When you got into that fight, what's going through your brain?

Yeah, it's kind of the same thing.

I get asked this every year.

You know, it's – I think the game, it has to be played with passion and intensity and Nate kind of – he is our emotional leader on the team, right? Like that's kind of his staple and I think he has to like – Walk that line in order to be...

It's part of what makes him great, right? It's that competitiveness and that edge that he plays with.

He can play through people.

When it comes to puck protection and the physicality offensively, it's what makes him such a dangerous player.

Your initial thoughts through a couple games of Jaden Schwartz and Svechkov and T.J. Hughes.

Is there something you can pinpoint to what exactly happened? Do you look back at that at all, or is it just time to move forward?

Yeah, no, I think, like, at the end of the year, you're looking back at everything.

Like, like- What made you the team you were in the regular season? You know, how you had success round one, two.

Like every year, success or failure, I think you look at it because you're trying to study it and replicate it or fix it.

And, um, sometimes the answers aren't easy.

That was a-- That was...

Like that was less heartbreaking and more frustrating because, um, yeah, like I, I just didn't think we, we played great in that series.

How will you manifest those things? What, what are you planning to do differently this year?

Coach, as you pored through all that, uh, video over the weekend, and I'm sure you spent plenty of time there, um, where is Vegas strongest? Where, where, where are they gonna be the most, uh, challenging for you?

The s- the structure of their game on the defensive side of things is, is really dialed in.

So they've, they've been one of the most stingy defensive teams all year.

Um, I would say th- they've had some like ups and downs in goal, like figuring out who was gonna be their starter and getting the, the, the goaltending to, to play up to par with the rest of their team, and now he's doing that.

It's part of the reason why they are advancing and why their analytics still look, uh, very good on the defensive side of it.

So suppressing chances, um, this is a, this is a team that does it very well, both off the rush, in the D zone.

Um, it, it's deep.

What is it about that? Can you expand just a little bit?

Uh, who's gonna start tonight between the pipes, and what went into the decision to give Blackwood the start last game?

Yeah, so the, we started Blackwood last game because, you know, Wej has played a lot of hockey.

He's done a great job.

Um, I think if you look at, say, game one of the series and game three of the series, we've seen him play better, right? So is fatigue a factor there? Um, 'cause it's not just the fatigue of, of playing, it's the mental fatigue of, like, having to be ready and at your best and sharp every night.

And, you know, Wej is, is not necessarily used to playing every game over a two-month stretch.

It's, it's partly why, you know, I said before this, the s- the playoffs that we'd probably use both guys.

It's what we've done all year.

What's it like to maybe throw something different at a team at this point, and, and, and how do you calculate that?

And for the next three days, how do you guys prepare for what Minnesota's going to try to counteract against you coming up in game three?

Yeah, like w- so, like when we break down the game for us coaches, like we're always looking at, like, okay, this is what some of the things they did that give us trouble.

Like, you know, how-- let's make it real clear on how we wanna defend these situations, 'cause they're gonna pop up again.

Gen- you know, like when we get-- If we find a, a way to create scoring chances against Minny, and we do it repeatedly, th- they're gonna try to do something to sort of counteract that, right? So, so you gotta be looking at it from like both lenses.

You know? Every chance you give up, you can guarantee that their coaches have seen it and showed it to their guys, and, and there'll be guys trying to repeat it.

We're picking up on, like you pick up on tendencies of individual players, guys like Hughes, Faber, Boldy, guys that you want to Kaprizov, guys you wanna key on.

You start picking up on tendencies in, in game two, and, and they'll do the same.

What can you say about him?

All right, well, [chuckles] as impossible as that is to explain, what, what was your mindset at least when it was five-five and s- uh, after this, after two to kind of reset and, and figure group there?

Yeah, it was, it was pretty easy for me.

Like, I liked-- There's areas of our game tonight that I really liked, okay? So, um, I like what we did offensively.

I like the way we moved the puck, um, created some good chances off the rush, created some good chances in our zone play, played with great pace.

Um, a lot of the offensive stuff and our play with the puck, like I thought we managed the puck pretty well.

We didn't turn it over a lot.

Like, normally, if I said, "Well, we gave up six goals," I would think three or four of them would all be off turnovers, right? So there's-- Th-that, that part-- side of the game I liked.

Does that, I guess, make you feel better knowing that these are things that you have done well in the past, or is it a concern that it lapsed a bit?

Where do you just kinda see it going moving forward in terms of what, like, the next layers are to that and kind of what you're gonna try to accomplish as the league around you tries to keep up and kinda join, uh, tactically what you're doing?

It-- That, that's difficult because I think it's ever-changing, right? As, as you mentioned it.

So like when I fir-- I'll go back a little bit.

When I first got here, l- we, we obviously had these guys that could really skate and push the pace, guys like Nate, guys like Cale.

Like, our back end developed into a spot where we had a lot of, like, what I would consider offensive defensemen that could really-- It's so hard to create offense.

You need five guys involved in that attack all the time, whether it's off the rush or in O-zone play.

Like, we wanted to be working as five-man units.

How selective are you with what actually gets passed along to your group?