After the sweep - A few minutes with Dan Wildfong

Fonger speaks about the win and the road ahead

One of my responsibilities in reporting on the playoffs for Intotheboards.net (take a look) is to speak to the coaches after each game. This is from my conversation with Dan after last night's win.

Q: Brett Jaeger, coming back from that crash in the net on Wednesday night was really solid tonight, getting his fourth playoff win in a row with 31 saves. What's your take on Jaegs?

A: Oh, he's played outstanding. I think this is his best game of the series tonight. You know, when the game was on the line, they were pressuring and we knew they were going to press and we had to weather the storm a little bit. When we needed to get a couple of big saves, Jaegs did it. That's what you're going to need in the playoffs. That's what it takes.

A: Tyler Skworchinski scored seven points in the series (6 G, 1 A) with three points tonight (2 G, 1 A). He's leading the league in playoff game-winning goals now with four in a row...

A: He's just been playing outstanding. The big thing about Tyler is that he's working it and he's working extremely hard and his whole line is, you know, they're working together. They're doing a lot of things right. They're not doing anything too fancy. They're just getting it deep and really pressuring and working hard. They're going to the dirty spots to get the goals. Yeah, Chinny's been playing great for us all through the playoffs.

Q: I know you had some concerns after the first couple of games but after these two road wins, are you seeing the playoff hockey that you're needing to see the boys play?

A: Yeah, I think we've really limited our mistakes. I think in the two games, we only made two or three mistakes. Big, glaring mistakes, and then Jaegs made some big saves. I think we're playing where we need to be, but obviously every round that you go with is going to get tougher and we know that and we have to be ready to bear down a little bit more. Even those three chances, they could cost you, so we've got to tighten up more.

Q: You'll have a little time to relax; the boys can go to NASCAR on Sunday and then it's back to work to get prepared for the next series. What do you intend to focus on in preparation?

A: We obviously have to worry about ourselves. We're really going to focus on our D zone a little bit more. We're going to also focus on our powerplay. We're just going to focus on little areas...the last five minutes of a game, if we're up a goal or down a goal, what our strategy is. We realize that we have to have good special teams to play in the playoffs, so we're going to have to be ready to go.

Photo Credit: Robert Keith