NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: MIGHTY DUCKS v DEVILS

May 31, 2003

Martin Brodeur

MARTIN BRODEUR: I dropped my stick and it hit it and it went through my legs. Unfortunately it bounced a little bit. I was laughing at myself a little bit. What are the odds that you are going to have your stick just slip out of your hands? And so it happens. It's just one of the bad bounces.

MARTIN BRODEUR: You think I didn't play good?

MARTIN BRODEUR: I felt pretty good out there. Besides that little mistake I made, I mean, it's going to happen to anyone. When you do that, they had to work hard for the other goals they scored. We came back. It's not easy to allow a goal like that and come back as strong as we did. And we did that. That proves a lot. We didn't get affected by a little bad bounce.

MARTIN BRODEUR: I thought I played a pretty darn good third period.

MARTIN BRODEUR: I think so. I don't know. Definitely this one ranks up as a weird one.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Well, they came out strong. They had a lot more momentum than they did, I think. The home crowd thing, the homestyle game, I think they looked bigger out there, somewhat, playing a lot more physical than they did in New Jersey. It paid off for them. They were able to grind us and tire us a little more than they did in the first two games.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Well, I didn't have any control of that puck. I never really touched it with my own will.

MARTIN BRODEUR: In Game 2 he had the same opportunity on the faceoff and he went high on the blocker side and I wanted to take an extra step to get a better position and he fired really hard low. And when you're moving, it's hard to react low. I was expecting a shot higher than he shot.

MARTIN BRODEUR: I was just trying to play it and give it to my defensemen, just to try to stop it. Just the stick just slipped out of my hand. It happened once this year, my stick went all the way in the corner and I didn't have any stick to play the rest of that shift. But this one just kind of -- it was an unfortunate bounce.

MARTIN BRODEUR: It happens pretty fast out there. I just kind of looked at it. I was looking at the puck. Next thing you know, it hits it and it kind of goes towards me, so I go down and it was just through my legs.

MARTIN BRODEUR: They were laughing at me. You didn't think it was funny? I thought it was funny. It's definitely not fun to get scored on like that, but it's something you can't control. I didn't want to drop my stick there, and it just hit it. What are you going to do? You've got to move on. They did laugh at me too. I saw it.

MARTIN BRODEUR: It's important. Adversity, it's huge in the playoffs. It's how you deal with it that you're facing every night. It could come with injuries, it could come with bad bounces or calls from the referees or goals that go in and doesn't count. It could be anything. You've got to respond well. It happens for a reason and you move on. It's important that we have a lot of experience. We felt this is not going to beat us. It didn't. We were able to get back in the game and give it a shot in overtime. You've got to give these guys credit. They played well.

MARTIN BRODEUR: They did get a lot of traffic. They didn't get the puck through too much when there was traffic, but they had the puck, and they played well. I thought they were able to cycle the puck down low and I think that goes with the match-up sometimes. We didn't have the same people against the same players all the time. They needed to come out with their best game, and they definitely played an awesome game against us.

MARTIN BRODEUR: It happens. You can't -- it's one shot, one bounce. I think all night we gave them so much opportunities on the faceoffs. At one time you're going to have to pay the price. We iced the puck so many times and we like to do that, but sometimes we're a little better. I don't know what the percentages of the faceoffs won and lost, although, were. I'm sure they had the most of them. You've got to pay the price when you're always taking draws like that.

MARTIN BRODEUR: It was. It was kind of -- I went to try to stop the puck that was going towards the corner and it slipped out of my hands and hit it and went through to the net. It's one of these goals you'll see once probably in the lifetime of every goalie.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Well, for a couple days at least.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Well, like we always do. It's important. You can't lose two games in a row in the playoffs. Our job here was to win one game. That's what we wanted. We gave it a great shot. Like I said, we had a bad bounce that went against us. We've got to try to be better, try to minimize our mistakes. We made some. They had some chances on it. If we play a little better, a little more sound, it might be all right.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Well, it looks like we don't ever make it easy anyway. These guys are there to live a dream also. They aren't just going to roll over because they were down 2-0. They showed us what kind of team they were with the character they have.

MARTIN BRODEUR: It's better than their situation. The bottom line is when you go on the road, you want to split. The split is still available to us. We'll try to do it.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Definitely. When you have pride and people don't give you any respect, we've beaten teams people didn't see us winning and it affects you too. You take it personally. These guys have a lot of leadership with Kariya and Thomas and Oates and there are some of the guys that weren't mentioned in the papers that showed up tonight and played an awesome game for them.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Just play a little more tight, more in control. I think sometimes we threw the puck where we weren't looking, made a lot of icing. I know it's part of our game to try to slow it down. When you play a team so skilled in draws like that, you have got to be a little more careful.

MARTIN BRODEUR: It was a clean shot. He was right there. Like I said, in Game 2 he had the same opportunity from there. I wanted to take an extra step and while I was moving, he shot it as hard as a guy could shoot it. He just beat me clean.

MARTIN BRODEUR: Under my glove.

MARTIN BRODEUR: I was laughing at myself. I was like, "This is unbelievable. You're in the Stanley Cup Finals. You know so many millions of people are watching you, and your stick slipped out of your hands and you get scored on." It's important that you forget these things. We're still 2-1. We felt we're in the game. It shows. We came back and made a few good saves in the third and we tied it up and it could have been anybody's ballgame after that.