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NHL STANLEY CUP FINAL: PREDATORS VS PENGUINS

June 3, 2017

Peter Laviolette

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Postgame

Nashville - 5, Pittsburgh - 1

THE MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. Did the result of tonight's game simply come down to capitalizing on the chances you were creating or something more to it than that?
PETER LAVIOLETTE: No, I think it was a lot of us just being able to get the puck I think behind him, get more looks, a little bit more traffic, some puck luck. I mean, I don't want to blame the first two losses on puck luck, but it didn't bounce our way all the time. We ended up walking away with nothing.

Today it maybe bounced a little bit more. We found looks we liked. Just a good game offensively.

Q. Can you speak to Roman Josi's performance tonight. Some guys seem to have off nights every once in a while, but he's always on.
PETER LAVIOLETTE: You're absolutely right with your assessment. He's as consistent a player as there is in the National Hockey League. Day in and day out at practice, every game, he gives the same quality performance. He's an excellent 200-foot defenseman. He plays as well in the defensive zone as he does in the offensive zone. We count on him for a lot of situations.

Q. Coach, you gave Zolnierczyk the call tonight. Down 1-0, he has a great shift, gets the penalty for you.
PETER LAVIOLETTE: Yeah, Harry was terrific. When Harry comes in the lineup, he brings speed, he brings energy, he brings physicality. That was a perfect example of it. He put the puck to an area, tried to get a step on the guy, and forced him to take a penalty.

I think we knew what we were getting with Harry, just a different look to our lineup.

Q. Peter, this is the first time ever that both Malkin and Crosby have been held without a shot in a playoff game. What did you see in front of your team that allowed them to kind of limit their chances?
PETER LAVIOLETTE: I'm not really sure exactly. They're two terrific players. I think defensively for the most part we've been pretty good in the series.

To be honest, tonight we probably gave up the most with regard to chances. First game there wasn't much. Second game a little bit more but still not too much. Tonight was just a good back-and-forth game.

If they weren't taking the shots, they were probably making somebody else take the shots. They don't need to actually take it. They see the ice well, bring people towards them, make plays.

Defensively I thought we did a pretty good job in the defensive zone. When we did need saves, I thought Pekka was excellent.

Q. Did you make your decision pretty quickly on Rinne?
PETER LAVIOLETTE: There was no decision, yeah. Just you guys, so... There was no decision on that.

Q. Did you see him gain his confidence?
PETER LAVIOLETTE: Yeah, he was terrific. I said it after Game 2. I said he's been the backbone for our team. He's been excellent. I said it yesterday.

His game tonight was rock solid. He saw the puck well. He moved well. He got out and stopped pucks. He set up pucks for our defensemen. He made timely saves.

Again, the goal, more like the first two games, the goal not really his fault. He caught a tip knuckling puck that came in and caused a ruckus in front. That's an area where we can do a better job in front of him.

Q. With that early goal, a couple penalties you had to kill in the first period, how did your guys stick with it?
PETER LAVIOLETTE: Well, it was tough. Everybody is ready to go. I watched our guys practice yesterday. They were dialed in. They were dialed in this morning. I went out and took a look at the pregame skates. In the meeting, they were dialed in. You have everybody dialed in, and then you give up the first goal. You're in your building for the first Stanley Cup Final game. That's a little difficult.

You heard the fans get going after that. It's almost like they weren't going to let that happen. That was a good boost for us.

I thought the second half of the first period was really good. We started the press. The second period we really pressed, trying to take control.

Q. The fans. Have you ever seen anything like that? On commercial breaks, warmups, everything?
PETER LAVIOLETTE: I mean, inside the building -- I have seen it because I've been here. I think it escalates as the playoffs have gone on from the first round, to the third round, now the Finals. We had downtime in just watching the network. You see all the shots of what's going on outside. It's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

PETER LAVIOLETTE: Thank you, guys.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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