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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: KINGS v DEVILSMay 29, 2012Lou LamorielloNEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions for Lou Lamoriello. Q. Take us back to the beginning. Did you ever think the team you assembled would be to this point this year? LOU LAMORIELLO: You like to think every team you ever have has a chance. I don't think we ever did until halfway through the year. Q. What was it that made you realize you had something special? LOU LAMORIELLO: I think the coaching staff and the communication they had with the players and the way the players bought into the system, both veterans and young players. Anytime we had any adversity, came out of it quickly, no looking back. It's probably one of the best teams we've had as far as chemistry. When I say 'chemistry,' not that other teams didn't get along, but how they reacted, both young and veterans. Q. A lot of times you went to the finals, you were favored. You had Martin Brodeur, guys who could score, complete hockey teams. Most people have you as the underdog this year in the Stanley Cup finals. Is it easier coming in as an underdog or as the favorite? LOU LAMORIELLO: I don't think it matters. You want to come in any way. Don't be choosy. I don't think it matters. We think we're favored every night we go into a game. If we don't think like that, we shouldn't go into the game. Q. I know you set the tone wanting to win every year. You made a lot of subtle moves this year that a lot of people don't recognize. Maybe you can talk about that, like Zidlicky, like Ponikarovsky. LOU LAMORIELLO: I think every time you go into the season, because you have the summer, you feel you have the team that can have the success because of the way we think. You get halfway through the year, you see what you need, who hasn't really adjusted, who hasn't worked out. The young player maybe hasn't developed the way you thought he was going to develop. Maybe the veteran is having an off year. You have needs. What we saw when we got to halfway through the year, we didn't really have the depth on the lower end of our lines. No disrespect, but to do maybe some of the things that you could take ice team away from the veterans. We had our veterans killing penalties, maybe giving too many minutes. Our focus was how can we get our fourth line better, where they could take some of the top minutes away if we could continue to use our top players. We were getting a lot of offense off our penalty killing. Our penalty killing was number one in the league, we were getting shorthanded goals. Pony was available at that time because of where Carolina was. We knew of him. We certainly saw enough of him in Toronto. We thought he would be a perfect fit as far as a player that would go up and down in weight, size and strength. Bernie, we knew we had in the minors. It was just a case of getting him here. We had signed him. He was in great shape and he was hungry. He committed himself to go to the minors and prove it, then he broke his wrist. Then he became healthy, we got him back once he was healthy. We felt good with that because we had Joe.  Then Joe gets hurt and we have to have a center. We went the safe way, Gionta. So he's come in seamless. Now we have a fourth line. We're getting people healthy. Travis Zajac, we can't sidestep what his value is and him being in the lineup. So now minutes go. The missing part for us was our defense, having somebody who could really handle the puck, handle the power play, create some risks, take some risks, live with it, but know he's not going to be afraid to. We felt the defense was solid enough with our goaltending. It's fallen into place. It never falls in the way this has. This has been a seamless situation. Q. Last summer you had a big decision on a coaching change. You went out and hired who was the least likely candidate. He went three seasons in Florida never making the playoffs. Why did you go with that choice? Are you surprised at how he's been able to get this team together? LOU LAMORIELLO: We knew Pete coaching in juniors. We had players playing from his team, signed free agents from there. We knew what he did there. We know how highly touted he was when he came out to be a pro coach. A lot of people thought a lot of him. We played against Florida a lot over the three years. It was always remarkable how they competed no matter where they were in the standings. I knew he was a very hard coach on his players because he didn't want to accept anything but the best out of them. That to me was a positive for me because he might have wanted success, maybe didn't have the talent to get there. Then you inquire. You don't tell anybody why you think like that. But you're always looking at different situations. When I did speak to him during the summer, I was extremely impressed, first of all with his intelligence, his honesty, what he thought went wrong in Florida, whether it be personally or professionally, what he wanted to do offensively. It was the perfect time for our organization to maybe make a little change with the type of forwards we have, with Parise, Kovalchuk, Zajac, Elias, Josefson. It was time to loosen up a bit, but never at the expense of defense. You have to have defense no matter what to win. I was committed to the other end of it, let's trying to get it to work. He's done a fantastic job. Q. Did the players make you change your style? Right now you are entertaining as heck to watch. You're one of the most fun teams in the NHL to watch. Did the coaches make the change or... LOU LAMORIELLO: I think the offensive players, really they didn't say anything certainly, but I think their styles sort of really told us, without saying anything, that we should. I think I felt it. With the young players, we had Joe, Travis, Zach, Kovy, you have to give them what they have. Too, I always take offense to the teams that the people thought were defensive, those years they were second and third in scoring. I always look at the differential of goals that win championships. A lot of high‑scoring teams can win games. I never worried about that. But we would still have that style if the players here, that's what we needed to win. We're going to do whatever we need to do to win and we're not going to apologize for it. Q. The backbone of all these championships has been with Martin Brodeur. He continues to be outstanding at the age of 40. Are you as impressed as when you first got him on this team? LOU LAMORIELLO: Kevin was with us, sat next to him. I don't think you're ever surprised at what he does, how he handles everything. The personality he has, when we were in Philly, wherever it was, he had to get pulled one night. Everyone was all excited. If you look back in history, he got pulled the sixth game in Anaheim and came back and shot out Anaheim to win the Stanley Cup. Marty is an unflappable person. He has a personality that never looks back. He loves the game. He plays it because he loves it. He works at it. He's changed his game accordingly to the way the style is. He's a student. I know they sat next to each other and talked hockey for hours, about shooters and everything. The other thing, too, prerequisite, athleticism. Q. You've had him for 20 years. One day you're going to look and he's not going to be there. LOU LAMORIELLO: Well, we'll have to find somebody (laughter). Q. You mentored Dean Lombardi. LOU LAMORIELLO: That's what he says (laughter). Q. He was very outspoken in his praise. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. Very few people know about that. LOU LAMORIELLO: There was a mutual friend that Dean had, Jack. Jack worked with Dean. Jack called me. Dean just came in and he wanted to talk hockey and wanted to ask me some questions. Very simplistic. I think like any of us, he was very sincere. I think he would do that for anyone. He just wanted to talk about philosophic things and structure. I tried to help him in way a I could and answer questions. What help you are, you don't know. But we spent a lot of time. I was humbled by things that were said because we had an agreement that we wouldn't talk about it. Q. Good luck in the final. LOU LAMORIELLO: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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