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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: BRUINS v PENGUINSMay 31, 2013Claude JulienPITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: Practice Day CLAUDE JULIEN:  I think we are all excited. It's been a good week but it's time for this series to get going. Q. After the last few years, do you have a better sense of how fortunate you are‑‑ CLAUDE JULIEN: There's no doubt. We all know that there's parity in this league, and I think as some of the people have mentioned, it's a little ironic that the last four Stanley Cup championship teams are here, because the way the league is right now, that's something that's pretty hard to see happen. In our case, we have experienced it, like you said. The year after the Stanley Cup, it's hard. You need a little bit of luck but it's pretty obvious you need to be playing your best hockey of the season at this time, and that's why we're here right now. I think our best game has showed up, especially in the second round. Q. How did you experience this week as far as dealing with the lay‑off? CLAUDE JULIEN: Well, we have been through it a few times, and some of it, I mean, we have learned from it. I remember beating Montréal four straight and having the 11 days off and we came back against Carolina, I think it was, and we just weren't ready for that series. By the time we got ourselves going, the damage had been done, so a little too late. You kind of learn from those situations; as coaches, as players, and everything else, and you made sure that you don't make those things repeat itself. I think our guys have done a great job. As I said this week, I like the way our team has practiced this week, and to me we look like a group that's ready to start the years. Q. What do you remember from that about how to prevent rust from setting in? CLAUDE JULIEN: A lot of it is mind‑set. A lot of it is‑‑ it's not so much that you give days off, because we gave a couple of days off and our guys looked great on the third day. It's more about the mind‑set. It's more for us to make sure we take the right approach with players to not let them slip out of that playoff mode. So, I mean, from a coach's point of view, you learn how to handle yourself and what approach and the demeanor that you have, and as players, same thing. You can go home and understand how to kind of turn the page from playing to getting some rest and being able to get back to yourself once you start practicing again and get right back into the groove. I don't think we did that that year I talked about. Q. If the other team like Pittsburgh has been sitting around, too, does that sort of cancel it out? CLAUDE JULIEN: They have been through it before, I'm sure, as well. For me‑‑ I don't think it's an issue at all, for both teams, when you're this far. We're ready and both teams are experienced teams. I can talk about our team here in our first years when we were making the playoffs, I think it was the second year that that happened and we were still a young team learning. So you hear about that and how teams that have been around the block a few times are usually better at handle that. Both teams here, Pittsburgh and ourselves, have been around the block. They have been bounced out of the first round quite a few times and we've had our share of it, as well. Right now, we are where we want to be and I'm sure both teams will be ready. Q. The defense with some of your checking line forwards, do you feel like that when you're on the road, the matchups are not as big of a deal? CLAUDE JULIEN: I wouldn't say it's not a big deal. It is to a certain extent. But you know you're not going to get the perfect match up on the road, that's for sure, and even at home. Teams kind of switch on the fly and everything else. So I don't know that anybody gets that perfect match up. It's a bit of juggling from coaches and how adamant they are about the matchups and everything else. But you know, I know for a fact that it's a lot easier as far as defensemen are concerned than lines against lines. You know, when you have to change just one, maybe two guys, versus a whole line, it's a lot better. Sometimes you have to have trust in your lines that they can do the job and then we have seen that on our team where our fourth line has been paired up against the other team's top line and they know who is out there when they are out there and they make sure that they do the job properly and don't give them scoring chances. Q. Are you able to address the health of your lineup and what options you have? CLAUDE JULIEN: Not really, no. There's some decisions that we're going to make tomorrow. Could be game time. But there are some decisions to be made, and that's the beauty of it; that we have decisions we can make. But certainly not going to tip my hand here and start telling you guys who is in or who is out, because that's the advantage we have in the playoffs, and you want to make sure you take that. Q. Can you talk about the play of the three youngsters in various parts of that series against the Rangers, the confidence level you have, given what they showed? CLAUDE JULIEN: Well, they showed that they can certainly hold their own, and there's no doubt in that last years, had it not been for them, playing at that level, we might not be standing here today. You know, and that was something that I'm sure everybody kind of wondered how we would react to that, but those guys, all three of them, we're talking about all three of them, did a wonderful job. They were poised in those kind of situations. Not only that, but they produced for us: From Hamilton making great plays on those power plays, Zdeno's (ph) goal in New York and obviously Krug scoring all those goals and Bartkowski scoring, as well. They didn't just fill in a spot, but they also helped us win some hockey games. Q. Inaudible. CLAUDE JULIEN: Well, honestly, I would say it's still the same, from our perspective, anyway. We are really focused on how we have to play. Having said that, you can't just turn the page and say, let's not worry about the Penguins here. They do have skill, high‑end skill, and a guy that can do damage. That goes back to worrying about your game, how well you're going to play defensively: Are you going to give them opportunities by being sloppy or making the mistakes with puck management, are you going to be good and make sure you minimize that stuff. That's what I mean by it's always important at this stage of the year when you're down to four teams, teams that are there are usually pretty good teams and believe in themselves. So we have to believe in ourselves here that we can do the job knowing that, again, like I said, they have got some high‑powered guys, and we are not just talking about one or two here. We are talking about a lot of guys that can score goals on their team. Q. They haven't seen Krug particularly on power play‑‑ having someone like that in this series that you have not necessarily seen during the regular season? CLAUDE JULIEN: Well, let's clarify one thing here. We are not comparing Malkin to Krug, right? Just making sure we are on the same page here. Yeah, you're talking about the unknown and there's no doubt, I think maybe they don't know as much about Krug as we know about Malkin. We have played against him before and he has not been in the lineup. That just means that it's another guy on our team that is certainly a good player, but we know how he plays and we know what he does and we know what he's capable of doing damage‑wise and so on. Even if he has not played against us this year, I don't think that's going to be an issue. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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