NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: CAPITALS v RED WINGS

June 16, 1998

Scotty Bowman

SCOTTY BOWMAN: I did it -- I do it once and I did it. I just felt the on ice tonight was -- everybody knows what it was for to get the Cup and have Vladi so much involved in it. That was what we all wanted to do and we finally did it.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Yeah. We knew that he was at the game. I didn't see him today. He came in this afternoon. I think some of the players did see him. But it was just -- the reaction of a team -- it just went right through the whole bench and it was still 16 minutes to go and I just was thrilled that he was responding to the crowd and everybody else.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: As I've said so much about Toe Blake this week. But everything I said I really meant because I was one of the fortunate coaches when I started. I was able to be right there and I didn't have anything to do with the Canadiens, with the big team, but I had the junior team and spent a lot of time with them. When I came back to Montreal, that's not an easy job there at that time. He was a real good influence on me and to be thought of in the same breath is a big honor for me, obviously. I don't put numbers on the Cups, but I just know that he did it with a lot of grace and I hope I can do the same thing. It's not been easy; I've had a tough start. But we have a lot of things in common and I was very pleased that I could, you know, at least come even with him and let it go at that.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: It's hard for the coach of the team -- you get -- I could tell you a lot of lies -- you get kind of scared sometimes. How good is the team? You don't know. It seemed our team found a lot of ways to play, a lot of ways to win. I know that it was tough on Washington with the last 10 or 12 minutes, but I could see our team -- they were totally focused the last 7, 8 minutes. If one player just moved the wrong way, the bench reacted. And they're such a close team. But, we had a tough season getting over the accident and I think that it was the big -- I know it was the big influence on the team. The fact that we saw Vladi and Sergei getting better, it was a year ago at this time. It was so difficult on everybody. We had just won the Cup. We saw the progress they were making and I think everything said, We're not going to get these guys down. Obviously, we're not going to let ourselves down with it; that was the way they felt. You see the reaction they gave to Vladi. Going in, I didn't know if we could really win another Cup, but I knew that the desire and the motivation was there and fortunately, we did.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: I'm going to talk it over with Kenny Holland, the manager, who I made the deal with to sign for two years and also the owner, Mr. Ilitch. It's going to be a tough decision not to come back; I realize that. But I've got to leave sometime. I want to make sure that I'm leaving at the right time when I do leave. I didn't feel this way as much last year because we had a taste of winning and I thought after we had the accident it was my place to come back and coach at least this season and I talked about that to Mr. Ilitch and Kenny and we're all on the same page. So, you know, it's -- it's something -- I'm not going to make an emotional decision. I'm going to take a couple of weeks and go through it and make a decision then.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Yeah. We -- Doug had a great season for us. He got injured the last game of the season. We played, I think, a round or two and he wasn't there. Kozlov and Sergei seem to have the right chemistry with each other. That's been a great line for us since we've had them together and they were a strong line last year in the Playoffs and we got better and better. He was injured and he missed about a month and he's -- he's really helped us play in the point and the powerplay, you know, because that was one area with we wanted to -- we had to improve on and I just think that, you know, he's the kind of player that you want to see skate because he's one of our hardest working players. He's been a real great addition to our team and we're fortunate that we got him 3 or 4 years ago.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, you know, they're all so close to Vladi, but I can tell you that Igor and Slava Fetisov, Sergei and Slava Kozlov -- even when Sergei wasn't with our team, there wasn't a day that went by that they didn't phone because he was living in Florida or see him at the beginning of training camp. And those 4 in particular felt so much apart of him. And our other players did what they could, too. I think that's the mark of a team is that our European players have really integrated. We've got 3 great Swedish players -- you saw the impact that Holmstrom had -- and we had the five Russian players and that's what makes a team.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Yeah, he was, because, you know, he took quite a beating in Game 1, as everybody knows. I think that got him really -- he was -- he's always geared up. I seem to get him really geared up to come back and try to beat them with his stick and his skates. He's not the kind of player that's going to try to beat you with his fists. We knew going in -- we had a pretty good scouting report on Washington that they're a team that you would have a hard time discouraging. And even after we won the first three games, I give a lot of credit to Steve Yzerman. He didn't complain after the first game and he came up with big plays all the way through the series. And Washington is a terrific faceoff team and Steve was able to be the best faceoff player, I think, in the series.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: We welcomed him back. It wasn't our money. No, really, when the decision was explained, I didn't think they were going to match the offer. I just didn't know if they could and Mr. Ilitch just one day -- well, I guess it was, like, a couple of days before they knew what was going to happen, they had that arbitration case on the bonus. But he said that, present value, we can't do without him. He'll find a way to do something and I hope he's rewarded for his efforts because it was a big decision to match that offer and get a team to play where they could and I think everybody feels the same way about Sergei. I think, in time, it will dissipate into a good contract. Just because it was front loaded is probably what everybody was concerned about and he had big motivation to do well in the Playoffs. As a coach, after they decided to match the offer, I knew we were going to be a lot stronger.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: There's a lot of teams that were pretty close. The good thing about our team -- we went into tonight's game up front with the one change. You know, we had Tomas Holmstrom in place of Tomas Sandstrom in our defense core. I think we had about 75 percent of that back and with the -- you know, Kenny Holland, it was a tough decision for him to make with the goaltending situation, but I wasn't in contact with what was going on. He just called me one day and he said, We really can't bring Mike Vernon back because, if we don't give into his demands, we'll have a problem on our hands; either he's not going to report or we'll have an unhappy guy on our hands. I can see his point. He wants to get on -- get a good contract. I thinks he deserves it. He said we had a young goalie that had to really come through. That's a pretty gutsy move for a general manager in his first year, to have to trade a Conn Smythe trophy winner. So that was a big decision for him and we're happy about it.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Yeah. When we played St. Louis, a lot of people tried to say that might be the Stanley Cup final. They just swept. We had trouble with them during the season. I think they had a better record than we did against us in the series. When we got them in the Playoffs, we seemed to be able to reach our goals, got some injuries to the other team and we never felt we got breaks because we always were playing without Vladi, when you look at it.