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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: KINGS v DEVILSMay 30, 2012Peter DeBoerNEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Game One THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach DeBoer. Q. What are you feeling this morning and why? COACH DeBOER: Just excited. You want to play. You know, you're tired of waiting around. You're tired of looking at film. You're tired of practicing. It's anxious energy. Whatever I'm feeling, I'm sure it's doubled for the players. Q. I know you're a relative newcomer to Newark. Can you appreciate what this last couple days have meant for the city? COACH DeBOER: Well, sure. You see the excitement in the community. I live in the community. My kids go to school. Not just Newark, but New Jersey in general, it's an exciting time. I think with the Giants winning the Super Bowl, New York, New Jersey team in the Stanley Cup Finals, it's a great sports area to begin with, but it's great timing. Q. A year ago at this time I assume you were unemployed. I assume Lou hasn't spoken to you. What were you doing? COACH DeBOER: Like most unemployed guys, you're sitting at home wondering where you're going to work next. You're thinking about your future, talking about selling your house (laughter). It seems humorous now, but when you go through something like that, you know... I have a rock‑solid wife who I thought kept me in a good place through that time. It wasn't that long ago. Q. When you're facing a goalie that has been doing what Quick has been doing this season, what do you have to do in order to try to beat him? What are the keys to get a goalie like that off his game? COACH DeBOER: We've seen this before. Last round we had Lundqvist. This isn't anything new. I think for us the same things apply that applied to trying to get some goals past Lundqvist. You have to get traffic, bodies, shots. You can't get frustrated. Lundqvist shut us out the first two games of that series despite I thought a pretty significant territorial edge on our part. We stuck with it. You're not going to get to guys like this easily. They're going to frustrate you at different parts in the series. It's battling through. We have that experience now. We got rewarded for taking that approach against Lundqvist. We have to do the same thing here. Q. Just given their long layoff, do you feel like that gives you any sort of advantage in terms of momentum? COACH DeBOER: It's a good question. I don't know. Gave us an advantage against Philly I thought in Game1. I thought we were the sharper team to start that game, even though we lost. I believe we out‑shot them 15 or 20 to 5 or 6 in the first period. We ended up losing that game, ran out of gas. You know, I thought that we were the sharper team in Game1 probably due to the long layoff they had. At the same time it depends how you handle the layoff. I'm sure they're going to be very aware of not being stale. Knowing Darryl, I don't expect they'll have any rust on them. Q. Pete, what do you say to the guys before Game1 of the Stanley Cup Final as opposed to Game1 of a series? Can you keep it that simple or not avoid the fact this is the last round? COACH DeBOER: It's funny. I don't think you change anything. That's the big part. I think the natural reaction, when you talk to people, is all of a sudden you have to pull out these great speeches, change the way you've done things. I think part of the thing that we do well here is, it's business as usual. We've tried not to change a routine. I'm not planning on pulling out any great speeches. We've done our preparation. We're a workmanlike team and we'll be ready to play. Q. How do you deal with the Kings and their forecheck? Have you faced another group with that kind of size and aggressiveness? COACH DeBOER: I think Mark asked me yesterday about the Kings' forwards. You watch them on tape. I don't believe you get a real appreciation for what we're dealing with watching them on tape, their speed and their size. I won't know that until tonight. I can tell you, you look at Philadelphia's forwards, that was a pretty good group. Florida's forwards maybe didn't have the high‑end skill, but they were four lines deep. We've dealt with some good forecheck this year. Are these teams in a different league? I don't know. We'll know at 8:00 tonight. Q. You talked about keeping things normal during the final. Do you lean on guys that have been here before? COACH DeBOER: For sure. I mean, the one advantage I think our organization has here is the experience we have from the top down, whether it's general manager and president. They've been there, seen it all, won, lost. Then filtering down, my assistant coaches with Larry Robinson, the nine Cups he's won as a player and a coach. We have a wealth of experience all the way through the organization right to the locker room. We've got that in abundance. It makes my job easy. Q. Any lineup changes for tonight? COACH DeBOER: No. Q. For all the fans that were sort of secretly hoping for a Rangers/Kings final for the glamour of New York and L.A. COACH DeBOER: The glamour of New York (smiling)? Q. What do you say to people who wanted that and now have this? COACH DeBOER: Tough luck (smiling). FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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