NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: AVALANCHE v RED WINGS

May 17, 2002

Rob Blake

Patrick Roy

Joe Sakic

PATRICK ROY: Well, I always had a big deal of respect for him as a player. He was a guy that was playing very hard for our team and he was -- every night you know he was going to show up. And I think it's a guy that played with a big amount of pride and it was -- I mean, I always consider myself very lucky to play in front of so many good defensemen, and he's certainly one of them.

PATRICK ROY: When I talked to him at the All-Star game, I felt someone had to break the ice and it might as well be me. Didn't say much, just goaltender stuff. Sorry, but that's it.

PATRICK ROY: We didn't have a chance, to be honest with you. In Denver I asked him to change jerseys with me. At the time he was in Buffalo and we changed jerseys. I didn't have a chance to talk to him. We went through the trainers and all that. I think he was gone after that first period.

JOE SAKIC: I think you answered your own question. Obviously you miss a guy like that the whole year, you know, the whole team's offensive productions is going to go down a bit. I think we played pretty well defensively throughout the year. We had some injuries, still a lot of guys seem to have off-years, including myself. But, you know, in the playoffs when Peter came back, it helped our balance. The depth is back, and we started scoring more goals.

JOE SAKIC: Obviously it's a great rivalry. The two teams are pretty evenly matched. Obviously when we first came to Colorado, Detroit was the team to beat. That's when the playoff thing got ugly for a couple years. Since then it hasn't been as ugly with the fist-a-cuffs and stuff. But with the two teams, hockey has been great and exciting. I think the two teams have a lot of respect for one another. And because of the way things have gone on the ice, you know, we dislike one another as well. We just want to beat the other team.

ROB BLAKE: I think in our favor we had the last couple days off which was nice. The last series we had two stretches that we had two days off in between games. So come playoff time I expect to be playing a lot of games. But we have gotten some rest between the last series and this one.

JOE SAKIC: You know, it really hasn't been any different than other years. I mean, it's the same thing. Different players have different approaches to how they do it but for me, yeah, you welcome them in, but other than that, it's the same, you just go out and try to lead on the ice and in practice and games.

ROB BLAKE: I think we all have. He's really found his role with us. He's a big part of why we're here today. As far as the situation, the better the team does in the playoffs and the farther you go, the better it is for the players.

PATRICK ROY: You know, I don't look at it that way to be honest with you, I want -- you know, I seen a bit of the paper and there is a lot of Hasek and myself, and I don't really want to beat Dominik. We want to beat the Red Wings and we're a team here. Rob doesn't want to beat Lidstrom. Joe doesn't want to beat Yzerman. We want to beat the Red Wings. That's what made our team be successful for that period of time. If you look in the past, our seven years in Denver, six times we have been in that position. That speaks by itself. It shows this is a team and we stick together all the time and if something happens to one guy, we're there for him and Dominik is going to play well. That's what I expect and I expect to go out there and play well if I want to give my teammates a chance to win the game. I would rather worry about what we have to do as a group and adjust along the series.

PATRICK ROY: We should not be scared about the words here. They are the favorite. Everybody sees them as the favorite and all that. We want to make sure as a team we're ready to go, and we just want to make sure that tomorrow afternoon we'll bring our best game. We know what's going on and how important it is to do well in Detroit. We have been playing very well on the road and there is no reason for us not to feel uncomfortable about ourself.