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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SHARKS v CANUCKS

May 22, 2011

Todd McLellan

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA: Game Four

Vancouver Â– 4
San Jose - 2

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Your power-play, you came in today 46%. Was there an adjust that they made today that was the difference or your execution?
COACH McLELLAN: I think the game itself was played, in my opinion, in three different phases. The first phase of the game was when we had our power-play opportunities. And we obviously weren't very sharp.
They tightened things up. They stood at their line a little bit better. But when you look at our execution, our passing, our faceoff opportunities to win pucks, we started breaking out all the time.
You have to, when you're against the number one penalty kill in the league, you have to be sharp, and we weren't. It was as simple as that. As you start rolling, you get more and more frustrated, you start to press a little bit. It snowballs, it gets worse and worse.

Q. Can you update us on Thornton's situation?
COACH McLELLAN: I can't right now. We'll see once I get an update.

Q. Todd, just your thought on the three five-on-threes, if you've ever seen that before, and the calls?
COACH McLELLAN: First of all, the five-on-three situation, I didn't like the penalties that originated Heater's penalty, a turnover at the line, we take the hook. Mitch's penalty, he reached in. Then it snowballs from there. In two and a half minutes, we kept marching to the box, they kept scoring.
It's hard to argue the too many men on the ice penalty. It's hard to argue the shooting the puck out of the play.
I can't sit here and whine and bitch about the officiating, because it had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was the team in the white that created that mess.

Q. You're referring to three phases of the game. I think you only got through one.
COACH McLELLAN: The first phase obviously was the lack of execution. We weren't sharp. Power-play sucked some of the life out of our team, obviously.
We got to the break. We were coming out on another power-play. We talked about it a little bit. There again, we don't execute. We don't do what we want to do.
After that we get into that penalty kill phase. Two and a half minutes of straight five-on-three, having Salo there gave us a completely different look. We saw it late in the five-on-three. But a right-handed shot and a one-timer off the side that they like to work, you have to find ways to get in those lines. Shifted well.
Then the third phase of the game I thought was where we started to play, we started to compete. Not compete, but we just weren't sharp. Had nothing to do with competing. We got a lot sharper. We threw everything we had at them.
But you're not giving up three five-on-three power-play goals and coming back on that team, it's just not happening.

Q. When you talk about not being sharp, is that a mental thing or a physical thing?
COACH McLELLAN: I wish I had the answer. You could see it. We got what we wanted. We got some energy. We got the crowd into it. We earned opportunities on the power-play. You could see the passes. We watched a couple of them. The passing was off. The receiving was off. The timing was off. There wasn't much rhythm. I have to believe some of that's mental, some of it's physical, a combination of both.

Q. You often talk about how your team likes to play with its back against the wall. What are you going to tell them about Game 5?
COACH McLELLAN: Probably not a lot I have to tell them. Their backs are against the wall as close as they can be. We kind of laid it on the line in the third period tonight, that third phase, if you will, that's what we'll be looking to do in Vancouver.
We know we've got a tough task ahead of us. Vancouver knows, we know, Detroit knows, Chicago knows that anything can happen.

Q. Is the bigger challenge mental preparation or adjustments?
COACH McLELLAN: It's always both. It's always both. We've got to clean some parts of our game up. Obviously the power-play has to be better. When you get those opportunities, you have to take at least advantage of one, maybe two of them. It has to be better, so we'll look at that.
But we've got a little bit of time here over the next day or two to regroup and to get ready to play.

Q. I know you tried different ways to get this team prepared for games. Why weren't they ready at the start today? What do you do before Game 5?
COACH McLELLAN: I think I answered that earlier. I don't have the answer for that. Obviously if I did, we would be well on our way and we wouldn't have been that sloppy early in the game.
Individuals have to prepare properly. The coaching staff is responsible for having the team ready, having them sharp, having them alert. Like I said, we got the start we wanted. It was probably one area of the game, the power-play, that really let us down.

Q. What can you say about Dany Heatley's play in the series so far?
COACH McLELLAN: Well, Dany Heatley, like a lot of our players, we expect a little bit more from him. I think he has to find a way to put himself in better position on the ice to score. We'll get that from him in Game 5.

Q. Todd, effort and scheme aside, do you have the talent to win the next three games?
COACH McLELLAN: We're going to find out.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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