NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: AVALANCHE v RED WINGS

May 17, 2002

Tomas Holmstrom

Kirk Maltby

Fredrik Olausson

TOMAS HOLMSTROM: I'm going to play my game and that's being in front of him, of course, and he's a good goalie and he likes to stand up, so I think we have to have lots of traffic to be successful with him, yeah.

TOMAS HOLMSTROM: You want to talk about it?

FREDIK OLAUSSON: I haven't watched any games, so I wouldn't know.

TOMAS HOLMSTROM: I have been watching, and yeah, he's been really good, put on lots of points, and one of the best players in the league. It's pretty impressive being off the whole regular season, play one game, and come in and dominate, and so, you know, we have to try to shut him down in some way.

KIRK MALTBY: Well, I mean, he's obviously one of the better players in the league, and at least -- especially all around, you know, in the later stage of his career, he does pretty much everything offensively, defensively, block shots. In the dressing room he's not a real rah-rah guy. But when certain situations arise, when something needs to be said, he definitely is one of the guys if not the guy that steps up and, you know, talks to the guys, and, you know, this year a perfect example after Game 2 here against Vancouver, losing both games. We were on the ropes. He kept everyone settled and led by example. That's what you need from your captain and best player, so he just does it all.

KIRK MALTBY: Well, I don't think so as far as between us and Colorado. I think it's, you know, that rivalry that was there a few years ago is kind of just down to competitiveness between two good teams and I think hopefully when you're out there, and especially with Tomas being in front of the net, he takes quite a beating. If you're going to take the shots and punches and slashes, you hope the referees call it. You just ask for some consistency from that standpoint and leave it in the referee's hands and play hard.

KIRK MALTBY: I won't say warm and fuzzy. It's about respect. We know what each team is capable of doing. A lot of it gets blown out of proportion as far as the hatred and blood spill, and I think players that were involved in that are gone, moved on to other teams. The ones that are still here want to go on to the next round. I think it's two very good teams trying to move on and win. I think there is respect there and I think there is a lot more respect there than there is any type of hatred or anything like that.