|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: KINGS v BLACKHAWKSMay 22, 2014Ben SmithLOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Practice Day Q. Coming off the game last night. Losses happen in the playoffs, but the way you lost, any concern about that? BEN SMITH: Well, the sun rose this morning. Obviously we're not happy with what happened in the last 22 minutes or so. You know, that stuff happens. It's up to us to learn from it, move forward from it, make sure that it doesn't happen again. Q. Do you have to have a short memory or do you want something like that to linger in your mind? BEN SMITH: We want the pain we felt to sink in. Having said that, we want to move forward and know that for a good portion of that game, you know, we were in control, we were playing well. If we focus on that, try and bring that for 60 minutes, it puts us in a good spot to win games. You know, learn from it for sure, try and move forward. Q. Losing home ice, is that significant? BEN SMITH: Yeah, I mean, you always want to win on home ice. We've had some success on home ice before yesterday. What can you do? We have to go out there and win a game in L.A. for sure. It's something that we've done before. Being able to draw from that experience is nice. You know, it's one of those things where you have to move on, as I said before, try and win Game3. Q. Did you expect this to be a long series? BEN SMITH: Yeah, they're a team that's won before. They've only gotten better since then. A tough challenge. We knew that coming into it. You want it to be easy, but it never is, this time of year especially. We like the challenge. We're excited for two big games here in L.A. Q. You know your head coach better than we know him. Do you anticipate more line changes? BEN SMITH: It's hard to say. Things were shuffled up there in the third period. Who knows what will happen come Saturday. I think we're all willing to do whatever it takes to win. Whatever happens Saturday with the lineup, we'll see if they're shuffled or not. I can't tell you because usually it's a surprise for us, too. Q. What will it be like having Shaw back? BEN SMITH: It will be huge. He's a guy that brings a lot of energy. His presence in the room, his presence on the ice, his physicality. His energy mostly is the biggest thing. Having him back would be nice. Q. Have you thought, How the hell did that happen? BEN SMITH: I think we know why that happened. We got away from our game, took some penalties. We have a great power play. Then we had to take some chances there to try to get back in the game. It happened quickly. Obviously we weren't happy about it. Maybe just need to show a bit more passion there and a bit more just competitiveness there in the last 20 minutes like we had shown in the first 40. We know we can be better, and we're going to work on that and make sure that happens on Saturday. Q. Is there anything that the leaders of the team either said or did that kind of set the tone to not overreact, or does the whole team know by this time it's just one game? Anything the leaders did or didn't do that set a tone? BEN SMITH: It was a little bit of both. It's one game; you move on from it. It's only Game2. We're still in a good spot. We're tied in the series heading to L.A. You know, it's one of those things. But also it's something we want to learn from. We want to be more hungry. We want to have a little more edge to our game. I think that would make a big difference. Just be angrier out there. Play with more compete and find a way to finish games, especially when we put ourselves in a good spot over the first 40 minutes. Q. Do you know that as a team or does that come from your leadership? BEN SMITH:  I think we know that as a team, but leadership definitely reinforced that last night after the game. That's something they do so well. We want to stop the bleeding before it gets worse. I think we're confident as a group that we'll bounce back in Game3, have a solid effort, hopefully give ourselves a chance to win the game. Q. (Question regarding passes.) BEN SMITH: That second period with the long change, you always have to be ready coming out on the ice. For us it worked twice. Something we look to do. I don't think it's a main key for us going into the game, but it worked twice last night. Just trying to find a way to get guys with speed through the neutral zone, get scoring chances from that. Q. Do you find the defense are skilled at making that? BEN SMITH: We're pretty fortunate to have the group of defensemen we have back there. Their vision, their skating, just their overall ability. We've got a great D corps. We're fortunate to have them. Q. Quick says if he sees it, he'll stop it. Did you fool him? BEN SMITH: I'm not sure. I guess I saw the guy coming on me and I tried to get off quickly. Maybe it just surprised him that I got it off quickly, didn't try to skate in a bit farther. Hard to say. He made some big stops after that. That's what he does. He gives his team a chance to win every night. I've seen that in prep school, in college, and now here. I've played against him at a lot of levels, seen him make some big saves. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|