On any similarities between the Kings and Blackhawks:
“Both teams have recently won Stanley Cups would be the biggest one.”
On the impact of Chicago capitalizing on a poor Detroit line change in winning Game 7:
“You leave it to Game 7, there’s three or four things that always come into it. One is a surprise play – which that is – during a game. Officiating and injuries, surprise plays, bad goals.”
On whether he prepared for Chicago before knowing if Los Angeles would play them:
“I think every team this year based on the Blackhawks start to the season, everybody prepared at some point to play the Blackhawks because they knew that they were going to be a home-ice team. That’s what everybody did, not just us.”
On whether the team prepares any differently for back-to-back road playoff games:
“Not any way differently. I think we’re focused on an afternoon game on Saturday and not really looking ahead. Obviously we know the schedule based on Saturday-Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday-Monday. But most important will be Saturday afternoon.”
On the margin of winning and losing on the road:
“I think there’s been three overtime games. We’ve won one, and San Jose won one and St. Louis won one. And one was won by St. Louis in the last minute. So what’s the difference? Not much.”
On the most important thing Slava Voynov has done in the playoffs:
“He got to play minutes for us. He’s a young player on our team, but heplayed minutes last year in the playoffs – meaning serious minutes – with Willie Mitchell, and he’s got to do it with Rob Scuderi. We have to rely on him as an experienced player, not an inexperienced player, and it can’t be just where an exp;erienced partner is carrying him. He’s got to pull his weight.”
On whether he was happy with the energy at practice after a draining Game 7:
“If we had played tomorrow, we would’ve had a full practice – but we don’t play ‘til Saturday. I’m not really looking at energy today. Try and get ready for Saturday. It’s a long stretch of games again.”
On what it says about the league that the remaining teams are the last four Cup winners:
“I think it says something about the organizations. It’s got nothing to do with the league. There’s one or two teams that have made the playoffs once since salary cap era came in. So, it says more about the organizations, I think, and quite honest, last night, that was the five teams, not just the four. It tells you something about the ability to sustain and how hard it is to win it, quite honest, when it’s continually different teams but you can stay in the top and you can be a playoff team when you have an opportunity.”
On the environment at the United Center:
“It’s a great environment. I coached when we moved from the Chicago Stadium to the United Center in the last 48-game season and we got beat in the conference finals that year. It’s a great environment, and the reason it’s a great environment is because you have good hockey teams, and when you don’t have good hockey teams, you don’t have a good environment.”
On whether he enjoyed playing and coaching in Chicago:
“Yep. Young guy, old guy, single guy, married guy, with children. Lots of sports. Two baseball teams. Football team. A great basketball team. A really good hockey team. So I enjoyed it, yeah.”
On how he keeps the team from developing a level of anxiety in the playoffs:
“I think you drop the anxiety. There’s no anxiety in it. I mean, we’re one of four teams still playing, and that’s how you pursue it or how you stay in the moment with it. It’s just that.”
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