NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: HURRICANES v RED WINGS

June 8, 2002

Paul Maurice

COACH MAURICE: Talking over the course of the game or after the loss?

COACH MAURICE: It's a tough loss no hiding that one. I thought -- through the first 3 periods we were real pleased with our game, and we didn't played a little bit back on our heels in the fourth period but then in 5 and 6, again, we're playing the game we want to play, it is a tough loss, no question about that. We won't try to avoid it the next 24 hours either and we are not going to run into the room with the pom-poms saying it's all right because nobody feels like that. You grieve for the appropriate amount of time. We have been in tough spots before, and I expect that we'll come back and play the same game that we played in the first three periods that we played tonight. We played a hell of a game, came up with a lot of jump and fire, we kept that right to the end. Nobody is at fault on the last one. It is a great tip. Nobody out of position, everybody where they supposed to be, they catch a break. Like I said, I think the fourth period we were a little back on our heels but survived it then came back and had some great chances.

COACH MAURICE: Obviously it's concern, but we have given up 3 now we scored two. Seems to be a lot of goals in the last minute. It's 5 on 5 at that point and it is tough taking away the shooting lane (inaudible) goes "D" to"D" to the point you can favor that point a lot, but Lidstrom going to pull to the inside on you, you let the shot go through. He did what he had to do, forced him to take a slow snapper to the net. Just one of those things we scored some at the end of the game where we got a bounce and came out to an open guy, pretty excited about it, but it was tough.

COACH MAURICE: Three games tied going into the third now, and there's not a lot -- the fourth period I think there's more of an emotional problem than -- not emotional problem, fourth period we were back on our heels. But I don't get a lot of complaints about how hard the team played tonight. They played about as hard as they can as they should at this time of year, and got a lot of faith in the guys in that room. Really do. Hey, we went in and won the first game in their building in overtime; they come in, done the same thing, that's all it is.

COACH MAURICE: It was a bit of a sense of that because we -- with the exception of again period 4, 5 and 6 we had some pretty fine chances right down the pipe, and couldn't get it to go, and -- but you guys obviously have your own sense of how the game went - depends which jersey you have under your T-shirts, but I like the way our team played in 5 and 6 and 1, 2 and 3. Heard the iron rattle a few times - more than I'd like to - but we played -- fellows played hard, both teams played hard, no question about that. We played a pretty strong game.

COACH MAURICE: Crowd was great. I thought at this point I think -- I thought we would -- thought I'd get the question did we come out too fired up based on the two boarding penalties we took in the first. I thought that was a good thing. You kill them off, but that intensity that the crowd brings out in your hockey team, it didn't cost you in the penalties because they didn't score but it really drove the game for us. You guys will get the Final stats before I will, but I would think we had a fair number of hits tonight. I thought we were banging pretty good especially early there were some big hits early, and crowd here is great. For some of you that's your first feel of it, I thought we tried to wear them out there. They'd keep it going for 6 periods. That wasn't too bad. They were working hard at the end.

COACH MAURICE: It was quite a bit different after the first, and I guess the straight answer is no. We'll go from there. I mean, I think it got to the point there that obviously a man's game at times there at the end because there was some wild stuff going on behind the goal line at both ends of the rink. Then we got a stick powerplay and holding penalty. This could have been called 50 times for our powerplay, hey, that's the way it is. We got a break there, but I think it was probably just to even it up.

COACH MAURICE: Andy VanHellemond and Murphy, I think have been honest as they possibly can be, guys on the ice have to call the game. Each game takes on its own tone. I'd prefer that. Obviously I would prefer that there weren't quite as many 4-on-4's. I think their team is looking for that. I think -- and it is an easy call to make, the 4-on-4 call, it's not something that we'd like to see. I think that unless they start swinging at each other, just they will sort it out. They will decide they are going to fight or not. I just would rather not see as many of those from our point of view. That's the honest answer. We don't want to play 4-on-4s against that team. I think they are very aware of that, Detroit is anyway.