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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: LIGHTNING v BRUINSMay 26, 2011Simon GagneBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day Q. What it's been like to play alongside him? SIMON GAGNE: It's been a pleasure. Q. Last night especially I bet? SIMON GAGNE: Last night especially. Like you said, I had a chance to play against Marty in the past years, you know, and it was always hard to play against him. And last time played against him in the Playoffs that's the year they won the Stanley Cup. He's the type of player that he's going to make the difference, and you know that. And having a chance now to play with him, it's an honor, and at the same time it's fun. You know that something good's going to happen every time he's on the ice. And he's one of the players that enjoys the game almost every day and coming to the rink with a smile and that shows on the ice too. Q. Are there things that surprise you about him, maybe what he says or how he prepares or things, now that you see him close up, do you think, well, that explains it? SIMON GAGNE: Nothing -- actually, Marty is a guy that talking a lot before games, and I was not seeing that when I was not playing with him. So I was a little bit surprised about that. He's going to have some good speech. And he had a good 1:00 last night before the game. And that helped the guys to play a little bit more relaxed I think after that and get a little bit pumped for the game. So he's got a lot of things now I think that make him a good player and that's why he's having success on the ice. But that might be the one that comes first. Q. Tomas rarely gives up five goals. He's only done it four times this season. Obviously last night was one of them. But your power play seemed to generate some momentum. So that obviously you want to keep that through Game 7? SIMON GAGNE: Yeah, we know that special teams is going to be key. And I think tomorrow's going to be key again. Our penalty killing has been really good for us. They did find out a way to score on it. We have to get better on that, and our power play kind of struggled, I think, for the most part of the series against Boston. So to see us taking a little bit more and get three goals definitely is going to have a little bit of confidence. We're expecting them now to adjust to what we did. They're a team that I think adjusts really well now when they see that they can improve on that and so I'm sure they're going to look at tapes and we're definitely going to have a bigger challenge tomorrow to find a way to score goals on the power play against them. Q. Got a little chippy at the end, what kind of a game do you expect tomorrow night? SIMON GAGNE: I think whatever happened at the end is not going to be a factor. I think at the start of the game we got I think both teams know what's at stake now, Game 7. We all know that the winner is going to go in the Stanley Cup Finals. So I don't think we're going to lose time about what happened at the end. Q. (Question about Steve's play and passes) are his playmaking goals underrated? SIMON GAGNE: You know what, I had a chance to play with Steve when he came into the league in Philly, and that was the first thing that caught me by surprise. He's got some skills like most people like you said is going to look at him as a guy that's going to be physical. Grander and stuff like that. But he's got some skills. Not only on the play on Marty's goal but on the power play, the patience he had, faking that he was going to shoot and the shift to Teddy for a So he's got some skill and that's what is great about Steve, is that he's got a lot of tools on his back. Q. As well as you played to get here, I'm curious if there's still a sense maybe you haven't put a complete game together and if that opportunity is still out there for you tomorrow night? SIMON GAGNE: Yeah, you know, it's easy to say now we sure would like to play a perfect game. We'd like to play 60 minutes. But looked like it's been like that, I think, for both teams in that series. Teams coming out now hard. They get momentum for 20 minutes. After that the other team's got the momentum. So at one point you need to understand now you got two good teams on the ice and at one point you're going to face the best of what they can bring and they're going to face the best what we can bring, too. So that might explain sometime to see a team struggle for 20 minutes and coming back. So but for sure tomorrow it's Game 7 and you want to make sure that if it's possible to play a perfect game, 60 minutes. If you're struggling and stuff like that, hopefully you find a way to calm the storm maybe a little bit and not having them scoring goals on you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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