Game 1 postgame quotes: Mike Babcock

Q. This is supposed to be a series where the League superstars are showcased, here's Mikael Samuelsson getting two goals.  For the casual sports fan who don't know who Mikael Samuelsson is, please tell us a little bit about him and how he got two goals tonight?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: He didn't score here lately, but he got an assist his last game.  Sami's kind of a streak guy.  When he scores he feels good about himself.  I thought he played big and strong.  He made a real good finish check on the second goal.  Before we scored the first goal, we had about four shifts in a role where we finally got the tempo up.  I thought we were nervous early.  I didn't think we executed early.  I thought once we got the tempo up and got skating, that things went our way better.

Q. Go over that, the two goals.  Have you ever seen two unassisted goals being the first two goals in a playoff game before?  Do you remember that?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: What happened was on the first goal, you could give everybody on the three or four previous shifts.  We had hemmed them in, we were outchanging them, keeping them in.  Sami came off the bench flying their "D" was dead tired.  The other one he finished the check.

I thought Dallas [Drake] was right there.  Maybe I guess he didn't touch it.  I thought he got an assist.

Q. Kind of two different games tonight.  Back and forth a little bit in the first period, and then you pretty much suffocated them the rest of the way.  What was the difference there?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: We stayed out of the box.  But we didn't move our feet at the start.  Like I said, I thought we were nervous.  And I knew at home here at the start, you always want to get off to a good start, maybe put a little too much pressure on yourself.

I thought once we got skating and executed we were a better hockey club and played well.

Q. Mike, you looked pretty animated on the disallowed goal.  I had a sense you didn't agree with the call.  Are they coming down a little too hard on him now?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: You're setting me up here.  You throw me a softball you want me to respond.  You watched the game.  Was he in the crease?

Q. I thought maybe his stick might be in between the goal.

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: That's the rule, you can't put your stick in the crease now, is it?  Did they change that when I wasn't watching?

Q. I thought it was between his leg.  I could be wrong.

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Did he touch his pads in any way or interfere with him in any way?

Q. Regardless, are you concerned they're coming down too hard on Holmstrom now?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: They gotta decide.  I just coach the game.  I don't get to referee it.

Q. Mike, to follow up on that.  Did they give you an explanation that he hooked him or did anything in particular?  Didn't need an explanation?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: No, we got --  I don't know.  Let's go to the next topic.

Q. You talked about matchups in the morning, and you said I'm going to figure it out as we go along.  It seemed to go pretty much the way you anticipated it would?

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: Well, we wanted to play [Henrik] Zetterberg, and then we didn't   it didn't matter to us as much against the other guys.  Zetterberg against [Sidney] Crosby.  And then we thought we'd play [Kris] Draper or [Valterri] Filppula against [Evgeni] Malkin, depending on what worked best.  And [Jordan] Staal.  Like I said earlier this morning, you can have all these theories, but until you get player against player and you figure out the faceoff and figure out the speed of the players, you don't know for sure.

I thought we had a good effort from our groups tonight.  So I wasn't as concerned.  And we were able to get our people, on and off the ice, I thought, fairly quickly, which is positive for us.

Q. Was that as commanding over the final two periods of puck control as you've had?  It almost seemed like only one team had the puck at all.

COACH MIKE BABCOCK: I didn't see it like that at all.  I think they're an excellent, excellent hockey club and I think they're scary.  We had some puck luck on the first penalty kills.  Ozzie [Chris Osgood]  made some real good saves.  But the game can be totally different, and then we score first.  And it seemed to be a big thing that got going.  So to answer your question is maybe if they score first, maybe it's different that way for them.

So I think it's pretty early to   we played fine.  I think we had good tempo, and yet they had chances.