NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: HURRICANES v RED WINGS

June 9, 2002

Scotty Bowman

COACH BOWMAN: I think as a coach you have a few concerns about making sure you get your -- especially when you are visiting coach. Obviously, wanted to make sure I got my lines out there as quick as I can, that you won't get shut down, especially on faceoffs. But I was just trying to -- a lot things go through your mind trying to think about what your next move is. But we were playing pretty routinely, four lines the odd time on faceoffs, we switched up a bit and got out of rotation, and Dave Lewis looks after the defense. I didn't have to worry about that part of it. I was more concerned on the forwards, and that's keeping as fresh as you can.

COACH BOWMAN: It's the longest one in -- we had one in '98 against Washington, and I think that was the only overtime game that I have been involved in on the winning side. When Kris Draper scored, that was a little different because we were down -- up in the series, but down in the game. We had made a big comeback. We were down 4-1. I am not sure the time on that, but it wasn't close to this one. I only had one other game that might have been close, my first year, I think in St. Louis, we won in the second overtime. But I don't think I have ever been in a third overtime.

COACH BOWMAN: I thought it was a big mistake when they didn't offer him a contract or whatever it was, you know, and he was pretty miffed about it. I don't blame him. But I wasn't doing the contracts at that time. I am glad I wasn't. But you know, Kenny Holland knew -- it wasn't Kenny, either. It wasn't anything to do with Kenny, but he knew that -- he knew after we started the season that we were going to miss him. And fellows like Steve Yzerman that knew what he was like, and -- we were missing him and he wasn't doing -- he wasn't enjoying where he was. We were fortunate to get him back, really, and it didn't pay off right then, but he has been a great player for this organization ever since we got him from San Jose.

COACH BOWMAN: Us, you mean?

COACH BOWMAN: I just try to impress that each game is different. You can never, in the Playoffs, carry one game to another. It has happened, I guess, but you know, it's recorded. You got the win. You start the next game, and you can't fool yourselves. That's what we have been trying to work on, we'll work on 'til tomorrow night. Today is more a day of recovery. We're not going to have anybody doing much there. Some of them have their own program getting some treatments, and the rest factor is huge today. I don't think -- just get it out of your mind. I don't want to talk about the game last night a lot longer, and they enjoy the moment, that's important. But the moment is going to be over quickly because we're not -- it's not like you have three -- there's three days between Games 4 and 5, but only -- not even 48 hours between the game that ended last night, it's probably, what, 42, 43 hours.

COACH BOWMAN: I think we were very fortunate in the overtime that during -- we looked at our ice time at the end of the three periods, both Igor and Pavel hadn't played the same minutes as our other centers and I think it ended up Igor played 22 minutes in the game and Pavel played 20. It wasn't because of a lot of specialty teams or anything. There was a lot of faceoffs in our end and faceoffs that are always important when you get into overtime. So I think it showed -- the game showed -- even in the third overtime when they went to their line of Westlund, Daniels and Adams, they -- you could see the difference in the tempo. They had a lot of tempo. Those guys were fresh. I think that's what happened to Pavel. He was, you know, he works real hard and if you notice the shift even at the end of the shift he could hardly get off and he hadn't played a lot. He's into the big strong guy. I think a couple more and you got Igor Larionov, you want to get his spin on it.

COACH BOWMAN: I think -- I always look at these goalies the way they make saves, I mean, you know, the play was pretty good. You know, maybe Irbe made a good play. And I think when he went to shoot the puck he saw that there wasn't much room, he tried to hurry it a bit. I think that's more -- everybody can say this and that, but I think Irbe read the play and covered that side, yeah, if you can do it over, Sergei would probably like to shoot it. But you don't have that choice. You just -- you stick with what got you here for the most part. I don't think we want to -- we're fortunate that last night Igor came up big and scored those two goals and that has been a good market of our team, that we have been able to get players like that, that know their role and come through when other guys are being checked closely.

COACH BOWMAN: No, maybe there -- so long ago and maybe there was a lot of faceoffs, I don't know. We have faceoff lines and sometimes, you know, the way the game was going there wasn't -- I didn't know it was that limited, but you know, obviously the way the game was, there was a lot more time left. We didn't know it at that time. No, I just -- we don't play four lines equally, and you know, we're looking at what they are putting on the ice as well.