed by players and referees.

Q. Claude Julien was saying he felt his players on faceoffs kind of needed to be reminded how critical they are, because they can kind of be an afterthought when you're looking around. The balance has shifted a little bit in the faceoff battle. Have you noticed that with your centers at all? Is there a message there for them?
COACH BOUCHER: Oh, yeah. Well, there is. The funny thing is that we did a great job the first game. The second game they did a better job than us, but the guys who had done well in that second game, because we had guys who did very well -- I know Vinny was 58 percent and seemed to have not done so well yesterday.
So I think we're seeing a shift. It's a battle like the rest of the game, though. Some guys doing well one game, they're not doing as well the next game.
And what it is is, you've got some good faceoff guys on both sides, and it's part of the battle until the end. You want to start with the puck definitely. Sometimes you don't start with it and you score some goals.
But most of the time if you look at the clips you start with the puck more often. It's a fine line again, because somebody that's really good on faceoffs is going to be around 60 percent. That's still close to 50 percent. So somebody having an off night at 45 percent. So it's our job to make sure that we get at least closer to 50 and work our way after that and get above 50 so that they don't get more than half the chances to start with the puck. Definitely makes a difference.

Q. What have you seen from Adam Hall that makes him such an effective guy on the P.K.?
COACH BOUCHER: Well, he's willing to pay the price. To me, whoever plays on the penalty kill and whatever system you play, it's about paying the price physically and mentally, and Adam has done that.
He's, first of all, a very smart guy that catches on real quick, whatever you teach him, whatever you ask of him. And he follows the system to a T. So he's always at the right place.
So that usually takes a lot of -- takes a lot of what you need to do. And I think in his case also he's a big guy, and he blocks a lot of shots. And never cheats. So that's a lot of the qualities that a penalty kill guy has to get.
A lot of people are asking me sometimes: How come your skilled guys don't play as much on the penalty kill? Well, there's two reasons. One is we like everyone to have a role on the team. Two, when guys play too much, they don't have enough juice to get their offense going. And because sometimes you get guys that you don't want them to break an ankle sometimes. Your top scorer is going to break an ankle, you don't want anyone to break one, but I think sometimes bigger guys like Hall have a tendency to focus really on blocking a shot the right way and they get less injured on it, too.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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