NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: MIGHTY DUCKS v DEVILS

May 31, 2003

Mike Babcock

COACH BABCOCK: Well, I mean, you saw tonight. This guy's a star. He's got unbelievable ability, and he's so good defensively. Everybody told me he couldn't play defense, but he's been great for us. I thought he was unbelievable tonight in the first two periods.

COACH BABCOCK: Well, obviously you need to get contribution from everyone to be successful. And they play real tight and they don't give you many opportunities. You have to get the puck to the net as much as you can. I thought the Krog line did a real good job, especially on faceoffs. Obviously Stumpy is excited. He wasn't really happy with himself the way he played in the first two games. We want him to set the tone for us, and he's a leader and it's great to see him play well.

COACH BABCOCK: I think possession is everything. We felt in the two games we did okay in the faceoff circle, but we didn't manage the puck. We feel to have any success against this team you have to be poised with the puck and make good decisions.

COACH BABCOCK: He's a competitive guy who tries to generate offense all the time. Sometimes he gets hard-headed and always wants to make a nice play instead of just firing it on the net. But tonight he did well.

COACH BABCOCK: He can really shoot the puck. We always say to him, "Get it on net once in a while." He shot the puck great there, obviously, and it was good for us.

COACH BABCOCK: Keep winning.

COACH BABCOCK: I thought we really thought we were going to come home and play well. We had some legs and we started to skate and play a little better. This is our best game in the series by far. We haven't played well in the series, and you start questioning yourself a little bit, and people are talking about we have no emotion. That's so far from the truth. We have tons of emotion. It's all going in the wrong direction. Tonight we got her channeled a little bit and we're playing well.

COACH BABCOCK: He played the whole game. He's great. He's a horse for us. He's so big and skates so good.

COACH BABCOCK: There is no change in any plan. We played at home, and I thought we played better. We didn't have any more emotion than we had any game. We channeled it better. Instead of it being, "Oh, my goodness, we got to get playing better," it was, "Let's just do it right." We just haven't -- most of the emotion has been negative, instead of doing it right. So we controlled our emotions better tonight.

COACH BABCOCK: That would be part of it, and you could look at that because of the way the series has gone. I really think we haven't skated until tonight. That's part of the flow. If one team skates and one team doesn't, it leads to pretty -- well, like you saw. So, I think tonight, both teams skated. They can really fly way more than people think. They manage the puck so good, so if you're not doing the same they're coming with speed and you're never on top of their D. I thought we got on top of them tonight and slowed them down.

COACH BABCOCK: I thought that's the break we needed. We gave up that goal on the line change in the second period where we should have got in down the ice and we didn't. Then I thought we had the good people out even when they got their second one. And I don't know why we were running around, but we were. It was a good break for us.

COACH BABCOCK: I'm not here to evaluate or speculate.

COACH BABCOCK: He's areally good player. They have on exceptional back end, very, very good. But we think we have a real good back end as well. Rusty is a hard guy who moves the puck and skates. When you look at that, he's a big-time factor for us. We cannot feel our back end managed the puck like it normally does in the first two games, but now this is one game, and it's only one game, but at least the series now looks like it might have a chance to be a series.