On the “factors” in the Los Angeles – San Jose series:
The team that wins four games is going to win the series. [Reporter: Does it come down, though, to smaller details?] I think…[that’s] not specific to this series. I think every series comes down to that.
On referencing how close the teams are after winning Game 7 last year:
There are a lot of similarities when you do it, not just this year – last year, last few years, regular season, playoffs. There are a lot of similarities in the two teams…and both teams have done really well, when you look at it. It’s close, I think.
On whether San Jose could offer a surprise despite how much Los Angeles has seen them:
I don’t think system-wise that either team is going to do that because of how good they are. There’s a reason you get here, and there are reasons you have such good regular seasons, and there are reasons that you have playoff spots clinched with a few games left. I mean, what happens at playoff time, a lot of times what separates winners and losers is not the team part of it. It’s the individual part of it. So there’s somebody that steps up and goes to another level or somebody that doesn’t, but it’s usually at the end when you call it a surprise or whatever that is. That’s usually what happens.
On his comfort of rolling four lines:
Well, if there’s one difference in the teams throughout the year, is clearly the lineups weren’t the same throughout the year. It’s probably fair in the regular season, but I don’t know if that’s fair in the playoffs because if teams are healthy, then generally their top checker plays against a top player, or a top defensemen plays against a top offensive player – that line match-up, however it may be. We match up down the middle, we think, with them, and the Sharks have the ability of moving Pavelski to that third line, to that center position, if they want. So if they do it, then we have to be ready for that. We still feel that with Stoll and Kopi and Mike and Lewie that we can match up there.
On Los Angeles and San Jose’s puck possession tendencies:
Well, that’s a good thing for both teams. That’s the game that everybody’s trying to play. That’s why both teams are successful. I know you guys are into that now for whatever reason, so if it’s a one percent or two percent difference, at the end of the night, you’ll go, ‘Oh, that’s the difference.’ One percent. Hockey percentages – some of them are not very good when you look at it. You can be 52%, or you can actually be 20%. If you look at all of them, some of the stats, if it’s just based on that, are not very good.
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