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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: BRUINS v BLACKHAWKSJune 18, 2013Claude JulienBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Practice Day THE MODERATOR: Questions for coach. Q. How many times has Patrice used two other players by your coaching staff as a how to, an example of 'This is the way we need to do it'? COACH JULIEN: Well, there's no doubt he's a great example. As I said, for a coach, you know exactly what you're going to get from him every game. His work ethic, everything that comes with it is second to none. He's often used as a good example because he deserves it. Q. If you could remember back to 2011, can you compare what you guys have done against Chicago in this series to stifle them offensively versus what you did against the Canucks? COACH JULIEN: I think every year you have to look at it differently. I think we've had the challenge of playing teams like Vancouver, Pittsburgh this year, Chicago now, that I just say we have a tremendous amount of respect for their offense. All it is is awareness, knowing if you're going to give yourself a chance to win, you've got to try to slow down that offense. Our guys have committed to that. That doesn't mean we haven't provided any offense because the scoring chances are there, but there's a great commitment to that right now. That's what we've did two years ago, that's what we've done so far, and that's what we've got to continue to do if we expect to continue to win. Q. Are you a believer in symbolism? If so, how much of a symbol is Gregory Campbell to the 2013 Bruins in the playoffs? COACH JULIEN: Well, I think he exemplifies a lot of what we're all about. I've said it before. We take pride in being a blue‑collar team. We don't care about calling certain guys superstars on our team. We all want to be on the same level. There's no doubt there's great players on our hockey club. We make sure that the role players are just as important as the guys that are more visible to the media and to our fans as far as being the limelight of our hockey club. But having said that, that's how we've always been. You've seen it in the times where guys a few years ago had that jacket, now a different one this year. It's moved around our team for different reasons. It just goes to show how we appreciate everything. I guess that would be more of our symbol versus just a one guy. But there's no doubt, we're happy to see him. He came in yesterday for the first time since we came back. Not only were the guys happy to see him, but they made him feel very welcome by getting on him shortly after he made his presence in the dressing room. Q. How did they get on him? COACH JULIEN: They just jab him. I think he came in in shorts yesterday. He was well‑dressed, but looked like a guy on vacation, according to the guys. They just gave him a jab. But he's a guy we dearly miss. We've seen him do so many good things for our hockey club. It was a big loss when he got injured. But we're kind of fortunate. We talk about depth. Some guys have stepped in and done a good job. Like anything else, you don't replace the individual; you try and work around it. Q. Speaking of the jacket, we see Dennis Seidenberg wearing it last night. Clearly the last three years we've seen how good he's been. Before he got here, he was on four different teams in five seasons. What allowed him to fit in so well here? COACH JULIEN: I think our guys that scouted him, that's upper management, had noticed one thing: that he always played well in big games, had the great stats. I don't talk about offensive stats, but stats as far as being dependable, being at his best. The bigger the games were, the better he became. So they recognized that. Coming in here I think he became a good fit with our hockey club. Every year in the playoffs, he becomes a horse, as well. You can't tire him out. He wears guys down. He's strong physically. You can give him as much ice time as you do to Zdeno. He's capable of handling that. He's been a good addition to our hockey club. The credit, as far as I'm concerned, goes to our pro scouts. Q. Based on what you've seen, the style of play, the system, do you sense that Chicago is getting a little bit frustrated as evidenced by taking bad penalties? COACH JULIEN: I don't know. I think emotions are part of the Stanley Cup Finals. I think when you're at this stage, there's a lot of emotions. I think, if anything, the emotions have been checked pretty good so far in this series. We took a penalty, first penalty of the game, Daugavins, an elbowing penalty. When you look at those things, you got to be disciplined, you got to be careful that you don't let the emotions get the better of you. There's times in the game when those kind of things happen. You saw it in the scrum. You saw it at different times. You have to try to keep your team in check as best you can. As far as I'm concerned, that's what I'm trying to do with my team. Maybe you get a better look at their bench, what's happening there, but I don't. Q. How much of the chess match directly revolves around Chara? Does it have a ripple effect even when he's not on the ice? COACH JULIEN: Well, I just think that's part of hockey. I mean, you have matchups, sometimes teams will match their forward lines against other forward lines. I know back not that many years ago, every team had to build a third line, more of a defensive, shut‑down lines, that would play top lines. That's kind of gone away. I guess in this new NHL, scoring is something that we're trying to create. Now you're trying to get more than two lines that can score, you're trying to get a third line. We built our team with that energy line as our fourth line, a line that can still score. Nonetheless, that's changed a little bit. It depends. In our case, I put a lot of faith and confidence in our players up front. You'll see most of our matchups from the back end versus the front end. Q. You had an impressive outing from your reshaped third line last night. After watching that trio, what do you think makes them so successful? COACH JULIEN: I just think the way they work together. You know, you look at the goal yesterday, great forechecking job forces a turnover. A guy in the open. Once the turnover is there, pass to the slot, good shot. But also staying on top of the puck, we won two battles right after that shot in order to score that goal. They just seem to be working well together. A lot of credit goes to them. I'm just a little ticked off that I didn't put them together sooner. Q. Claude, Chris Kelly was saying after the game yesterday part of what makes their line successful is Tyler's maturation into a complete player. Where is Tyler in that process of being a two‑way player? COACH JULIEN: I kind of answered that question yesterday as far as saying that he's a player that hasn't scored much in these playoffs. What he's realized is that just because you don't score doesn't mean you can't be a good player. He's been a good player because he's competed hard in all areas of the ice. Everybody is talking about how he's evolved defensively, and he has, but it hasn't taken away from his offense even if he's not scoring. He's got chances. When you look at the number of shots he's had, he's got 'em. But he's making plays, the winning goal for Paille in Game2. Those are all things that he's bringing to the table. At the same time I'm seeing a player's demeanor change as well as far as his preparation, understanding more. That's a normal thing that you see with all young players coming into the league. It takes time. He's been fortunate enough in his first year to be around the guys winning the Stanley Cup in 2011. He's had a bit of an edge maybe that way of going far through the last few years. I see a change in him, no doubt, more in his demeanor. As I said the other day, he asked me that question, What can I do to help our team here? I know I'm not scoring. Basically just told him to keep working and keep making things happen. That's what he's done. Sometimes stats can say certain things, but it doesn't say everything. Right now I'm pleased with his outings lately. Q. When you talk about slowing down the Blackhawk attack, when you were game planning, was there something you wanted to do with Patrick Kane? Was there something specific you wanted to do to neutralize that? COACH JULIEN: I don't think we've targeted anybody that way. What we do as a team is we target the other team. What I mean by that is, we have to close the gaps quickly. Anytime a team has a transition game like the Chicago Blackhawks have, great skaters, speed, skill, it's important we close quickly. If you just focus on one guy, you're forgetting somebody else. That's the approach we've taken. That's the approach that works best for our hockey club. Q. You've had a couple of situations against the Blackhawks and the Penguins where the goalie was pulled, you were trying to protect the lead. Jagr was part of your group. COACH JULIEN: First of all, we had a tired bench. We got scrambling near the end. As far as I'm concerned Jagr has a good stick. He doesn't panic under pressure. I thought it was a good time for him. Obviously we went through three rotations when they had their goaltender pulled. I needed almost everybody out there. He's got experience, is a reliable guy, knows what he needs to do. Maybe in hindsight it would have been nice for him to get a goal, too. Is that what you were hoping (smiling)? Okay, I said it. Q. Could you talk a little bit about coming back on home ice and just the feel of that, what it does for the team, your home fans. COACH JULIEN: Well, you're always more comfortable at home. There's no doubt about that. We got to be careful how we use the word 'comfortable' because you don't want to get too comfortable. Having your fans behind you is always key. I think they always talk about that seventh player award. Your fans are often the people that you I guess appreciate for being that. This is a building here that we deem as our home, a home that we don't want any other team to be comfortable in. It's important for us to continue to play the way we did last night. We played a pretty solid game. No matter how you look at it, when you're playing a team like the Blackhawks, they're going to get their chances. Just have to minimize those things. Q. Obviously there's nothing anybody can do to reverse the events of a couple of months ago. With the run you're on, with what you're doing, is it possible for a team to, in some small way, help a city heal from something like that? COACH JULIEN: I think we can help in probably a large way. Everybody is looking right now for something to cheer about, smile about. I guess it doesn't fix the things or the people that have been lost. That will never be fixed. At the same time you have to try to heal. As much as the city itself has been touched by that, so have we as a team. I've known for a long time, that's all we talked about in the dressing room. It really hit us hard. Right now we got to focus on doing our job and trying to stay focused on that so that in the end you hope that you can make that happen. But right now it's got to be about us before we can even think about that. If we think about ourselves, the job we need to do, hopefully the rest takes care of itself. Q. Just the complexities you face as a coach when you're trying to manage the team behind the bench, line changes in particular we've seen too many men on the ice. Can you speak to how it becomes even more difficult in the playoffs with injuries and whatnot that kind of crop up, force you to switch on the fly? COACH JULIEN: Well, I don't think you want to blame too many men on the ice because of that, because players play in different positions. When you look at the too many men on than the ice, it's either a guy coming to the bench, halfway through he waves that he's coming off, he turns around. That's not something you want to accept. There's times, too, where the puck is coming towards your bench when we're changing. You saw that in the first game in Chicago. Those are things that happen. There's a lot of intensity. Nobody wants to be caught shorthanded out there. There's a lot of noise in the building, too. Coaches are calling lines, they're calling something. It's the guys at the other end of the bench, he didn't quite hear you. Those things happen. You have to try to minimize those things. It's getting harder than it used to be, there's no doubt there. Q. (No microphone.) COACH JULIEN: Yeah, no, I call out the line changes.  The responsibility is mine. I don't think we've ever been caught with too many men on the ice because I've called four guys up front instead of three, okay, because I know how to count (laughter). But it has happened when somebody's daydreaming at the other end of the bench, and my arm is not long enough to pull him back in. Q. It seems in this series you have a couple of big power play goals so far. It almost seems like the guys that are out there are determined to make something happen, to take advantage of the chances. Has there been maybe a slightly more aggressive approach to it in this series so far? COACH JULIEN: No, I don't think so. I think when you look at some of the other power plays, there were some that we didn't get much on 'em in other series, or even in this series here. For the most part I think what you've seen is when you add a guy like Jagr, when you put a guy like Krug, who is extremely good on the power play, you've plugged in some certain holes or added to that depth. Now you have a second power play that can do the same kind of thing. There's a lot of things that have happened, like at the trade deadline, guys called up, that's really kind of stabilized, helped us on the power play. Even yesterday, we get that one goal, but we had a couple other chances, had to create shots on net, pucks around the net. We had our opportunities. Our power play right now is maybe not perfect, but it's a lot better. At this stage of the season, where we've seen power plays really struggle, not just this year, but in the past years. I'm pretty happy with it. Q. Teams are always reluctant to give out too much injury information, usually upper or lower body. Was it like that when you first started coaching and why is it like that now, not giving the other team too much information? COACH JULIEN: I think so. It's normal. Everybody is suspecting now about Hossa, everybody suspected about Horton. I think if it's something that doesn't put your player in danger, I don't see why you shouldn't talk about it. There's times where you have to protect your players, and I understand it. I know it's frustrating for you guys as media. You're trying to share that information. The most important thing for us, we can take the heat for that, is protecting your players. I respect that from other teams. When you're playing against each other, stuff like that, you know exactly where everybody is coming from. That's basically what it is. I'll share one with you. Yesterday in a warmup.  Zdeno Chara fell down, got a cut over the eye. I'll let you know about that. That's not a hidden injury. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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