NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WILD v MIGHTY DUCKS

May 12, 2003

Mike Babcock

MIKE BABCOCK: We have been great with penalty kills all year long. We all work on it together, but more than anything, that's a big part of what he does, too. We have some good people there, and I thought we had a good plan here tonight. We got some good sticks and made some good plays. We got some good breaks. Today we were fortunate enough to finish.

MIKE BABCOCK: He's in the rush. It comes to him and he fires it. He actually thinks. Everybody talks about both of these teams, how defensive they are. All I see is the D in the rush, the D in the cycle of faceoff plays generating offense. You know, that's the same with Ottawa in the playoffs as well, they're all about getting on offense. They just use good defense.

MIKE BABCOCK: Let's not kid ourselves here. We are very fortunate. Things worked out well for us. They're the fastest team we've played, we think, in the National League this year. They'll be ready. We're going to have to be ready as well.

MIKE BABCOCK: Because that's the story, like the first came out in Detroit, and the first game in Dallas -- not even the first game in Dallas, you know, but in Detroit, that's when the story got running, but now it's all about Giguere. He'll be the first to tell you he plays well when the defense plays well. When we don't play good, he has to dive. Those two spectacular saves he made in the playoffs were because we were disorganized. When we're organized, he does what he does, and he's really good at it.

MIKE BABCOCK: Before the game, I said to Kurt, "You're in the top of the rookies scoring in playoffs. That's because there is no rookies in the playoffs." He started to laugh. I said you better get that out and frame it. No, I don't expect it.

MIKE BABCOCK: We're not going to talk about it in the next 15 minutes. We know how hard it is to put teams away. Obviously, we've got to continue to get better.

MIKE BABCOCK: We practiced. We knew when the game was, and we thought we would get ready for it. Let's be honest. As a coach, you come into that first game and you see the way you're team skates, and you see yourself. We didn't actually get an opportunity to prepare in the right way for it. That's a pretty big blow for your team. We feel fortunate we got away with that.

MIKE BABCOCK: That's not Kurt's thing. When we played Detroit, they stretched us out so far with the way they played, we never had any D in the rush at all, and then it's been better since.

MIKE BABCOCK: No. It's not going to.

MIKE BABCOCK: No, I never thought about that. I knew we won 2-0, but I didn't think about that.

MIKE BABCOCK: That was kind of nice to have. No pressure. Obviously, it was real tight the whole way, and that's just how the playoffs have been for us. These are real good teams, so it's going to be hard to open anything up on anybody.

MIKE BABCOCK: Danny is a real good penalty-killer. He seems to be feeling good and healthy. Patrick left and had personal troubles, and so he gets his opportunity.

MIKE BABCOCK: He was going to the minors for three years. When Brian Murray asked me about it, I said, he can play for sure, but it's going to take him some time. And then when Brian saw him the first day, it wasn't me, he said this guy will play in the National League.