NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: WILD v MIGHTY DUCKS

May 9, 2003

Sergei Zholtok

SERGEI ZHOLTOK: Yeah, it seems like we don't have any time to rest, but at the same time, I like it because I think the emotions are very high right now. We're really positive, confident and hope it's going to carry over to the next series.

SERGEI ZHOLTOK: You're always hoping maybe their goalie gets a bad night of sleep and we get a few goals right away, but to be honest, it's like the game of hockey, you just take it the way it is. You're not focussing too much on the opposition team. You're trying to prepare yourself as much as you can for the upcoming games, and I think we have been doing a pretty good job so far.

SERGEI ZHOLTOK: If you think it was a long meeting, you would be surprised if you see how some other meetings are, but he's a great coach. He always finds the right words to say it and the right time, and this morning -- I mean, this afternoon he finds some good words to make sure we focus. We just finished a game it seems like a few hours ago. Not many guys have had a good night's sleep last night. Obviously, everybody was so excited, and right away coming back, a long flight, it's really easy to lose the composure, lose a little bit. You don't want to be too excited for the next game. You want to be sure we know we're in the big games right now. Anaheim is playing extremely well. They're the No. 1 team since the All-Star break, I believe since the new year, in the league, and in the playoffs, they seemed to be the best team so far as well.

SERGEI ZHOLTOK: It's not going to be much different. We played Anaheim a few times this year, and we saw what kind of team they are. They are extremely careful with mistakes defensively. They're playing some defense, and it's a lot like us, the turnovers from a position, and Giguere, he's playing good, but also he got a lot of help from the defense. He's making one save and the defense cleared all the rebounds. That's what I've seen. We should work on trying to get in front of him, trying to tip the pucks, trying to create traffic so he doesn't see the puck to make the first save, and if he makes the save, he will put the rebound not where he wants it, but where we want it, so we can get some rebound goals, some ugly goals, if you want to call them that. He's riding high right now. He's a good goaltender, there is no question about it.

SERGEI ZHOLTOK: He's been really faster even this season. I remember we are playing low-scoring games against him, and I personally have a few chances where he really played well; he covered a lot of net. Like I say, he's making first saves. The key for our success has been we've got scoring from everywhere. We've got scoring from the defense, all the lines, all the forwards involved, and this should be better, because I think some other teams are relying a lot on the big guns to score the goals. I think that's our key for us. Anybody can score on our team, and he constantly is going to feel the pressure.

SERGEI ZHOLTOK: I think after Colorado, we -- at least I felt this way: It was a little bit empty at the beginning of the Vancouver 2series. Right now, we're excited and excited in a good way. You know, we feel very confident. We achieved something like when we have been down different ways. You know, against Colorado, it's kind of -- it was never down too much, and yesterday, being down 2-0 in the second period, you can feel on the bench, you can you can feel in the dressing room the confidence of the team is growing when you're turning things around at the point in Game 7 in the middle of the game when things aren't going well for you, and you can feel a lot of confidence on the ice today as well.