NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: MAPLE LEAFS v HURRICANES

May 21, 2002

Curtis Joseph

Alyn McCauley

CURTIS JOSEPH: Well, Rick Ley is very capable. He's coached the guys this year in Washington and we got a big win. Obviously, our thoughts and prayers are with Pat, but tonight was a game that we wish we had won.

CURTIS JOSEPH: Let's hope it's nothing serious. I don't know what the status is, but Alex is a very creative player and a very talented player. We don't want to lose him.

CURTIS JOSEPH: Maybe a prelude to a goal there, with a little scrambling. It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate, what happened. I think Francis made a pretty good play.

CURTIS JOSEPH: No theories. No theories for me. We played a tight game, but I'm not sure.

CURTIS JOSEPH: There's why they call it a seven-game series. It's been really close, all three games. Unfortunately the last two didn't go our way and we have to be better. We are close, but we've got to make it count.

CURTIS JOSEPH: No. Not with what this team has been through. My guess is it shouldn't be.

CURTIS JOSEPH: Well, we've faced elimination a few times and we've come up with big games. We are facing a tough task, no doubt, and we've got to come out with a strong effort.

CURTIS JOSEPH: You just hope that you can follow the puck and know where it goes. It was shot from a point and I think their player got a little deflection on it and may have moved out of desperation and I was lucky it hit my stick.

CURTIS JOSEPH: I touched it -- I would have to look at it, I just tried to get over there and get some piece of equipment over there. Fortunately it hit my stick.

CURTIS JOSEPH: When I came to the rink today. We were told there was going to be a meeting and what it was about.

CURTIS JOSEPH: I can't speak for everybody, but my guess is we're going to come out strong the next game. Educated guess.

ALYN McCAULEY: Yeah, a number of times we were down. We lost the first game in the Ottawa series 5-0 and came back swinging and played our best game at that point. It just seems like when this team is faced with some adversity or is figured to be down and out we come out with our best effort, so hopefully that will continue.

ALYN McCAULEY: Yeah, but a couple of bounces in the first game and we could be down 3-0. So I guess we'll take our medicine a little bit. We've fought hard and just haven't gotten the break when we needed it in overtime in this series, yet, but maybe it's going to help us down the road and make us more a determined team and maybe a more patient team in future games.

ALYN McCAULEY: I don't think so. I don't think it helps that you are without your head coach, but I don't think like we were handicapped or disrupted. It didn't affect our penalty killing and our play units and our lines, and I think our guys were ready when we needed to make changes. It didn't seem to make life difficult for us at all out there. It's too bad that he's in the hospital and resting, but that's what he needs to do. Hopefully he can get well. And don't worry about us, we'll be fine.

ALYN McCAULEY: I know that Ward threw it up to someone, I'm not sure if it was Francis or someone else, and one of our defensemen fell down. Kaberle was on the left side and moved over to Francis and the puck kind of bounced around his feet. I got back to pick up Kapanen and tried to stab at the puck because it went to O'Neill and then it ended up in the back of the net.