NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: RED WINGS v FLYERS

June 6, 1997

Scotty Bowman

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Yeah.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: No.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, I didn't -- 15, 20 minutes, just a lot of players get in a routine trying to keep their routine basically not trying to do a lot out on the ice.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: No, I think the team has relied on all parts of it, that is how -- the most, you know, some of the -- obviously, your top players have stepped up. But, they feel comfortable because so many other guys have contributed. And, I think that is the feeling you get when you are on a roll; that your team, you know, if somebody doesn't do something, then the other guy will do it. So, it has really helped us to, you know, probably Draper, Maltby, Kocur line is playing even more each game and, you know, that has made the other lines feel a sense of, you know, they just don't have to do it themselves.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, we only had two young goaltenders and we went out and, you know, three years ago when we acquired Mike, we were looking for a goalie that had experience. We knew that we had some -- I mean, there is three or four young goalies in the Detroit organization that are -- maybe some day they are going to play in the NHL because there are so many experienced goalies in the league that have been through, you know, some very good stretches for their teams, we didn't go out and try to trade him. We had a few calls, not very many. And, I think the reason we didn't even consider it is, you know, when you lose a goalie, even if Chris would have been here alone, if he gets injured, what do you do or he runs into a tough time. It is a position that you can never -- you can't keep all your goalies all of the time. We kept Kevin Hodson here all the season because we would have lost him if we -- that was our choice, either give him away and he hadn't played much in the NHL. So, it wasn't a big -- it wasn't like we were going to try go out and make a deal for him. But Mike Vernon, we had a goalie that had Playoff experience and it wasn't a very tough call to keep him.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, I think both teams have been pretty quiet. We went through the Colorado series with the other team, you know, they had a lot of great players, were pushing each other. And, I never really considered any problem when they talk about what they are going to do in the press because I was more concerned about what they do on the ice, really. And some players approach it differently. Some players are better quotes or better copy than others. That has always been the way. But, no, our team didn't do anything differently couple years ago than we are doing now that, you know -- we always talk before the Playoffs that you have to respect your opponent. And, you have to make sure that you don't say things you can't back up or you don't want to back up. So, I don't think we are doing it any different than we did two years ago. But, I don't think Philadelphia is doing a lot of -- the only thing the League asks us to do is if we are going to comment on the other team's players or if we are going to comment on -- if you have something you don't like about the game, the way it is handled, take it to them and they will-- they can't guarantee they will do something, but they will address it.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, I don't think about it because you know, that is not your -- I don't think it is my focus right now. My focus is to win the fourth game. I don't know how these things transpire, if -- they didn't ask me to invite them. I don't know if they are just coming down as supporters or if it was a plan, I really don't know. And, you know, the thing it has been a long time, but all of our players weren't involved with that, although they are, you know, members of Detroit Red Wings, it is still -- you can't take that baggage around with you and feel that you were responsible. We were responsible in 1995. We got to the Finals, and, you know, didn't do it. But, that is -- I'd say we, as a group, there is probably still 12 or 14, 13, 14 players that were -- some weren't even playing though. Some were here, but they didn't play.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: We try to keep our routine; keep the same focus. That is an individual commitment that they have to make themselves. Be prepared for the game. It makes the game a little bit more difficult. But, the game is going to be decided by the teams on the ice and what the people say and the fans and everything, you know, we are not taking that as -- we know that they can't do anything, but do that. Just to try to, you know, get as much rest as you can. The game routines have been pretty similar. We have watched tape. We have talked -- I mean, just don't leave any stone unturned about trying to prepare for the game. That is what we are trying to do is keep the focus on the game and I think the players, they can do that themselves.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: I think a coach has to do it his own way. There is certain things that work, but you have to be subject to change. Teams used to have meetings in the morning, I don't know if there are more meetings now or less, but we generally have meetings for about a half an hour. It seems to work better, two hour, two and a half hours before the game rather than do it in the morning. But, I just think if a coach -- there are coaches that try different things. Just because you take the goalie out in the last minute of play, some teams have done it with two and a half minutes to go and been down maybe a couple of goals. All those kinds of things, I think are what a coach has to think about, do things -- they work -- sometimes you do things that the other coaches do and they work, but you have got to do some new -- I think now there is so much available for the teams to know about each other, the staffs are much larger, and there is not many secrets that you can have now, especially this point in the season. But, I think mainly the coaches like, you know, faceoff alignments are changing a lot. Some teams lose faceoffs intentionally to be able to get a fore-check on the other defense. An awful lot of tapes screened by the coaching staffs of the teams and somebody gets an idea and if you don't try it, it is not going to work for sure. You can't try everything. But, I think that is a big part of coaching to try to implement something that the other guy isn't going to do before you did. I mean, that is sort of generic throughout the season.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: No, I wouldn't tie Toe Blake because he coached thirteen years and he won eight Cups. You know, I don't know if anybody has ever-- that is going to be pretty tough to do. He only coached, like I said, thirteen years, but in a narrow where they had six teams. I don't think the spread on the teams -- it was always a couple of teams that weren't very strong of the six, but there was always three or four teams that had a chance to win. But, you know, I feel fortunate that I started in Montreal and I was a junior coach and he was the Canadian's coach and I was able to, you know, see him quite a lot and he was a very open person. You could ask him about -- and he was interested in a lot of our players because a lot of them would go up from junior ranks up to the NHL. And, you know, when I asked him things, he would respond with the answer probably feeling that some day that those players might even play with the Canadians. But, he always stressed the fact, when I first went to Montreal, that, you know, make sure you keep the puck out of your own net. That is the most important thing, even when he had high flying offensive teams. But, not just play defensive hockey. He wanted to play smart offensive hockey, but he always had a place for role players; always tried to impress that, you know, even a player that isn't dressing for a game could become important in a playoff series. And, he had a code of about maybe a dozen things that he always used to remind us of every year. And, when I got to coach the Canadians he still was an active person. He wasn't the coach. He traveled with the team in the Playoffs. He would never say much unless you had to seek him out. There was one series that I do remember. It was the first Cup that I was with Montreal, we were playing Chicago and we, I think, we were playing the fifth game at home. Looked like we could win the Cup and we ended up losing the game, it was a wild game like 8 to 7, high score. Some of our players said a lot of things after the game about some of the other players and we were staying away from Montreal. He phoned me one o'clock in the morning. He said, I don't know how this is going to show up in the paper, but from what I heard, it is going to be pretty bad. You are going to have -- you are going to have to grab some of your players and bring them together because I don't think they are on the same page. It was true. It had come out that morning the players blaming each other. We weren't playing the right style and I did go to the guys and said it. I said, you know, you got some patching up to do and they, as I understand, they did take -- a group of players went out for a dinner; talked it over. We were able to win the next game. So, it is things like that that really help you as a coach because he was genuinely interested in us winning, he was finished as a coach. Then when he finished coaching, I don't think anybody had the respect of his players has Toe did. Because he had a bunch of Stars. Many of those players even today are still living. I don't think anybody will be able to ever beat his records, eight Stanley Cups in thirteen years, so I don't think about just trying to catch up or anything like that.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: A lot better than two years ago, that is for sure. Right now, yeah, you know, the team is focused and you know, you have to have confidence to win and, you know, we are just trying to make sure that they do the same things they do for the next game. Every game gets a little bit closer and that is what you have to do, just try to keep them on a level playing surface. That is what we are trying to do. And we have a lot of help from other coaches and people with us.

SCOTTY BOWMAN: Well, we acquired Slava late just before the trading deadline a couple of years ago. Looking for experienced defensemen and at the time we had Larionov, Konstantinov and I think we had Sergei Fedorov and we had Slava Kozlov, but the chance of getting an experienced player, we talked about getting Slava with those players and they respected him so much as a great player and he was 36 at the time, then we were after -- he came on board. We knew right away that he was going to -- he just had that attitude. He had been injured -- New Jersey had a strong defense. I did talk to Larry Robinson after we had made the trade and Larry spoke so highly of him I knew that we were going to get something special. He just hoped that he could be able to stay physically as strong as he was. But, he said -- you know, they had so many young defensemen, but he said he was a real true, true winning type of player. And then he fit in well because we put him with Vladimir Konstantinov, then we had the chance to make the deal to get Igor Larionov and Slava was very instrumental in that. We knew a bit about Igor because we played and lost against San Jose. He was a big part of that five-man unit with Makarov and Osolinsh and they had Jeff Norton on defense. They were pretty hard to stop. We tried everything against them and we still lost the series. We knew a little bit about them but I think talking with Slava, he felt it would be a tremendous addition to this team. Even though we were trading a player that was a 35, 40 goal scorer, Ray Sheppard, so, they have been through a lot together. They looked very -- regarded very highly by other Russian players on their team and also in the League. And, you know, they have been on so many good teams that they are special players. They are like coaches. When we need to talk to them about a certain play or, you know, they have played so long in a system that was a lot of -- I mean, different than ours, but they had a real winning tradition.