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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: BRUINS v CANUCKSJune 2, 2011Alain VigneaultVANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. There's obviously a big decision within the organization to change the captains this year. What effect do you think it has had on Roberto? COACH VIGNEAULT: I think in general Roberto has been the exact same player that he was as far as the influence and the leadership he's had within the core group. Obviously I think Hank took the forefront in a lot of things that a captain has to do off the ice. But within our dressing room, the interaction of players, Roberto in my mind hasn't changed very much. Just that Hank was able to assume a bigger role. Q. The first year the team was built around Roberto. That's no longer the case. Is it easier for a goalie to play under those circumstances? COACH VIGNEAULT: Well, I remember my first when we got eliminated by Anaheim, at the end of the year the joke was the team picture was Roberto at one end and there wasn't a single player in the photo. I do think that was unfair at that time. But I do think, obviously, we're a better team now. We've got better depth. Roberto still has a huge role. Any team that is where we are can't get there without great goaltending, and we've had great goaltending. But we've also had players that played real well also. Q. You've been with Alex Burrows for a long time. Can you talk about the evolution of him as a player, in particular the fact he does play with more discipline, notwithstanding last night? COACH VIGNEAULT: You know, you talk about perseverance, hanging in there, finding a way to get yourself to be a player. You got a great example in Alex Burrows. There's a guy that played in the Québec junior major league as a 19-year-old and 20-year-old, went to the East Coast, came to Winnipeg with me, and in Winnipeg signed a contract with Vancouver, found his way on one of the best lines in the NHL, can contribute both offensively and defensively, is a very big part of our team. I think he's done that through hard work. He gets the game. He understands what you need to do out there. He does a great job for us. Q. Coach, can you maybe go through the same type of growth with Jannik Hansen, the ups and downs he's had to go through, the trust you have in him? COACH VIGNEAULT: Jannik, our first year, five years back, we had some injury situations in the playoffs. He's one of the young men that we called up, he did a good job for us. After that, he went back to Manitoba, needed some more time there as far as playing time. I think he had a great role model in Mike Keane, who really helped him with positional play, penalty killing. It's paid off. He's been with us now for a couple consecutive years. He's logging important minutes. Last night obviously was a great game where he used his skill set. He's real good when he plays with an edge. He played with an edge last night and that came in very handy for us. Q. Boston obviously has been really good five-on-five. Last night it seemed the game almost turned. Do you think because your team has been so good on the power-play that perhaps your five-on-five plays gets overlooked sometimes? COACH VIGNEAULT: I think what happened in last night's game, Boston came at us a little bit more aggressive than what we had seen on video. It took us a little while to adapt to that. I think once we adapted towards the end of the second period, we were able to go a little bit quicker north/south, started to play a little bit quicker, a little bit faster. We got some good rush chances. Obviously, if we can continue to do that, we're a good team when we're able to do that. Q. Raffi Torres came to you, his fifth team, a former first-round pick, a guy looking for work when the season started. Have you got the same motivated player you thought you'd get from him this year? COACH VIGNEAULT: Surely we knew we were getting a very motivated player. I mean, went very late before we signed him. One of the things that we did as soon as we met Raffi, Mike and I, was to tell him he had a clean slate, just to come here and work hard, play to his strengths. We know Raffi sometimes plays a little bit outside the box, and we knew that. But you got to let him go to his strengths. His attitude and his overall commitment have been real good since day one. We've had no issues with him. Q. Can we get a very specific update on Hamhuis? COACH VIGNEAULT: Day to day. That's as specific as we get. Q. In the context of the Burrows/Bergeron incident, when you played, you were a tough customer, do you recall after the whistles, a funny anecdote that involved yourself on the ice? COACH VIGNEAULT: Back then you didn't have a lot of scrums after the whistle. If something was going to happen, it was going to be a fight. It wasn't a lot of pushing and shoving. It was either, Let's go, or guys went back to their benches. Q. (No microphone.) COACH VIGNEAULT: To tell you the truth, I didn't really pay a lot of attention. Nobody talked to me, management or the league, today. I've been focused on getting ready for Saturday. Q. Can you go through maybe the advantage of a coach having some options on defense? You had this situation before, you can put some guys in. COACH VIGNEAULT: Well, we've used I think it's 13 or 14 defense this year. Obviously you prefer not to have injuries, but we've had them during the regular season. We've just dealt with them. We've done the same thing in the playoffs. So nothing's going to change. Q. Obviously you said Dan is day to day. The confidence you have in putting something like Keith Ballard into a situation like that, you still have the confidence to put him in when you need him? COACH VIGNEAULT: Have a lot of confidence in all our players. Right now we have Keith, Andrew Alberts and Christian that have played some minutes with us this year, have done a real good job. If we need somebody to play minutes, I'm confident they'll be able to step in and do a real good job for us. Q. Were you a little surprised to see Chara in front of the net on the power-play? Do you have a specific strategy, leave him alone, try to push him around? COACH VIGNEAULT: I wasn't surprised because we had seen them do that against Tampa Bay, so we were prepared for it. I mean, Boston are going to use the tactics that they feel will give them an edge and we're going to use the tactics that we feel are going to give us an edge. Obviously, when you have such a big body like that in front of net, there's no sense in getting in a pushing match. We let Roberto play where he is. He can't look on top of him because he's so tall. He's got to look around him. That's what he did last night and he found the pucks. Q. Alain, Alexandre Burrows had been so composed throughout these playoffs. Did he lose it a bit last night? COACH VIGNEAULT: No. Q. You mentioned last night Thomas playing outside the blue a lot. Do you feel he was initiating some contact? COACH VIGNEAULT: I mean 90% of his saves are where he's outside the blue paint. A lot of times he does initiate contact. That's the way he plays. Roberto played sort of the same way last year. We got in trouble because of that. We fixed that this year. We said last night that we were going to look to get a little bit of clarification on certain situations. We're sure it was going to be fine. We're going to do that here in the next couple of days. Q. There have been unconfirmed reports that Manny Malhotra has had more emergency surgery. COACH VIGNEAULT: He's day to day. He's day to day. Q. He's not had surgery? COACH VIGNEAULT: He's day to day right now. Q. (Question regarding Winnipeg.) COACH VIGNEAULT: I think Winnipeg is going to do great. Working with Mark and Craig for a whole season, seeing how professional they are, they were running an American League franchise in an NHL fashion, the way they treated their players, the way they treated the staff. I know Mark is a very persistent individual. He had been working a long time to bring NHL back to Winnipeg. I think the fans there are real passionate, love their hockey. There's no doubt in my mind that it's going to work. Q. Can you talk about the way Keith has handled himself, not being a part of this on the ice, playing as often as I'm sure he'd like? COACH VIGNEAULT: He's handled it like a true team player, a real professional. Obviously, you know, he'd probably like to play more, be a regular part of the team. But we feel that certain players have played a little bit better and they deserve to be in the lineup. For a player, obviously that's never easy. As a coach, coaching staff, management staff, you have to do what you feel is best for the team. You have to evaluate the players' performance, and that's what we do. We're confident if we need Keith down the road, he'll be ready and do a good job for us. Q. How would you characterize Alex's game last night? COACH VIGNEAULT: Alex Burrows? Q. Yes. COACH VIGNEAULT: I thought he played a good game. He was in on a lot of scoring chances. Our penalty killing did a good job of keeping the Bruins off the board. He competed real hard. He took one penalty in the offensive zone there where he grabbed the guy that we could do without. But I didn't agree with the one on Thomas. Then there was a scrum where 10 guys started pushing, and he got four minutes. Q. Which of your defensemen is closest in skill set or game to Andrews? COACH VIGNEAULT: Geez, that's a tough question. Dan plays so well under control and can beat the forecheck so much by turning and getting away. He's got a real special skill set. Obviously I think Ehrhoff and Edler to some extent can sort of play like Dan. Q. How much of a weapon is your team's speed from defense to forwards? COACH VIGNEAULT: Well, I mean, all year long you've seen us play. We're a team that likes to play fast. We're a team that likes to play north/south. We're a team that feeds on turnovers. That's how we intend to keep on playing. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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