	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: CANADIENS v FLYERS

May 23, 2010

Daniel Briere

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Practice Day

Q. How badly do you guys want to wrap it up tomorrow night?
DANNY BRIERE: Well, yeah, that's the goal. We obviously, we're happy, very happy with being able to get one big win in Montreal with the atmosphere that was there in their building, the way it was rocking. It was a key game yesterday to be able to leave their building with that third win.
But we all know the last one will be the toughest to get. We also realize what Montreal has gone through previously, in the previous rounds against Washington and Pittsburgh.
So we can't take them lightly. Also what happened with us against Boston. So it's never over until the end. We don't want to get too high, too confident. Just one big one left and probably the hardest one to get.

Q. Do you guys remind each other of that?
DANNY BRIERE: Oh, yeah, that's definitely something we've talked amongst ourselves. We realize that it's not going to be easy. Montreal's not a team that has quit in the past, and they're not going to quit now. So we'll have to play one of our best games again to clinch.

Q. You've got a guy in that dressing room that's been hot postseason 14 straight years in Chris Pronger. He's won a Cup. He's been to the Finals. Is there any coincidence that he's gone through that kind of stuff?
DANNY BRIERE: I don't think so. He was a big reason why we were able to come back from 3-0 down against Boston, just his calmness, his composure, his focus. You look at him and he just gives you confidence that things are going to happen, good things are going to happen. He's got that quiet confidence about himself that just follow me. I know the road.
He's not the only one. We have many guys like that. We have a lot of guys with lots of character. But like I said, we don't want to get overconfident. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We know we're still in a tough Series here.

Q. Does he talk much in the dressing room about the experiences he's had knowing that he's had so much of it?
DANNY BRIERE: No, it's not so much what he's done in the past. I think it's just his demeanor. How calm he is, how focused he is on what's ahead. You can just see it in his eyes that he's been there before. He knows the way, the road. So I think it's mostly his demeanor.

Q. Do you recall your emotion after you lost Carter and you lost Gagne, and then you lost Laperriere the next game? How down was the team? Do you remember what the emotion was?
DANNY BRIERE: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the last two years ago when we got to the Conference Finals we lost Timonen and Coburn to injuries. Before that, the year that our coach won the Stanley Cup in Carolina and I was with Buffalo, there was a lot of injuries to our defensive corps as well that year. When that started happening, I was like oh, boy, not again.
But for some reason we found a way. One of the key games to me was Game 5 in New Jersey. We had lost Gagne and Carter, and we lost Ian that game, but just their focus. It would have been really easy for us to kind of sit back and just kind of wait to see if we would still be in the game in the second and third period and make a push.
But we came out swinging right from the git-go. And I thought that was a pretty good sign that we have a lot of character guys.

Q. Have you guys changed your game much from the beginning of the Series when you're giving up 38 shots or have you guys just tightened up defensively and decided to sit back and wait for them to make a mistake kind of thing?
DANNY BRIERE: Well, we've said it from the beginning of the Series, we didn't feel until last night that we had been playing really good hockey. You know, I remember people didn't really quite believe us after we won 3-0 or 3- or 4-0 Game 2, that we weren't happy with our game. People didn't understand why. I think it was just something that was coming, we didn't feel. We weren't as sharp as we need to be, and it finally caught up to us in Game 3 in Montreal.
You know, when things are going well and you start winning, sometimes bad habits creep into your game. It's really easy to overlook them when things are going well because you just think that you're getting away with it.
But like I said, it caught back to us in Game 3, and we had to make a lot of adjustments for last night's game. So I think that's mostly the reason why. We played a much better game last night than we did in the first three.

Q. Did you know when you were playing well and weren't playing well in the regular season, or was there just an inconsistency level that the team had trouble shooting?
DANNY BRIERE: Well, both of them. We realized when we weren't playing well. But, yeah, I can't explain why, why we were so inconsistent during the season. Obviously, injuries were a part of it, but also we come out for a game or two, and then we'd have two or he three bad games. I can't really explain it, but we've been much better in the postseason.
We were saying you just need to get into the postseason. That's the first major step. Obviously, we would have liked to have the first seed and have home ice the whole time, but it didn't happen.
You get in the Playoffs and everybody has a chance. That's what we kept telling ourselves. I knew at the same time that we had a lot of character guys in the room, a lot of Playoff warrior guys. So I was confident coming in with the team that we have.

End of FastScripts

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297