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NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: SHARKS v CANUCKS


May 18, 2011


Kevin Bieksa

Daniel Sedin

Henrik Sedin


VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA: Game Two

Vancouver – 7
San Jose - 3


THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Kevin, can you take us through what led to the fight with Marleau and the impact you think that had on the game.
KEVIN BIEKSA: I don't know about the impact on the game. First game we play a lot of shifts, pretty much every shift, against each other. It's looking like we're going to play every shift against each other for the rest of the series.
I don't know what started it. Just two guys battling. Turned out to be a good battle. He did a good job. After that, he skated to the box. It was fine.

Q. After that fight, Eager called you a phoney. Care to comment on those comments?
KEVIN BIEKSA: Obviously I'm not going to say too much about that. Right now my focus is on winning a series. If they want to worry about that kind of stuff, that's fine, that's to our advantage. Our power?play did a great job tonight of making them pay for some of their penalties.
Our focus is on winning a series. That's the important thing.

Q. Have you heard from the boys in the locker room from the Gordie Howe hat trick?
KEVIN BIEKSA: Yeah, I've heard about it. Burr is probably the first guy obviously to chirp me about it. Yeah, it's great, I guess. The main thing is we got the win, so that's why I'm happy.

Q. Twice you've scored off the rush like that. Are you finding more opportunities against this team to go the way you do with speed? Henrik, could you comment on the goal, what it did for the game.
KEVIN BIEKSA: Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm getting any more chances than usual. There's opportunities in a game where you can jump up in the play. That was one.
When there was the opportunity to make an odd?man rush, you go. All six of us have the green light to do that. It was just a set play drawn up for a breakout. There was some open ice and I just took it.
HENRIK SEDIN: Yeah, I mean Kevin has always been really good at joining the rush, reading plays like that. I think this year playing with Hamhuis gives him a lot of freedom to jump up in the play. That's one of the his strengths. He's done a great job all year of it.

Q. Daniel, what is your take on the Eager hit? Do you think it should be reviewed? He certainly ran you from behind pretty hard.
DANIEL SEDIN: I turned my back. I didn't realize he was coming that hard. But it's going to happen in a game. I'm fine. So that's all that matters.

Q. As skilled players, do you expect the officials to call the game or do the right things? Was that the right thing?
DANIEL SEDIN: Got two minutes. I don't know if it should have been more. The referee has done a great job I think throughout the playoffs to make the right calls, so we're happy.

Q. Kevin, do you think the series has taken a real nasty turn now?
KEVIN BIEKSA: I think it's the same as it was at the beginning. I think we came in here expecting it to be a battle. It usually is with San Jose. I don't think we've really had too many easy games with these guys. They're a lot of big bodies over there, they're physical. Always seem to play with a lot of emotion, intensity.
Being at the Western Conference final, obviously we expect it to be high intensity, high emotion. We expect it to get even better as the series goes on.

Q. Daniel, talk about the space that you were getting, more chances for creativity?
DANIEL SEDIN: I think our power?play was clicking pretty good tonight. I think that was the main thing. I thought we played better in the first game. But tonight we were fortunate to get a goal there.
But, I mean, it's a good team over there. They like to attack. It opens up things a little bit. But I said it before, it's still a very good defensive team.

Q. Kevin, do you think the fight with Marleau is what caused them to start losing their composure? If so, is that a good thing for you guys?
KEVIN BIEKSA: Yeah, I don't know. I can't see in their heads, but I'm not sure what got them rattled. I don't really care too much about how they're feeling. I know we scored a couple big goals in the second. For whatever reason, they took some penalties in the third.
That's been the strength of our team all year, is our power?play. A lot of the games we've won by three, four goals, they were close games until the other team started to get undisciplined. And on our power?play we capitalized.
Like Danny said, our power?play is going right now, we're scoring goals, so that's how we keep teams honest.

Q. Seems like this could go one of two ways: they could rally themselves or you could get the confidence that the power?play works and you have an end result. How much stronger does it make this team that you held your composure and have a result like this? Works in your favor more?
HENRIK SEDIN: I think we've done it all year. This is another game for us. We go out there, play our game, trust each other. That's been our focus all year. So it's nothing new tonight.
It's going to be a new game on Friday here. Got to focus on that one from tonight on. That's what we're doing.

Q. Kevin, Marleau hasn't had a fight in almost five years. The replay showed he dropped the gloves first. Are you surprised?
KEVIN BIEKSA: Well, maybe a little bit at first. But he's a big boy. I thought he did a good job. For a guy that has been criticized in the media often, most recently, I thought he did a good job of battling, sticking up for himself.
Like I said, it was just two guys battling. It's good for the game. We're happy with the way the outcome was.

Q. Henrik, a lot of times before this series a lot of people were saying the similarities between these two teams, both in how they got here, how they're constructed, how important is it to win the mental battle that you have done in two games now?
HENRIK SEDIN: It's always big. Like I said, we never get too high or too low. We might be down in games or we might be up. We keep playing the same way. I think we're trusting the forwards to do the right thing and we're trusting our D's to play the right way. It shouldn't be a hard sport to play.
Mentally, if you know what you're doing out there, you get confidence from that. That's what we have. We have a lot of guys sticking up for each other and not taking stupid penalties. That's what we've done all year.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports




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