|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SHARKS v CANUCKSMay 23, 2011Todd McLellanVANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Todd, any kind of update on Thornton? COACH McLELLAN: Expect Jumbo to play tomorrow, yup. Q. Is he going to skate at all between now and then? COACH McLELLAN: We have an optional today. Throughout the playoffs, a lot of the high-minute guys choose not to skate simply because of fatigue and trying to replenish the gas tank. Jumbo is in that situation today as well. Q. Is he getting any treatment today or just rest? COACH McLELLAN: Both. Q. If this was a regular-season game, not an elimination game, would Joe sit out that game with this injury? COACH McLELLAN: When Joe Thornton comes to you and tells you he's playing, he's playing. That can happen in exhibition season, that can happen at St. Thomas at a charity game in the middle of the summer, so... Q. Todd, you gave Joe the C to begin the season. Have you seen an evolution in him as a captain in every sense of that word? COACH McLELLAN: I have. There was a lot of question out there as to whether Joe would be the right captain or not. When I say 'out there,' I mean exterior, not inside our walls, locker room or organization. We felt very good about it. We felt for us to have success, he needed to be our captain, was prepared to be our captain. I think he learned a lot from Rob Blake. He's carried that torch or that tradition on. I can't think of any times during this year, this season, where I didn't feel good about him being our ultimate leader. Q. How would you describe your team's demeanor in the situation you're facing now? COACH McLELLAN: Well, yesterday we were down. There's no doubt about it. I wouldn't expect us to react any other way. Coming to the rink today, we worked on the mental part of it right off the bat. We show our players a lot of the good things we did in the game yesterday. We addressed a few things tactically or technically that we think we can do better. We move forward. In the playoffs, you have to have short memories. You know, it's about getting through Game 5. That's all there is. Doesn't matter what happened through Games 1 and 4. It's about getting through Game 5 and finding a way to win. Q. On Joe Thornton, did he take it upon himself to kind of become more defensive minded, to add that to his résumé, if you will, or was that something that was addressed at all? COACH McLELLAN: And you're talking throughout this year? Q. Yes. COACH McLELLAN: I've said this before. Jumbo is an extremely coachable player, easily coached. He's receptive to becoming a better player, improving in all different areas. He's asking for ways. He's prepared to apply them. He's very open to all of that. That isn't always said by superstar players. A lot of them can be very stubborn, not buy in, not be prepared. He's accepting playing any way he has to play to be successful, not necessarily as an individual, but team-wise. He's been pretty good that way. Q. You won't give the extent of Joe's injury, but is he a guy you need on the ice even if he's at 60%, just to have him out there? COACH McLELLAN: I think it's important that he does play the game. I think you'll see a very good Joe Thornton. Q. Part of the Canucks' challenge the last few years in the playoffs has been dealing with their history, unfavorable results. San Jose is in a similar situation. How important is it at a time like this not to let those demons and ghosts come into the picture and be a factor? COACH McLELLAN: See, I don't think we have demons. You guys think we have demons. They don't exist in our world. We've had a lot of success as an organization and as a franchise. We can keep referring back to the Conference Finals in 2004, say that we had an eight-game losing streak. I think some of you wrote that. I don't know what the hell 2004 has to do with 2011. I don't think we have demons. We have a team that's worked extremely hard to get to the Conference Finals. We've had a team that's faced a lot of adversity, external adversity. The only people we answer to are ourselves in that locker room. We don't answer to the media. We answer to our fans somewhat here at home. We owe them an effort. We owe them a commitment level second to none. But that's it. Our guys have done a good job. We're going to try and do the same thing in Game 5. We're going to answer to each other in Game 5, not to anybody else. Q. The Dany Heatley question. He's got five goals in his last 35 playoff games over four years. Do you come to a point as a coach where there's only so much you can do and then it's up to him to find a way? COACH McLELLAN: We often say that as a coaching staff. Let's leave Dany out of it. We often say that as a coaching staff about individual players: What more can we do with them? That's a copout as a coaching staff. We have to find ways to make them better, help them. There's a real good lesson I learned in Minnesota's organization. Doug Risebrough said, You always have to try to find a way. It's up to us to sit with Dany, work with him a little bit, try to find a way to put him in successful situations. Then again, ultimately he has to find a way to do that and produce. We will help him any way we possibly can. Q. Todd, it looked like you did a lot of line changing yesterday. Do you expect to do a lot of line changing to start the game or does it develop that way as this Game 5 goes on? COACH McLELLAN: Well, the approach to any game, when you're rolling and you're winning games, you tend to stay with your line combinations. Everybody feels good about it. When you're not, you look to tinker a little bit. You start nights with some set combinations. If they start to play well, you get some rhythm in your game, you leave them alone. If you don't have that, if you sense frustration with a combination or pair, you start to change it. We'll come up with some combinations that we'll start the night with. We'll give them every opportunity to be put on the ice and be successful. If it doesn't work, then we go right back to what we've always done. We'll mix things up until we find something that we think has a chance to be successful. Q. You mentioned talking about adjustments with the team. After looking again at last night's game, are there areas you could discuss that you are looking to change? COACH McLELLAN: We won't talk about specifics. Obviously the power-play has to get on the board. We had 10 of the first 26 minutes, I believe, spent on the power-play. Broke out of our end way too many times. That starts with faceoffs, that starts with puck recovery when we did enter the zone. We weren't very good on the entries. For as much as it may have been an adjustment on their behalf, I thought it was an adjustment on our behalf. We didn't handle the puck very well. We weren't very sharp. It's sometimes a coach's nightmare when you start the game on the power-play. Jumbo's first shift, basically they earned the power-play and stayed on the ice. Cooch's line, their first play was on the power-play. You'd like to have them have a shift or 2-under their belt before they get it. But you know what, that's part of being professional, part of being ready to go, and we weren't in that situation and it carried over. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|