NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: AVALANCHE v RED WINGS

May 22, 2002

Scotty Bowman

COACH BOWMAN: I didn't think there was a lot of chances though. Patrick was outstanding, of course, and especially in the overtime. But before that, there wasn't much room for both teams. It's just one of those games where neither team kind of deserves to lose. Our guys had a lot of injuries. The two young centers, especially, we got more ice time for Robitaille. We had better balance on our lines than the first two games. Really, you got to win on the road too. I thought we made a good comeback tonight after the loss in Detroit.

COACH BOWMAN: We looked fresher. I don't know for what reason. I think because we played our players a little differently. Maybe we weren't leaning on certain guys. It seemed our lines were better. We were kind of spread out. And I don't know the reason for it. But we said we had to play four lines. You can play -- I thought we skated a lot better tonight. I actually told the team the way Carolina's been skating, that's what you've got to do, you're not going to beat Colorado if you're not going to skate. The guys that can fly, they skated well, Draper, Maltby.

COACH BOWMAN: We had to make an adjustment. We had a good game. When we put him on the power play and in the second or third period, it seemed to change our power play around a little bit. He and Lidstrom played a lot together this year. He ran out of gas in the last two months. He's fresh again. He's always been a big offensive player from the point. That's what we needed against Colorado, because they really shut you off down low. There really isn't much room. You've got to take those shots and he really helped us. That wasn't a point shot as much as it was 4-on-4 and he had speed up the neutral zone. Nothing that I don't think the goalie could do, because he just put a perfect shot in.