Head Coach Todd McLellan Post game press conference round 2 game 3

Head Coach Todd McLellan

 

Q. So Todd, are you guys going for Montreal’s record?

 A.  We’re just trying to win games.  There’s no thought or any talk of that.  The teams are so evenly matched.  It’s a bounce, a break, a save here or there.  It went our way tonight.  I thought the game itself was the tightest game yet.  I didn’t think we skated particularly well.  I didn’t think we had enough guys going.  For us to continue on we have to find a few more guys.

 Q.  Can you talk about the goal that forced overtime and then the winner?

 A.  Earlier in the year when we were not winning we were concerned not so much about special teams – power play, penalty kill – but a lot about our five on five play, on both sides of the puck.  You look at the game tonight and power plays played even.  It was important for us to try and match their five on five play.  We stuck with it in the third period.  It is hard to hold a lead right now, there is so much tension and stress out on the ice.  We just kept getting pucks to the net and finally one went in for us.  In overtime I’m not sure we were the better team.  They had a number of chances, our goaltender made some good saves, and we were opportunistic when we finally did get that chance. 

 Q.  Since the script is so similar to last year, obviously with game 3, I guess we should bring up game 4 and it was a bit of a crash there.  Do you use that now?

 A.  We’ve tried very hard as a coaching staff to eliminate and separate last year’s series from this year’s.  I think I have referenced that a number of times both the different line ups and all the circumstances that come into play.  There will be a lot made out of the same date, overtime, all that type of stuff.  It is completely irrelevant in my opinion.  And I hope it is because we took one hell of a lickin’ in game 4 last year.

Q.  Can you talk about the timing of Devin Setoguchi’s first playoff hat trick?

 A.  Very big.  You need heroes.  You need people to step up.  And he was ours tonight.  I kind of whacked him earlier talking about his penalties and we’ll have to deal with that but he’s got a tremendous trigger, puts himself in situations where he can shoot the puck, and he’s got a couple of very good players playing with him. 

Q.  How important is it for you guys to put this thing to bed in the next game?

 A.  That’s obviously going to be our goal.  Clichés, the last one is the toughest, whatever you want.  It will be as hard on us as we make it.  Again, tonight we didn’t have a lot of polish, we didn’t have enough players in my opinion to play.  We got away with one.  We’ll have to be better.  They have proven to us that they are not going away.  They did it last year and they sent a very stern message to us in game 4.  We have to be much better than we were a year ago.  And we’ll try to approach the game a little bit differently and prepare a little bit better.