When I came in and I was doing my first interviews at Media Day today, I could see the Cup, which was pretty cool. Our coach, Rod Brind’Amour, talked about it the other day -- once you win with a team, you are tied to those players for the rest of your life. This is a team that I would love to be able to share those memories with for the rest of my life. You become a hero in your city. We have tried so hard for so many years to give that to Raleigh and to the fans, and it would be so special to be able to do that.
Being here for Media Day and being around all these people shows that this is a bigger step and there is something important at the end of it. I think we have always known that once we got here, this would be a part of it. We were expecting all the questions and all that stuff, but it is exciting. It makes you really excited about the next steps. I didn’t get too many weird questions, but I did get asked a lot of restaurant questions, which I was excited to talk about because I love talking about food.
The setup here is amazing with all the pictures and stuff, but I haven’t had a chance to look at them all because I feel like I have been pushed from interview to interview. But once I have a chance, I will look around.
But every year, as a hockey fan, you are watching the Stanley Cup Final. Now, it’s our turn and our opportunity to show what we are all about.
The Cup moment that comes to mind for me was when Chicago Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane scored in Philadelphia -- the one where nobody thought it was in and he’s celebrating. That’s a pretty cool moment that he was the only guy that knew he won the Stanley Cup.
We start the Final on Tuesday, and everyone wants to talk about how hard it will be to switch from this to a game. I don’t think it will be; it’s just another game day. Obviously, it is the most important series of our lives, but it’s just a hockey game that we have been doing for however many games this year and we know the recipe that we need. It might be a little more intense, but that is a good thing.
As a hockey player, you want intensity, you want that feeling. Intensity brings excitement and it shows what you are made of.
I think we learned a valuable lesson in Game 1 of the last round against the Montreal Canadiens when we lost 6-2. I felt like we were running around a little bit. There are ways to be intense, but you need to be smart about it, to know when you can push the envelope a little bit. I think having that game against Montreal where we were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot, it’s something we can learn from for sure.
It doesn’t matter how you get here. We only have lost once this postseason, but we are here. I think it helps in that we haven’t played a ton of games. It gives us a little extra juice. I feel fresh.
