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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: KINGS v DEVILSMay 29, 2012Patrik EliasNEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions for Patrik Elias. Q. Talk a little bit about the excitement of going into tomorrow night's Game1. PATRIK ELIAS: Well, it's a great experience again for me to be back after nine years. You forget how great it feels to have the opportunity to play. I'm enjoying every minute of it. It's great for me to see the young guys experience that. Even Zach and Travis Zajac, they've been here for a few years now and never had a chance to get this far, experience a day like this. I think they're loving this, loving the whole thing, just being successful, even on the ice. Q. Lou was here and he said he felt this team was good enough all along. He knew you needed a few pieces. You had some tough times this year. When did you look at this team and think you could do some damage in the playoffs? PATRIK ELIAS: I think at the deadline, Lou did a great job bringing Marek Zidlicky. We were missing a piece like that on our back line, having a guy that can make that final play, bring a little bit of skills for the power play on the back there. I think that helped. From that point on, with the game plan we had as a team, Pete brought in being aggressive, skating well, playing well defensively, I think it took a few months obviously under Pete to get adjusted to the game. But in the middle of the season, we start feeling like if we play to our potential, we can beat everybody. You come to the playoffs, you never know how you're going to do. I think as the playoffs went on, we saw what happened in Florida, they made it difficult for us. That's how the matchups are. Against Philly we played great hockey. We found a game plan that really worked against them. I think in the Philly series we really got a great confidence that we can beat this team and move on. Even if we play Rangers or Washington, that we can be successful against these teams. I'm going to say again, the series against Flyers really turned things around for us. Q. What is it about the team you've been able to pick up, watching a couple of their games in the playoffs? PATRIK ELIAS: Obviously confidence goes a long way and they're very confident. Since they made a coaching staff, it's a different team than they've been before that. You look at their forecheck. They're very aggressive on the forecheck. They got some big bodies, big guys that play strong, physical hockey. You look in the back line. You have role players that know their roles. They roll four lines, they have skill players, and everybody is doing their job. Their goaltender has been awesome. You have to have that to get this far. I think you look at the two teams. We have a similar build to the team. We have four lines that we're rolling and everybody's contributing.  Our defense is doing their job, Marty is doing better than ever, and he gives us a great opportunity to succeed. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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