NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: MIGHTY DUCKS v DEVILS

May 29, 2003

Pat Burns

COACH BURNS: It's one of them. I'll put it that way. It's one of them. I get asked that question a lot. It's very hard to say which game is better, the circumstances who you're playing against, it all comes into line. We played well the other night and I thought we played well again tonight.

COACH BURNS: I think we're playing the way we played all year. We're being patient. We're not being impatient. We're not trying to do things that are not us, and we're generating offense from it and that's why we're getting those chances. Whether I'm impressed or not, I'll be impressed if we win it.

COACH BURNS: You never know what to expect in any kind of series. You don't know how things are going to go. People ask you before the series how do you think it's going to be. You don't know it will until it's played. If you were to ask me before the series you would have had two shoutouts, I would have said, yeah, right. You're surprised. Marty's been great. We deserve it.

COACH BURNS: We had to. We knew they were going to come out better and do a couple things different and we adjusted to it. It's normal and everybody is going to get better as it goes on. We're going to have to be ready.

COACH BURNS: Grant, since we've acquired him, has definitely been always in the mix of everything. He doesn't grab a whole bunch of points. He might get that first hit and do something in the corner to get the puck. If there was three assists, he probably would have a lot of assists. He goes to the net hard.

COACH BURNS: You're as good as your last game you played and tonight they were good. In a Stanley Cup Finals in a performance you can go a long way with one game. Again, I don't know -- I wouldn't really know how to answer to say what went on during the year. We go game to game. They're in there and they played well tonight and you have to give them credit.

COACH BURNS: Your concentration level has to be really up. In those situations, we keep a lot of the shots to the outside and he doesn't have to work a whole lot, so I think when the chance does come or if we do make an error, which will happen, he has to come up big, and he has certainly done that. He made one great save.

COACH BURNS: I don't think we say, okay, first period we're going to be so-so; second period we'll be better, third period we'll be even better. We try to play three good periods. It happens to be the last two seconds were good. It could be their team wasn't as good in the first it could be through.

COACH BURNS: Don't talk to me about Sykora. I wasn't here. I don't know how they played together.

COACH BURNS: I'll know when it's all over whether it's right. We have a team, though, you can't go out of the element of the team. If you do, you're going to get yourself in trouble. The team doesn't play like that. If you play with a team that goes wide open, go wide open. We're not a wide open team.

COACH BURNS: I don't know who conceded it, but Marty has definitely been one of the players that's been one of the reasons why we're here. Who that's going to go to, that's tough to say. There is a lot of hockey left. We've only won two games, there is a lot of hockey left.