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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: BRUINS v BLACKHAWKSJune 11, 2013Pete ChiarelliClaude JulienCam NeelyCHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions, please. Q. Peter, I was wondering if you can go back and tell us about the Rask trade, how that happened. PETER CHIARELLI: I was officially the GM at that time, but I was in the stands at the draft. So you'd have to ask the person who was the acting GM at the time. Q. (No microphone.) PETER CHIARELLI: I do have recollection. Again, from the sidelines, and after the fact, in talking to the guys, it was like Tlusty or Rask for Raycroft. There was a lot of discussion at both ends about it. It was decided that it would be Rask from Boston's end. I think they tried to come back and maybe flip that, consider the other guy, who is a good player in Carolina now. Eventually they said no and the deal was done. Wish I could tell you more. Q. The winner of this series will be the first organization in the salary cap era with two Stanley Cup titles. What does that say about each organization? CAM NEELY: From my perspective, it says a lot. It speaks volumes to the types of players from our organization that Pete put together, the type of coaching job that Claude has done. It's really easy to spend to the cap, if the owners allow you. It's making sure you got the right guys. I think Pete has done a really good job of making sure we got the right guys with the right character. Q. Peter, I don't want to sidetrack you, but since we brought up acquiring Rask, Jeff Gorten, was he the man who was responsible for filling in at that time? PETER CHIARELLI: He was the acting GM. Q. Can you say the job he did about acquiring Rask. PETER CHIARELLI: Sure. Mike O'Connell I think did a terrific job with Jeff, that we've got at least half of our roster, I don't know if it's half, but including Marchand, Lucic, Krejci, Thomas at the time. I thought they did a real good job. I've told Mike that. Mike was gone, I was the GM, but Jeff was the interim GM. He executed those trades. Q. Claude, can you talk about your desire to slow down Chicago's transition game, how you get that done. COACH JULIEN: Well, I don't think it's necessarily about slowing them down and sitting back, trying to take away their ice. It's more about making sure we close quickly. I think that's what we did against Pittsburgh, we tried to close quickly. At the same time, closing quickly is one thing, but having numbers back, we know they've got a great transition game. We certainly have to be aware of that. Q. Coach, what have you learned over the years about managing Zdeno's ice time? COACH JULIEN: I learned that you can't slow him down. He's in great shape. The more you give him, the more he likes it. He takes good care of himself between games and recovers extremely well. When you're that size, that well‑conditioned, that strong, it's really hard to slow him down. He's been a real horse for us, continues to be no matter what his age is. Q. Coach, when you look at a tape of Crawford for them, what do you see? What does he do well? COACH JULIEN: Again, I don't think I'm going to start dissecting the opposing goaltender. He's played well in these playoffs. He's a big body. He's had a great year. We recognize that. Q. I noted both you and Joel have been captains of the Windsor Spitfires, one right after the other. Do you have any memories of him back then? COACH JULIEN: Not really. Like I said, I came in afterwards. But I heard a lot about him. He was obviously the captain there at the time, was a great player, local guy. He was viewed as a hero in that town. I followed him the year after he left, halfway through the following year. I got to know him a little bit throughout the years, but that is quite a few years ago. I think we were much younger then. Q. Cam, it's been incredible to see the growth of enthusiasm in hockey in Boston over five years. What was the fan send‑off like this afternoon? CAM NEELY: Our fans have been great. Original six city. They have certain expectations of their hockey clubs. We didn't provide that for a number of years. Last five or six years, we slowly built a championship team. Our fans certainly are ingrained and have deep roots in the Bruins, whether it's grandfather to father, father to son or daughter. We had a couple thousand people show up today to send us off, which was special for the guys. Q. The range of emotions, your honest reflection of down 4‑1 Game 7 Toronto, what you thought at that moment, to being here at the Stanley Cup Final, what that has been like? PETER CHIARELLI: Hopefully Claude was trying to think about winning the game when we were down. We were up in the box. Three‑goal deficit with half the period left is a tough one. I'd be lying if I said I thought we were going to definitely come back. Once we scored the second, there was a definite surge. You could see the momentum turning. You're still kind of sad. Then you could see us starting to roll, thought we had a chance. I've never really seen anything like that, two empty‑net goals. But you could feel it in the building ‑ at least I could. You could feel the momentum and the surge. COACH JULIEN: From my end as the coach, when we went down 4‑1, there's no doubt you start looking at the clock, running out of time. The only thing we talked about was to see if we could get that next goal, get the momentum back, looked at that small picture. Peter is absolutely right, you saw our bench ignite. All of a sudden everybody was pumped up about getting the next one, pushing each other to go after these guys. There's no doubt when you score those two goals, it makes a pretty big difference in your team's overlook on moving forward. We came in that dressing room and we looked at each other and there was no doubt we were going to win that game. There was a sense in that dressing room that you don't come back from a three‑goal deficit and finish it off right. That had a big impact in how we've played since then. CAM NEELY: I went from today's texting world to the feeling of OMG. Then when we won in overtime, the same feeling. You're peeking at the clock. It feels like it's going down faster than you'd like. But, again, go back to my point earlier about the character of the guys, they didn't quit, they didn't give up. Q. Claude, Zdeno Chara was not a finalist in the Norris Trophy. In the playoffs, he has been monumental. Can you explain how he's elevated his game in the post‑season here? COACH JULIEN: I think our whole team has elevated their game. Even when he didn't get the mention in those top three, I said it before, he's always been a Norris Trophy winner for us. You have no idea what this guy does for a hockey club. The few times he's been out of our lineup, you've seen a difference. That's the impact that he has on our hockey club. Again, I think we've had an up‑and‑down second half of a short season. I'm sure that played a role in maybe looking at others for the Norris Trophy. But, again, I don't think it's changed our views on him. He's been an MVP for us since the day he stepped into that dressing room, and continues to be. Q. Claude, with what you did against Toronto in that seventh game, then what you did against Pittsburgh, do you feel like this team is better prepared coming into the finals this year than in 2011? COACH JULIEN: Well, I think you got a different approach. For a lot of those guys, except maybe I think there were two, maybe three, that had a Stanley Cup in our dressing room, the rest of our guys were experiencing it for the first time. It's a much different situation now. We've been through it. You've got to hope that it's going to help as far as the focus, knowing what it takes, maybe not being as nervous. All the things that come with it such as a day like today, they've been through it. Certainly we'll walk through these situations a lot calmer and hopefully more focused. Q. Peter, Chicago needed the seventh game in overtime against Detroit. We just talked about the Toronto situation. What is it about seeing your season flash in front of your eyes and being able to survive it that seems to propel teams to a whole new level, maybe harden the team? PETER CHIARELLI: I think what we tend to do is look at the moment, and destiny gets determined by the moment. When you look at the whole seven‑game series, you have to look at the totality of it. You'd like to think, on balance, we deserve to come out ahead. With seven games, this is a game of margins, a seven‑game series, there's a lot of decisions that are made. Cam spoke about the character of our players. I spoke about our coaching decisions, how he coaches. At the end of the day when you have the right players making decision, the players executing with character, you're going to come out ahead and it's going to propel you. We've been through a lot of Game 7s in the last five years. Q. It's been a long time, Claude, since you played the Hawks. Does that long layoff affect the way you prepare for them? COACH JULIEN: I don't think so. It's the same for both teams, obviously. I think we got a pretty good idea how each other plays. With the same coaches, I don't think the style of play has changed a lot, so I don't think it's going to be an issue. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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