NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: HURRICANES v RED WINGS

June 11, 2002

Scotty Bowman

COACH BOWMAN: I am not going to make any comment on things like that. It not in my department.

COACH BOWMAN: Nobody celebrates. There's no team in the League that would celebrate. We're not different than any other team.

COACH BOWMAN: I think when they had a chance to get Dominik, yes, you look at him as a goaltender, but you are looking at him as one of the top two or three MVP players of his last probably five or six years. Actually I am sure Jaromir Jagr was there with all his scoring titles and it's a different kind of player, just fortunate that he was a goaltender, because we had pretty good goaltending here, a young goalie that had a big year this year for the Islanders, Chris Osgood, but at the same time going against veterans in the Playoffs, that's what I first thought, is, you know, you get -- when he gets into the Playoffs he was able to carry a good young defensive team in Buffalo to within a game of the Cup of the 7th game. I think that's what I looked at is that long-term it may not be as lucrative as some -- I didn't have anything to do with the trading of him. Kenny phoned me, I think the night before they made the deal to say that Dominik Hasek is not on the market, but Buffalo is definitely -- they had had some kind of arrangement, they were going to trade him and that even though Kenny -- everybody -- it's like you have some great players on your team, but if they offer you I mean we got some great players on our team, but if a player like Peter Forsberg comes up, you know, you got to do everything you can to get him. So I think that's the way I looked at Dominik is that because of his ability with Buffalo to make them a good contending team and not too long ago take them to the Stanley Cup Finals, that's what you are adding to your team. I don't think anybody ever thought that he was on the downside of his career because he's -- I didn't know much about his conditioning regime and all that and he just can't get enough practices or games.

COACH BOWMAN: You know, I don't know advantages, I mean you get the familiarity of playing on your -- that's what it's more than anything, familiar with everything about your -- you know, your dressing room, your bench the whole thing, but I don't -- I never really thought that -- when you get at this stage in your Stanley Cup run, the crowd is not going to have an influence for the most part, I think on the officials because you got the top guys working and so that's not an advantage that you might have in junior hockey or in some League games when you get some younger officials that aren't -- haven't been there. I don't know how much -- I mean, the noise part doesn't work when the game is being played. It's when there are stoppages. There's a chance in some instances late in the game that if you were down in a game and you got back into it that the crowd could help you. But it's not as big as people think. The big advantage is you play on it 40 -- I think we had five pre-seasons, so, played on it 46 games in the regular season and I think tomorrow night's game 13 in the Playoffs, so we had nearly 60 games on this ice surface, but whether that's a big advantage, I don't know, the boards, the bounces.

COACH BOWMAN: Well, the team is a different kind of team. I had this -- these kind -- not -- not the stature of the kind of players, but I started my coaching in St. Louis with a very experienced team of players that maybe in a lot of cases their prime was behind them. But I mean, I started with Glen Hull, Doug Harvey, Dickie Moore, I mean, they rank in the NHL with the greatest players of all-time and in a different era, maybe, but I saw what they gave our team in '68 in the Playoffs and these guys, there's a different nucleus, there's some that have been here, some have won a couple of Cups, some have won a Cup with other teams and there's probably 6 or 7 that have had terrific careers. So the focus has been on this team right from the start that this team has a good chance to win and I don't think anybody is thinking past knowing the way they have been talking, past the next game. They have been in this situation before. We have talked about it where in 1997/98 there's still probably a dozen guys that were here when I -- I don't know how I got through it but people were driving around with brooms in their trucks, all that kind of stuff, like a sweep, that's all they were talking about, a sweep, so we got through that. We won one at home and we went into Washington, it was a little different because those fans, in the 1997 Finals, that's what happened. But I think the way hockey is today, there's not too much long-range planning by teams now because there's going to be some good players available in the off-season for teams to go after. I really don't -- I don't think anybody knows what is going to happen after two more seasons. There's going -- you keep hearing it, I mean, there's -- there's supposed to be some big changes coming in two years with how teams are being -- how the League is going to be run, how the teams are going to run themselves. I don't think our team -- I don't think there's -- there's no focus on next year at all, whether you come back or not. I don't even -- I couldn't tell you right now which players have contracts, don't have contracts, before when you first started everything was very private. Now it's wide open, but that's for another department to look after, signing players. Coaches don't get involved in that. It's a business part of the game.

COACH BOWMAN: He's won the -- I wasn't here when he came initially but I do remember playing against him, coaching against him, and the thing that always come out is how strong a player he was defensively, with naturally good offensive skills. But I don't think he's looking to score 50 goals every year, stuff like that. It's tough for anybody to score 50 now. There's only one guy this year. But he's more of an all-around player than a lot of people realize. They see him make a dazzling play, there's other players in the League that might be better finishers, stuff like that, but he plays a complete -- when he's on his game which he has been on all the way through this year in the Playoffs, he's tough to play against because of his -- he's physically strong; he's a great skater, you know, he's now an experienced player. He's 32 years old, and he has been in the League over ten years. So I mean, he's a complete player. How he compares with other players, it's hard to pick one or two. The one that maybe I would compare him to most to probably would be the guy I had in Montreal - he's a coach now - Jacques Lemaire, he was a wonderful player because he could do everything, I mean, I am not sure if he ever scored 50 goals. I don't think he did. But he was a complete player, good on faceoffs; good -- play him against the other team's best player and give that other player a lot to handle. -- Sergei is a little bit more -- he's physically stronger. I mean he's a bigger man, but the players are bigger now too, so I don't know if it offsets it a bit.

COACH BOWMAN: You try to find out stuff a little bit about the other team, but then you start realizing you got to run your own team. You don't know -- you are not inside that dressing room. We know a few of their players because I was with Pittsburgh when Ron Francis was there, Aaron Ward has played here. I am not sure of any other ones that I really know that much about, maybe the All-Star games. But I think it is impossible for one team -- they can get some tendencies by the other team but as far as knowing what is going through them and what they are made of, I don't -- I mean, I can't really comment on that. I don't know it.

COACH BOWMAN: Well, I mean, experience-wise knows that -- I am a firm believer in what happened before, teams are different. It is like some teams, they never win in another rink or for a long time, will, ten years but the players on the team today weren't there ten years ago, everything's kind of changed. So it's like all the stats, this team when they win the third game or the second game, a lot of the stats are secured because you know, they should take the sweeps out of there because a lot of times teams are down 3-0 it's only been a couple of times that teams have come back in the whole history of the League. Those stats are good to read. I think -- I don't -- I don't compare everything to what happened before. I mean, does history repeat itself? Obviously it has in a lot of cases, but I think we have enough experience in our room to know. I have been on both sides. I was in Pittsburgh when we had a great team and we stumbled -- wasn't exactly in the Finals -- we stumbled in a series against Washington and ended up having to win, I think it was the fifth game there, sixth game at home go back and win in the 7th game in 1992. So I can draw on what we did to do that, played real tight hockey and got a few breaks, and got good goaltending and that was the formula. We have a lot of players though that -- we don't have a lot of players that haven't been through a game where if you win the season ends.

COACH BOWMAN: Well, I count the years and there are some coaches in the League that have won Final games, so I -- what I basically say is take nine years to beat it playing in the Finals winning four games a year and there's some guys I might -- the odds are against them winning nine times in a row, I guess, but those records I wish I could live long enough they will be broken, that's what I keep thinking about. At least the guy has to coach 20 or 30 years, and you know, I will enjoy it when I finish, and you know, when I finish coaching. So those -- most of them are caused by being in the League a long time and you know, the coach in Carolina is a young guy. He's only 35, 36 he has been coaching seven years in the League, and you know, it looks like he has got a big career ahead of himself. He has got good chemistry and who knows what the future holds. So it will have to be somebody that would start at a young age like I did. I was fortunate I was 32 or 33 when I started, and got on some -- got on some teams the first three years - we kind of have a free ---not a free ride, but we weren't as good as some teams in the League we got in the Finals we didn't win any games obviously but that didn't help that record. Then Montreal, when the team was on the ascension it was a team that had all kind of draft choices, different kind of team than this because they drafted all their players but they had a hoard on the market of draft picks, and this team has gone out and spent quite a bit of money obviously, I have been fortunate to be with a team that spent money to get players. I don't think at my stage of my career I could go with a team that's building to the future. I mean, that's -- that's the way I look at it. I was fortunate, I came to Detroit with a pretty good team in 92, 93 and then I came in 93, 94. I mean it wasn't a team that was, you know, had a lot -- it had a lot of future to it, and then economics changed and the Ilitch's wanted to win and they went out and paid some big -- made some big financial decisions to keep the team and also to get it better.

COACH BOWMAN: I think that's overexaggerated. We might have trapped more in some of -- I think it goes by how the game is going. Every game has been -- even last night, I mean you are going in the third period it's 1-nothing, it's -- you know, most of the other games were tied -- the first game was tied going into the third, they win it in overtime. The second game is tied, again we score two goals in the last five minutes. The next game goes into all that long overtime. Last night's 1-0. I think we're well trained now that you have to be ready for anything, but these teams are locking heads and it's so difficult to score goals. It seems to be a comparison to what we have had in the League this year. It's so difficult to score goals in the NHL. I mean, I don't know what the exact average is this year, but it's down a couple more percentage points than it was last year and obviously because more teams are looking at what is successful, and if you don't have the ability to shut the other team down, you know, maybe last night we countered a little better than we have at other games but nevertheless I think the focus on our team has been we -- I know that when they don't set up a good forecheck, our team -- they will watch certain player who doesn't maybe -- maybe goes in and gets caught, stuff like that, seems such an advantage if you don't have open ice. That's the way the game is played today and I don't have any idea how you could change it. I mean, I don't know -- but that's up for other people to decide.

COACH BOWMAN: The entire team. I really think it has been unusual that some nights four different lines score. Last night the first goal was when Boyd Devereaux and Hull, the second goal was Igor's line. I think we had Robitaille and Holmstrom, then we had Fedorov Yzerman Shanahan and we know what Draper Maltby McCarty have contributed. That has been the big hallmark of the team. You have to look at the, you know, the way the games are so tight and we had a lot of faceoffs in our end last night and they are a terrific faceoff team showed up again last night. As much as we want to get the sheet at the end of the game, I imagine are pretty accurate on the ice teams, Pavel Datsyuk at the end of the second period I looked at the sheet he only played like 7 minutes but maybe now we're in a good position to play him more, but he's good defensively, but he just doesn't have the experience of a Larionov when you go to a 2-0 lead you have got to be concerned about faceoffs and he's still only ended up with a little over ten minutes. Those lines like Larionov line and Datsyuk line are not logging as much time as Draper's line or the Fedorov line mainly because of the defensive zone faceoffs and some powerplay -- there wasn't a lot of powerplay time last night.

COACH BOWMAN: I won't be around (coaching after the 2003/2004 season) I am not concerned. You are concerned though because it is a great game. I don't -- I listen and hear all the comments back and forth, but before -- I think with guys like Wayne Gretzky in Phoenix, Mario Lemieux in Pittsburgh, Steve Yzerman I am sure is going to remain a Red Wing the rest of his career, and I think those players in Wayne's case not a player anymore, he's an owner, in the ownership thing. I just think there's enough of those people that will get something done and I don't know what the answer is. I just know from what you hear both sides -- I think something will -- I don't see -- I see it as being a problem that can be solved and I think there's enough people that are going to be able to solve it that have been -- made the game as good as it is today because you know, without a Wayne Gretzky in the League and Mario Lemieux in the last two decades for sure, the League wouldn't have been able to grow to where it is, especially in the U.S. of A. Because they have been marquis people. I mean there's not many people that don't know -- unless they are non-hockey people completely there's not many that don't know win Gretzky or Mario Lemieux and now they are on the other side that I think-- I think people will listen to them. That's what has to happen, the League and the Players Association they are strong, they will have to listen to these guys that have been on both sides.

COACH BOWMAN: He has been a good dedicated player. The line has been very solid. He's now getting -- he's getting more confidence carrying the puck. He's not the scorer of some of our players that have scored so many goals, but the way now he's set up plays and he got a lot of scoring chances the last month of the season; especially when the line has been together most of the time, if they do key on Brett Hull, he's getting some scoring chances. I think in time, as some players pass along from the team, he's young enough that he has got what you need because he provide our team with real good speed and that's going to be a big asset for him, his speed is top-notch. Accelerates and he -- you know, he had a tough injury and every day that goes by, I think makes him stronger. He had a very tough head injury that you know, I think a lot of people didn't know if he was ever going to play again.