Transcripts Courtesy of the NHL Communications Department

Practice Day comments from Philadelphia Flyers Head Coach Peter Laviolette, Chris Pronger, Mike Richards, Michael Leighton, and Danny Briere

Comments from Flyers Head Coach Peter Laviolette

Q.  There’s been a little bit of a layoff for both teams.  Some of the players have been talking about the fact that two teams that don’t see each other, don’t know each other very much, there might be a tendency in the first game to lay off a little bit and just a feeling-out process at the beginning of the game.  That’s not the style you play.  Do you worry about that, that you would be a little bit looking instead of initiating the first period?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  It’s not the style they play either.  I don’t have a crystal ball to see how the first game is going to play and who benefited from four or five days off and who didn’t benefit from that.
You hope that you prepared.  You hope you go out and play the way you wanted to play.  The last thing you want to do is look back at the game and say I wish I did this or that.

Q.  Whenever there’s a coaching change, quite often the change itself has an impact.  Once that’s all done, what were you able to convince this group of players to buy in to get to this point this fast?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  One of the chores you have as a coach to get everybody on the same page and have your team play with an identity.  And it didn’t happen right away for us.  It took a little bit of time.  Ultimately the players get the credit because they’re the ones that drive the machine.  It’s their work ethic, their power, their execution, their passion for the game, those are all things that win hockey games.  When you get a team that plays with an identity and they play on the same page and most importantly I think they play it together you can be successful.

Q.  You won a Cup not long ago.  What do you take from that, especially with a team that plays with expectations?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  The teams are different.  It’s not fair to compare the two.  Carolina the year from start to finish was a pretty strong year.  We finished in the top of the conference.  There wasn’t too much adversity to overcome.  Ultimately, if you get this far down the road, your team is playing well.  They believe in each other, they believe in what they’re doing.  Their game is pretty good on the ice.
And that’s probably the similarity I think that not only lays with my teams but even Chicago and how they got here.  You have to be playing well this time of year.

Q.  Looking at practice today, seeing the logos the Stanley Cup logo and all that, how much do you guys just want to get going and for yourself, how much do you want to get going and get this series going after five, six days off here?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  You know, you don’t notice – when you’re actually out on the ice practicing, and when the game starts tomorrow, I know there will be anxious moments up until the game, but once the puck drops, two teams will play hockey and they’ll play it hard.
There’s a lot of hype that goes with it, as there should be.  It’s the biggest event for the National Hockey League.  And I think there’s an excitement that goes with that and a buildup that goes with it.
But ultimately the game will be determined by the players on the ice, when the puck does drop.  I think everybody’s anxious to get going.  There’s a lot of times you spend four or five days waiting for it to happen it’s nice when it gets here.

Q.  What was that year off like for you obviously it wasn’t that long a time.  But were you wondering when that next chance would come or if it would come?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  I had the good fortune of working with some great people up at TSN.  And it was – it’s tough when you’re off.  There’s only 30 jobs in the NHL head coaching jobs.  When you’re out, you’re not sure you’ll get back in.  I was fortunate to get a call from the Flyers.  When you’re out, I guess you enjoy it for what it is.  You get to spend some time with your family and kids and time that I’m missing now where your kids are in sports and they’re growing up and you’re not really around that much.
But certainly grateful to be back coaching and with the Flyers’ organization, it’s a great organization.  I’m happy to be here.

Q.  You’ve had a lot of experience internationally.  Commissioner Bettman talked today about possibly not being part of – he hinted not being part of the Olympics, maybe not being part of the Worlds how much of a boost do you think NHL gets out of playing internationally and in the Olympics?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  I haven’t thought about it to be honest.  I didn’t even know those statements were made.  So I don’t really have answers for that.  I can tell you I enjoy the Olympics because it’s the best players in the world representing their country.  When you saw Canada and U.S. playing in the Finals it was great hockey.  I enjoy that part of it.
What it does for the league, I haven’t thought about it too much.

Q.  Can you talk a little bit about Claude Giroux and kind of maybe what struck you the most about him in watching him kind of throughout the Playoffs so far?

COACH LAVIOLETTE:  I think one of Claude’s best assets is that he wants to be a game-breaker.  He doesn’t shy away from big moments and big opportunities.  For a young player, I think that speaks a lot about Claude.  And he’s a talented player.  Everybody sees the plays he makes, the passes, the goals he scores.

But to have that desire and that drive to do it at such a young age, that’s impressive for me.

Comments from Chris Pronger

Q.        Chris, I know you’ve won a Stanley Cup before, won a gold medal.  Which is more rewarding, in your mind?

CHRIS PRONGER:  I think the Stanley Cup, just because of the longevity of the season.  The length of time, from the time training camp starts, all the way through to the end of the year to Finals; it’s almost ten months and summer months is training and preparing for that season, it’s a whole calendar year.
And it takes a lot of effort and a lot of mental and physical pain, turmoil and all the rest of that stuff to get it done.  The Playoffs become a whole other entity and battle of attrition, and there’s injuries and momentum swings, and all the rest of that.  So tale of two seasons, really.

Q.  Having played for Joel and Laviolette, how are they similar and how are they different, and how would you compare their personalities?

CHRIS PRONGER:  I don’t know, it’s pretty hard to compare.  I’ve had a lot of coaches since Joel, so it’s pretty tough to remember everything that he did.  Obviously, they’re both very good teachers of the game.  They both are intense behind the bench and push their players to play to the best of their abilities, and they get the most out of their players.
But other than that, Xs and Os and stuff like that, it’s been quite a while.

Q.  Do you remember a game at the end of October, Flyers 6, Carolina 1, with Leighton in goal for Carolina?

CHRIS PRONGER:  I do not.  I can’t remember what I did a couple of weeks ago.  So remembering what happened in October, it would be a tough one.

Q.  Just a follow-up about Peter.  What’s the biggest thing he brought to your locker room when he was hired?

CHRIS PRONGER:  Anytime you change coaches, it’s a fresh face, a fresh voice.  You know, sometimes you need a change to spark players, spark a team.  It’s never an easy decision.
I’m sure Homer had a tough decision to make, and I’m sure at times questioned it.  But it certainly was the right move.  And the first few weeks with Peter were tough.  Obviously, with us learning a new system and us being in a funk and not playing very well, I’m sure it wasn’t easy.  There was a lot of a sleepless nights, I’m sure.  But once we started kind of turning that corner, understand the system, buy into the system, buy into what Peter was selling, you started to see the team kind of take shape and players start to take form and play better.

And, ultimately, as the season went along, we started to get better and better.  And once the Playoffs rolled around, we had been through so much and understood what we needed to do night in, night out, to be successful, that you’re kind of seeing the rewards now.

Q.  In some series, the matchups seem to matter more than others.  There’s already been a lot of talk about you against their big line.  Is it fair to view that as a real centerpiece to what’s going to happen in this series?

CHRIS PRONGER:  I don’t know.  You could probably look at their last series and say that their top line and San Jose’s top line cancel each other out, and it boils down to the other three lines.  You can look at it any number of different ways.  We’re going to need balanced scoring from all four lines, everyone to chip in.  That’s how we win hockey games.  We need our big guys to play well, absolutely this time of year your big guys need to shine.  But you need your third and fourth line guys to play very well.  They need to do their job, but on top of that chip in and score some big goals for you or stop big goals from the other time.  It takes a total team effort.  It’s not one or two guys to win the series.  We need to play very well top to bottom.

Q.  How much confidence did you guys have in Michael Leighton going back in that game when Boucher got hurt and how much did it help in that January February time before the Olympics how good he got when he was injured?

CHRIS PRONGER:  He’s playing great.  We were kind of rolling behind him and in front of him.  He was playing unbelievable for us, 30, 40 shots a night, he was playing very well and making big stops for us, keeping us in games, winning games for us, making late saves to preserve the wins.  And we tested him and he rose to the challenge.  And I think everybody felt comfortable when Bouch got hurt in Game 5 in Boston that he was going to come in and play well.  I don’t think there was anybody that thought anything other than that.

Q.  You guys have had the first bunch of days off since between the New Jersey series and the Boston series.  Came back to play Boston.  The concern was there would be rust.  But it feels different this time.  Do you guys feel like you’re rested?  What’s the mindset?

CHRIS PRONGER:  Well, they’ve had a lot more days off than us.  But no, it’s only been four days.  So sometimes getting a few days off is good for you.  Obviously after the New Jersey series we had a number of injuries, needed that extra time to start the healing process for the number of guys that we’ve now got back.

And as I’ve said, you’re going to have injuries.  You’re going to have time off, you’re not going to have time off like after the Boston series, we got right into playing Montreal.  I don’t think it matters one way or the other.  You need to use the time when you get it and use it wisely.  And I think we did it.  And now we’re using this time wisely and preparing for a very good Chicago team and making sure guys are healthy and ready to go. .

Q.  A lot has been said about the impact you’ve made on the three teams you’ve gone with the Stanley Cup Final with here in the early years of your prime.  I’m just wondering if you could characterize the challenges of those three teams, what the kind of major challenge was with each one and maybe which one was the most difficult?

CHRIS PRONGER:  Starting with Edmonton, I think really just having, getting that belief that we could win every night, and having, they hadn’t made the Playoffs a whole lot over the five or six years prior to me getting there.

I got this, obviously expectations rose.  And it was a matter of us believing in the room that we could win every single night.  And as the season went along, I think we felt like that.  We didn’t necessarily always win.  Again, that year we had a lot of ups and downs.  But I think felt comfortable with our team and with the personnel on our team, and it was just a matter of us putting it all together.

As we got closer to the Playoffs, we got in and we felt like we had a good matchup against Detroit, and played very well against San Jose that year and ultimately Anaheim and on into Carolina.  But it was just every single game, whether we were down 4-0 or up 4-0 we felt we were in every game and had a chance to win, and we just continued to play our system.  We didn’t get out of synch.  We didn’t panic.

We didn’t do anything of that sort.

And they were just the mindset and guys were dialed in, playing into the system and playing very well and buying in.  Anaheim, the expectations were very high.  They’d been to the Conference Finals the year before and they liked their team and thought I might be a guy to help them get over to the top and get to the Finals.  And the expectations were to win a Stanley Cup.  That’s what the team was put together for and we were able to accomplish that.

So it wasn’t really me going in there and changing anything or anything, it was just adding a guy and a couple other guys and a little bit of personnel.

But everybody had great years that year.  And from start to finish, from the start of the year, all the way through, and all the lines pretty much stayed intact pretty much all year long.  They weren’t really line combinations being juggled and whatnot.  We had the Selanne line and the Getzlaf line and Pahlsson line and fourth line and the energy line, and a few guys came in and out of that line.
But really the pairings were the same, the team was pretty much together from October all the way through and there weren’t many changes.  So it was kind of put together to win that year and we did.
And this team, I think, obviously the expectations were high off of start of the season and didn’t necessarily live up to those off the hop.  But having been through all the ups and downs through the course of the year, I think it was just a matter of us finding our identity as a team and finding certain dynamics that are going to make our team better.

Obviously a lot of question marks through the course of the middle part of the season, the coaching change and all the questions coming from the media and fans and all the rest of that.

But if you’re able to meet those challenges head on, you’re able to get through the tough times.  It’s only going to make you tougher as a team and as players.  And I think everyone in the locker room is playing for one another and understands what’s at stake and what we need to do to be successful.  We’ve got to play as a group and play for one another.

Q.  Claude Giroux said yesterday that he spent some time the last few days talking to Kimmo about what it meant to get this far, not to let it bypass you.  And I was just wondering, do you plan to say anything to these guys?  I mean, you’re the only one that has been through this and has won.  Leino was through last year but didn’t win.  Do you have anything special to say to anybody in the room tomorrow?  Do you feel you have to do that?

CHRIS PRONGER:  No, I don’t think so.  I think Peter’s obviously been there in one, too.  And all Playoff long he’s done a great job of making sure that guys keep their eye on the prize and don’t look too far ahead.  Don’t look back at what’s happened through the course of the year.
We need to look at where we are at right now in the next game, the next shift.  And don’t look too far ahead.  We have to get the first win.  You can’t get forward without the first one.  We need to focus on Game 1 and the rest of it doesn’t matter at this stage.  We’ve got to keep our mind on that Game 1 and that’s it.

Q.  After finishing up practice today, and you’re out here on this ice, you see the Stanley Cup Final logo and all that, how much do you want to get going and play this game tomorrow.  How excited are you to get it going?

CHRIS PRONGER:  I think everybody’s ready to go.  We’ve had four days off now to kind of practice and prepare and get ready and do all the media stuff with you guys and get it all taken care of now.  And we can kind of give you the Heisman later on here.

I think everybody’s chomping at the bit to, we’ve had enough practice.  This time of year practice isn’t real huge for us.  We just want to get to the games and competing and get back in the swing of things.  So tomorrow probably can’t get  here fast enough for the guys.

Q.  Bettman was just talking looks like it’s questionable, 2014 Sochi will the NHL will be a part of it, how tough will it be on you as a player to maybe be kept out of the Olympics?

CHRIS PRONGER:  That’s four years away, and that’s probably a better question for the CBA committee, and the PA in the league.  That’s a long ways off.  I’m not really focused on the Olympics right now.

Q.  Laperriere said yesterday he thinks Chicago has the best power play by far of any teams you’ve faced in the Playoffs.  What particular challenges do the Blackhawks bring on the power play?

CHRIS PRONGER:  Confidence, number one.  Number two, they’ve got a lot of different options.  They can work it high.  They can work it low.  They work it high to low and take it to the net.

They’ve obviously got a guy who is very good at screening the goalie, and they’ve got a very slick half-wall guy who can make plays cross ice make plays down low and has a very sneaky shot off the half wall, and Toews comes out of the corner, very good around the net making plays and putting pucks in the net.

And you’ve got Sharp backdoorkind of roaming around over there, looking for seams in loose areas.  And obviously Duncan up top with a great shot,who seems to be getting everything through.  We need to do a good job of getting in shooting lanes and blocking shots because he seems to find a way to get it through.

Comments from Mike Richards

Q.  When a coaching change is made, quite often just the coaching change is good.  Beyond that, how is Peter able to get you guys to buy in as fast as he did at this point?

MIKE RICHARDS:  I don’t know if it worked initially.  Peter’s system is very aggressive, and it almost took us a month, maybe two months, to figure it out, where you’re doing things second nature and you don’t have to think about it very much.  And you’re just pretty much playing instead of thinking it.
But once we got it down, it’s obviously an effective system.  It’s pressure all over the ice.  And you need to be in great shape to do it.  So since he’s taken over, he’s got us in a lot better shape and obviously playing a system that we have success with.

Q.  Having just briefly played with Toews in the Olympics how much has that changed as you go head to head against them in this series and what’s the biggest challenge against him?

MIKE RICHARDS:  He’s competitive.  Very competitive.  He’s tenacious on the puck.  And sometimes the skill level may kind of go beyond the wayside.  You don’t think of it too much just because of how hard he works.

But he’s kind of a jack-of-all-trades sort of guy.  He can do everything very well, and obviously a player that we have to be very hard on.

Q.  The last time you guys had some time off, you guys struggled in that Boston series.  Do you worry about any of that here; or is this a completely different scenario, you had a lot of time off heading into this Stanley Cup Final?

MIKE RICHARDS:  Not a lot of time off, if you look at the schedule.  We might have had a day off, and then with the travel yesterday, it was everything happened pretty quick.  So I don’t really see that.
I think the rest was a good amount.  Just to get our legs back, get us back in it, and I think just in a matter of it being the Finals, it’s going to be exciting.

So I don’t really see our team having any let-downs.

Q.  How do you view this matchup, the Flyers against the Chicago Blackhawks?  And for the Flyers to win the Stanley Cup, what will be, in your mind, the key for them winning the series?

MIKE RICHARDS:  I don’t know.  We’ll have to play consistent hockey and play them for 60 minutes and maybe it takes seven games.  But we obviously have confidence in our team and the system that we play.  We’re going to have to play extremely well defense against them and not worry and not try to get into a track meet with them and create chances.But if you look on paper, the teams are very evenly matched.  Very evenly built, I think, same sort of design of players, too. So it’s just who is going to play the most consistent for the longest.

Q.  Mike, you’ve beaten three excellent goalies so far to get here.  How important is it to get to Niemi and get in his craw, so to speak, because he’s never faced this kind of thing before?

MIKE RICHARDS:  We’re going to get pucks to the net.  We’re going to shoot as much as possible.  We’re going to get our bigger bodies in front of them to try to distract them a little bit.  And I think what we did well in the Montreal series is get pucks into the feet and try to bang away at them.
And we have good shooters, too.  But it’s the gritty goals that are going to give us success and getting pucks to the net and not trying to make the pretty play too much.

Q.  Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews has been very complementary of your play.  I know you guys were linemates during the Olympics probably the most effective line for Team Canada.  How do you view Jonathan Toews as Blackhawks captain, what thoughts come to mind when you think of him not only as an adversary during this series, but as a teammate during the Olympics?

MIKE RICHARDS:  All along, for the last week — I’ve got so much respect for him the way he approaches the game.  I mean, he’s hockey 24/7.  He’s obviously a leader.  He’s tenacious on the ice.  And he’s just non-stop.  He makes his linemates better and doing so he makes his teammates better.  Not the loudest guy but a guy that’s not afraid to say something when I was with him for the short while.

The confidence that he has in himself, I think it just brushes off on some of his teammates, too.  So obviously going to be a great battle, a battle that I look forward to.  And I mean it’s going to be fun.  I would put him up with one of the best players in the world.

Comments from Michael Leighton

Q.  Do you remember your one game this year against Philadelphia for Carolina and how are you a different goalie than you were on October 30th or 31st, or whatever that day was?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  I remember that game very well.  It was actually — my daughter was born the day before that.  So it was a pretty exciting day for me, and I had late travel coming into Philly.  I traveled by myself.

I didn’t have good game.  So that’s obviously erased from my mind.  When I came here Jeff Reese changed my style a little bit.  I give a lot of credit to him.  He saw something in my game that he didn’t like and wanted to change it.  And I did.  And it worked out well.

Q.  Danny Briere said he cannot wait for the hate to get going in this series and get started.  How about for you, do you say to yourself as you look around and see the Stanley Cup Finallogo on the ice today at practice, you can’t wait to get going and face these guys?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  Yeah, I’ve actually been probably more jittery and nervous waiting around for it.  I think I’m more anxious than anything, I just want to get the first game going and start the series.  We had a little bit of a break here which was nice to get guys rested and injuries to settle down a little bit.
But on the other hand we’re anxious to get started and I think we’re all ready.

Q.  Offensively which challenges do the Blackhawks present to you defensively as opposed to Boston and Montreal?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  Obviously they have two skilled players that everyone knows.  And we have to be aware of them on the ice.  Both have done well in the NHL and they’re the leaders of their team.  So we’re just going to have to be aware when they’re on the ice and obviously going to have our top line against their top line and our best D against those two.  We’ll just try to shut them down as much as we can.

Q.  Michael, do you size up the other goalie when you’re picking matchups, do you look and say I have to outplay that guy?  And how do you view this Stanley Cup matchup?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  Yeah, in a way you look at that.  But I’m not worried about what he’s doing.  I have to worry about what I’m doing.

And he’s a good goalie.  He’s had a good Playoff.  And we faced good goalies this Playoff.  We had Brodeur, Rask, Halak. And Niemi has done a great job.  And we’re not going to change anything.  We’ll go at him just like we did the other guys, put pucks on them and drive the net and hopefully we’ll get the same results.

Q.  Had someone said to you last summer that the Stanley Cup Final could begin and Michael Leighton is going to be in goal for one team and Niemi is going to be in goal for the other, what would you have said?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  Last year?

Q.  Last summer?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  Last summer I would have said I was with the Carolina Hurricanes and Cam Ward got hurt.  That would be my only way I get an opportunity to do that.

It’s obviously a great honor for me.  I’m happy to be where I am right now.  But, like I said, the last two or three days, my goal wasn’t to win the Conference Finals, it was to win the Stanley Cup.  We’ve got a lot of work to do still.

Q.  This goes back to a couple days ago when you were talking about, I think it was the year of the lockout, you say you had a couple of injuries, what were your injuries?  You never specified what they were?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  At the end of the summer I had stomach and groin surgery.  They were kind of linked together.  So I finished the year in Norfolk injured.  And I just couldn’t do much.
I tried to play through it a little bit but it just wasn’t going away.  And it was just hurting my game.  It was lingering around.

Q.  Mike, Danny Briere in here said there’s a little too much love going into in series between the teams. Do you think this team needs to bring out some of the hate or get ramped up like that to make sure Game 1 you guys are ready to go?

MICHAEL LEIGHTON:  I’m sure it’s not going to take very long.  It’s hard to do, though, when you have a team that you don’t play very often and some things might come from being cocky and arrogant in the media.  But I don’t think that’s the case on their part.

They’re a very classy team and obviously like I said it’s tough when you don’t play a team very often to get that hate on.  But I’m sure it’s going to come quickly throughout the games.  I’m sure they’re going to be heated and physical.  I’m sure it’s not going to take very long.

Comments from Danny Briere

Q.        Do you remember anything, DANNY, about the 6-1 game where you beat Carolina with Michael Leighton in goal early in the year?

DANNY BRIERE:  We did that?

Q.  Apparently.

DANNY BRIERE:  I have a vague memory of it.  I wouldn’t be able to tell you.  All I remember is that we beat them once.  I can’t remember any of the goals.  That’s all I remember about it.

Q.  Danny, when you take the ice today and you were out there and skating around, you looked down to the Stanley Cup Final logo and how much do you want it to get going and play here?

DANNY BRIERE:  I think like everybody else, we can’t wait.  We can’t wait to get it started, to start skating, to start playing, to get that physical contact, the battles, just to get involved.
I mean, I’m enjoying everything what’s going on around the rink and the media stuff and everything.  But at the same time, yeah, I can’t wait to get it started.

The weird part is we don’t know much about the Hawks.  We’ve seen them once a long time ago.  And I guess it’s the same thing on their side.  I can’t wait to start playing, to start the hatred going a little bit.  Right now everybody’s nice to each other.

I can’t wait until it feels like this is going now and there’s no love anymore.

Q.  Brian Boucher practiced again today.  Tell us what you saw from him?

DANNY BRIERE:  He looks good.  Like everybody else, he’s excited.  He’s excited to be back on the ice.  Just like Jeff and Simon and Ian, he thought his season was over as we’re moving along all these guys have a chance to keep playing now and I’m sure they feel very fortunate to be playing, but at the same time they’re excited, they’re jumping.

Brian looks like himself, just like the way he was before.  So that’s very encouraging going into the Final.  Knowing that we have both guys that have – I don’t know what the record – who has many wins out of the 12 that we have.  But it’s got to be pretty close.
So we’re comfortable with both of them.

Q.  I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Claude Giroux and the post-season he’s had and also is he as cool a customer as he looks when you watch him from up top in the press box?

DANNY BRIERE:  On the ice, he certainly is.  I’m very impressed with him, the way he’s been playing, the way he’s stepping up his game.  We’ve all seen him, if you ask any of the guys in the room, everybody knows about his skill level, his hands, his vision.

One of the tops in the League, but the thing that’s impressed me about him is how he’s showed up to play, and how he stepped up his game.  He’s shown a lot of character.

He’s not a big guy, but he’s strong on the puck.  He’s not afraid.  He goes in there.  He’s one of the reasons – one of the big reasons why we’re still playing today.

Q.  Going back to the word “hate”, do you feel that you play better and maybe this team plays better when you get those juices going, and when the hate comes out?

DANNY BRIERE:  It seems that way, anyway.  Throughout the Playoffs, the first round against Jersey, everybody knows the rivalry between the Devils and the Flyers.  We came out strong, and it took us a few games to get going against the Bruins.

And you look against Montreal, we didn’t feel we played really well the first two games.  We got beat really bad in the third game, and that’s kind of when they started saying stuff about us.

And that’s kind of when we started to get going.  So hopefully it doesn’t take that long in the Finals.  We have to find a way to get going right off the bat, because at some point we can burn ourselves with waiting sometimes and waiting for that fire to show up.