NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WILD v MIGHTY DUCKS

May 11, 2003

Mike Babcock

COACH BABCOCK: Well, the other team has a goalie, and I don't know if you guys know that, but the first thing was, in the first series, well, Dallas, in my opinion, was a little bit different, I thought we weren't very good last night, and in Detroit, we just hung on, and both times our goaltender did a real good job. They had five powerplays and we had one, and any way you look at it, that skews the game, and then they were 4-4 in overtime. Our goaltender does a great job for us, but he's on our team.

COACH BABCOCK: This is what you do when you look at teams when you're playing in the playoffs, you look at net. It's so stingy out there, it's hard to get any speed. They're a real hard-working, well-coached team, and they've got great speed, and so that limits your time and space even more, and so goaltendering is very, very important. You can't have your goalie killing you. Our goalie last night saved our bacon. The save he made, same-side feed on the powerplay, was unbelievable. The other one, when he dove across, anytime Giguere is diving, you know something's wrong. He doesn't do that.

COACH BABCOCK: I don't know about that. It was a tough situation for us. When we left the rink at home, we were playing last night, and then they phoned us after the game at 9:00, and they tell us, okay, now you guys aren't playing. We didn't skate two days ago. We come in here and can't skate in the morning, and now we're in quicksand, and we didn't move our feet, and they're flying 1,000 miles an hour on adrenaline, and we look -- it's supposed to be a track meet, but there is only one representative.

COACH BABCOCK: I would say there is four teams left, and how do they all play? You know, the thing is about -- this is what media did a few years back, they say, "Oh, it's a trap." What does that mean? Does someone want to tell me? What this is is high pressure, full-out, be in the right spot. Everybody is all about offense. They're all about transition getting on offense. We're all about offense. Their D is down behind the net. Our D is down behind the net. How is that passive? It's not, but because we don't know, that's what we say. The reality is, it's tight checking and there is goaltending. I think it's great. Like, I don't know about you guys, but to me, it's as much fun as I have had in a long time. I thought it was great last night.

COACH BABCOCK: Just what we talked about. A team playing well, good goaltending, being very professional without the puck.

COACH BABCOCK: Everywhere you play, at home or on the road, it's the same amount of noise. The thing about coming here, it's great because it reminds me like a small part of Canada down here. The people are really pumped up.

I read somewhere today where some lady said she had a vision of them going. That's unbelievable. I love that stuff. That's great.

COACH BABCOCK: We didn't have our game, and we didn't manage the puck and we didn't skate. Let's give them a lot of credit. They were going, and we weren't. So, we've got to be a lot better and ^we know ^ went that. We know coming in, and I said before that their speed in exhibition, as soon as we saw them, we said, "Holy Mackerel, we've got to get a lot quicker if we're going to play with this kind of team." We didn't know they were that fast of a team in the NHL exhibition.

COACH BABCOCK: People are fired up about hockey. They're pumped up. They're having a fishing derby. That's unbelievable. I think that's great. Fishing, hunting and playing hockey, that's what it's all about.

COACH BABCOCK: Well, Sauer is just a great big steady guy, real, real intelligent, makes a simple play every time, going to be in the league forever, going to be a great match-up D, is an elite penalty-killer, and he's got the mind of a 35-year old, and maturity, and he's a 22-year old kid or however old he is.

COACH BABCOCK: Well, we weren't very good. We still battled without the puck. We kept giving it back to them, but in saying that, you know, we weren't great, that near-side feed, like I talked about, on the powerplay, that -- we didn't give them credit. They did a great job. I mean, our D are so important, and they play real well. Everybody plays well without the puck on this team, and what I would say to you is that we have to get a lot better. Yet I thought our penalty kill after the first one was fantastic. We were rattled in the first one. I don't know what happened. That's why we didn't practice it today. It gave us so much practice in the game last night, we just thought we would lay off it.

COACH BABCOCK: Obviously, we've got a lot of good players on the back end. We thought they were in quicksand last night. They weren't moving that quick, so those guys weren't as mobile as they normally are.

COACH BABCOCK: That was a different situation. That was nothing there. He was just trying to prevent a chance. The two saves that he made that are spectacular were the near side and the one he dove across for because we had made some bad reads on the penalty kill. That other one there was nothing there.

COACH BABCOCK: Well, nothing. I thought just don't get a penalty; just play.

COACH BABCOCK: I don't think it's so much breaking out of the zone. I thought we turned the puck over a lot. Now, is that because we didn't make the right pass? Not as much as we just turned it over.

COACH BABCOCK: No, he's very stick tough. He doesn't run anybody over, but he's stick tough. He wins battles. He makes plays. I did a little video clip -- well, I didn't do it; I don't do video clips -- of the guys today, and it was Oates and Leclerc. I think they thought it was going to be the game-winning goal, but it wasn't.

COACH BABCOCK: Well, I mean, he's a great veteran player who leads by example, who is demanding of other people and he's willing to talk. When he stood up at our meeting the other day and told guys he had been in the league forever and never made it past this point, no coach can tell them that stuff.

COACH BABCOCK: I never thought about it. He'll skate tomorrow morning. The only reason we skated today is because of the way we thought. Like I said, the game was supposed to be at night, and then we get in this situation, and our legs didn't move. I can't tell you how big an issue that is. It's hard to believe that stuff happens.

COACH BABCOCK: Danny really battled heartily. I thought he had some good chances offensively. Smirny, he didn't have as much opportunity to. He's going to be a star. We've just got to give him the opportunity.

COACH BABCOCK: I don't know what I'm doing yet. Fastscripts by ASAPSports....