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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: KINGS v DEVILSJune 11, 2012Patrik EliasAdam HenriqueLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Game Six THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Any favorite Brodeur moments off the ice during the final? PATRIK ELIAS: I should have plenty. Off the ice, I don't spend too much time together off the ice because we spend so much time together on the ice. I can't really think of any of the moments. Q. In regards to Marty, Patrik, you played with him for a very long time. To see him almost turn back the clock, not act like a 40‑year‑old, laughing when he gets his jersey pulled over, you're in the moment, but what is it like when you watch it, see him react those ways? PATRIK ELIAS: It's a good time for me, too. He's four years older than me. But, no, he's been unbelievable. You look back the last season. A lot of people were talking about him retiring, that's the right time, et cetera. But when you're having fun, playing good hockey, this is what it can do for you. I watched him obviously many years. The way he approaches the game now, this playoffs, this season, it's as good as any years. You can see that focus that he has. He's playing with a lot of confidence and he's giving us a chance obviously to win. He has those exceptional saves in the game when you kind of sit back and say, Wow, he's on his game. We need him to obviously do this, especially in this situation. Q. Adam, you guys are 4‑0 in facing elimination. Not something you can prepare for until you're in that situation. What is it about this team that enables you to be so successful in those pressure situations? ADAM HENRIQUE: We want to keep playing. Obviously our backs are against the wall in those situations. Everybody has stepped up their game, brought their best, right from our first line to our fourth line, all our D, and Marty, too. In every single one of those games, everybody stepped up their play and took it to the next level. Obviously a few overtimes. But, you know, we believe in ourselves and the guys in the room. We want to keep playing. Through the playoffs, all the team has gotten stronger I think every round as each series has gone deeper. It shows again here. Obviously, you're in a hole, backs are against a wall really, but we just kept playing and we believed that we could do this, we could win. Q. Since you've won two games, do you have a motivational feeling of you have more invested in this now than you did when it was 0‑3? Is there more motivation now? PATRIK ELIAS: Yeah. Again, we're a lot closer to what we want to accomplish than we were a couple games back. After being down 3‑0, you really don't have anything to lose in regards. You just go out and try to do your best. Now when we woke up again, we know obviously that we can beat these guys, then we do want to accomplish that. That can be very dangerous. This is the time when you have to kind of take a step back and relax and, again, just play the same way we played the last two games. I think we didn't change too much. To be honest, we didn't change anything. We just got a lucky bounce here and there at the right time. Marty made those unbelievable saves. You look at the first two games, we didn't get those bounces. You can analyze here everything, these last two games, what we've done better than the previous games, but there is not much. A lot of times it's also about the momentum and the luck to have the bounces going your way. It's as simple as that. You have two teams battling hard, sticking with their systems, believing their systems will work for them. I thought they played exceptionally well the last game, and we got the win. Sometimes there is no particular reason why that happen. We'll take that. Again, like I said, for tonight's game, we just have to make sure that we're playing within our structure, that we don't get too worked up, too loose in our minds that this is going to be easy. This is going to be the toughest one. Q. Pete was saying you almost lost the first round with penalties. Are you a more disciplined team now? How does that play into this, particularly Game5 when it got a little chippy? ADAM HENRIQUE: I think after the first round we realized that we had to stay out of the penalty box and play five‑on‑five to give ourselves a chance to move forward. You saw in other series how, obviously Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. I think a big reason for us to get through that series the way we did was because of our discipline. We stayed out of the penalty box, stayed out of everything after the whistle, focused on our game and played. A lot of people didn't give us a chance in that series either. We played very well. Throughout the whole playoffs, a big key to our success has been playing five‑on‑five. Q. Patrik, you won three Stanley Cups with the Devils in nine years. It's now been nine years since the last one. Given that time gap, the age that you mentioned, if you're able to come all the way back, would it mean almost as much to you as the first one? PATRIK ELIAS: Yeah, no question. Obviously with all the years and experience, you realize how precious it is to be in this situation at all. Especially at this stage of hockey, you're lucky to get in the playoffs now. We look back 10 years ago, there were two teams that were battling for the playoffs spot. Now we have just maybe a handful of teams that are sure to be in the playoffs. It's really a precious moment obviously to be this far. Again, maybe that's what's driving us, all of us. We said that it doesn't happen too often, you never know when it's going to happen. For me personally, this would be unbelievable. I would appreciate it as much as the first one or second one. Q. Adam, if you think about the way you felt heading into Game4, the task in front of you, thinking about heading into this game, what has changed? More confidence? Less pressure? ADAM HENRIQUE: It was nice to get that first one under our belts. Almost a relief. Gave us that confidence. Then to get two, it built the confidence more. But like Patty said earlier, we're two wins closer to where we want to be, but we can't look too far ahead. We have to stay levelheaded, calm, go out there tonight and play our game. We can't look too far ahead. We're still one game away from elimination. We have to go out there tonight, focus on the things that we need to do in our game. We have to play the way that we have that has given us success throughout the playoffs. We can't get away from that. I think the last game we did in the first period, and it showed. Marty kept us in the game really. He made a lot of big saves for us. So tonight we've just got to go out there and play a full 60 minutes right from start to finish. Hopefully we can take this thing back home. PATRIK ELIAS: Good answer (smiling). THE MODERATOR: Thanks, guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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