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NHL EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: DEVILS v RANGERSMay 24, 2012Martin BrodeurNEWARK, NEW JERSEY: Practice Day Q. You guys won six in a row at the end of the season. Was it then that you guys thought that you could be this successful in the playoffs and get to within one win of the Stanley Cup Final. Was it before that? MARTIN BRODEUR: I don't know. That's a good question. We have a lot of confidence in what we can do. We gained a lot of confidence, strength in two games at the end of the season together. At the end, I think the playoffs are a different animal. When we started to play well at the end of the Florida series, we got tested as far as our character and everything. I think that's where we saw our systems are working and we're doing a lot of good things. Not that we didn't believe in it, but when you work at it and you see some results, you start feeling better about yourself. I think that's really when we started believing that we could play against anybody. I think we surprised ourselves to a certain extent by saying that we felt we were able to do it. Q. Were you surprised by Florida in that series? Did you think it would be that difficult? MARTIN BRODEUR: You know, they were good. They were a resilient team. They gave us as much as we could handle. Their power play was tough on us. They got themselves in games all the time because of that. I was really impressed about that team, that's for sure. We're fortunate to go through them. It took a lot of guts and a lot of character to do that. I think we have to be, as a team, good with that. Q. Considering the way this team has played throughout the playoffs, can you conceive of not getting this done with two chances? MARTIN BRODEUR: Can you say that again? Q. Can you conceive of not wrapping up this series considering you've got two chances and the way this team has played? MARTIN BRODEUR: You know, you've got to play the games. We're in a good position. We're happy. We're playing a hungry team that's been through that before the playoffs this year. Anything is possible. We've just got to, like I said last night, we've got to bury our heads and work as hard as we can and execute where we need to execute out there and be successful. Yesterday was maybe a little wake‑up call. They played better, but we didn't play as good as we wanted, so I'm sure they're going to feed off of some of the stuff they exposed in us. We're definitely going to need to be better for the rest of the series. Q. What are you feeling about tomorrow as in regards to '94? MARTIN BRODEUR: Nothing. Q. Nothing? MARTIN BRODEUR: Yeah, I think the question was asked yesterday to me. I don't see anything that is similar. I know if you guys look at it, it looks the same. But it's different teams and different way of playing the game. That's 18 years ago. That's a long time. I know I'm feeling a lot different. I'm feeling a lot more appreciative of what's going on. Before, the Rangers were a good team when they beat us. We were not supposed to compete with them at all in '94. They made these trades and they had all these big guys at the end, and they pulled it off in a dramatic way. But this time around, we feel we can play with them. It makes me feel a lot more comfortable going into these games coming up. Q. Going back to '94 one more time, what do you recall when Messier made his guarantee? Did you say what is he talking about, or how did you react to that? MARTIN BRODEUR: We didn't even know before the game was ended that he did a guarantee. I don't know when he did it. I think it was in the morning skate or something. It could have been the night before; but, again, I don't recall it having an effect on us at all. But I think at the end of the game everybody made a big deal out of that. If he really said it, it's a pretty gutsy thing to do. Q. Just to follow up to that, is there a lesson that Game 6 became almost a crushing loss, home ice, game lead? MARTIN BRODEUR: Playoff series go differently in the way that you feel and some of the rinks that you play in. We've been playing well at home. These guys played extremely well. We were able to win two games already and get in the Garden. That's pretty impressive to do. So we're looking forward to being at home and getting off to a good start tomorrow and see what else it's going to bring us. Q. Would the Martin Brodeur of 1994 or 18 years ago would have enjoyed having his name chanted like that like you did last night? MARTIN BRODEUR: Yeah, nobody knew my name back then. You know, it's different, but that was pretty amazing how loud they got chanting my name. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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