SoCalcaniac
04-10-2007, 05:49 PM
Saw JR on the evening news holding court, and found that they posted the whole transcript of the presser on the website. Verrry interesting:
RUTHERFORD HOLDS END-OF-SEASON PRESS CONFERENCE
Carolina Hurricanes
Apr 10, 2007, 4:36 PM EDT
Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford held a press conference on Tuesday, April 10, to address the media for the final time this season. Read on for a complete transcript as Rutherford addressed the media about this season and his plans to improve the team over the summer.
On the letdown from last year
RUTHERFORD: We expected a letdown for a period of time, but we certainly didn’t expect a letdown for 82 games. The fact that we were inconsistent for most of the season, we still put ourselves in a strong position even with a few weeks left in the season. When you look at it all, we had 88 points, I’m sure easily with our core play and inconsistency you could look at a minimum of five games or six games that would have got us to 100 points in a year where we were inconsistent and not focused from the start. We can look at this on a negative side, which it is, we can take as many positives out of it and move forward, which I think that’s what we intend to do. We intend to prepare ourselves, prepare ourselves for the first day of camp like we did the year we won and have a chance to win again.
On the New Jersey Devils being the last team to win the Stanley Cup and miss the playoffs the following year
RUTHERFORD: We have a similar structure, I believe, to the Devils. I don’t want to start comparing player to player, but a lot of their success was built around having such a great goalie. This was a year where we were in a transition year of a young goalie becoming a number one goalie. Unless you’ve been a goalie and been through that, you really don’t understand what that means.
Both our goalies are good, John Grahame (http://javascript<b></b>:void(0)) gave us some games, he’s a good goalie. Cam Ward (http://javascript<b></b>:void(0)) is going to have a great career, but his toughest year of his career is behind him, that transition year. So if you carry that over into your question about the Devils and where this team can go with the need to have great goaltending to win the Stanley Cup again, your answer is yes, we could do that. The nucleus of this team is very strong, we have a lot of good players, and we have the structure in place to win again.
On his meetings with the players Monday
RUTHERFORD: The player meetings for me are more fact-finding meetings as to their thoughts of how they played and some of their thoughts as to what went wrong during the season. Peter had his meetings also, so he’ll have some information from the players. We’ll gather this information and put it all together to see if that can help us make some decisions going forward.
I think if you go back in general, the year we won the cup, there was a focus from the first day of camp, and it was all business. The players were anxious to play, and anxious to win. We might as well not have even had training camp this year. Not anybody’s fault, but the players were still tired. They weren’t rested. There wasn’t the focus on that camp that there needs to be, and that’s one thing that we’re going to be able to do this year, unfortunately. We’ll have five months to prepare for it. But we’ll have the same focus at the start of next year’s training camp as the year we won the cup. We’ll get off to a better start, we’ll have more team togetherness, and the players will be more hungry. That’s basically the general message I’m getting from the players.
The transcript is lengthy, so here's the link:
http://hurricanes.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=298761
RUTHERFORD HOLDS END-OF-SEASON PRESS CONFERENCE
Carolina Hurricanes
Apr 10, 2007, 4:36 PM EDT
Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford held a press conference on Tuesday, April 10, to address the media for the final time this season. Read on for a complete transcript as Rutherford addressed the media about this season and his plans to improve the team over the summer.
On the letdown from last year
RUTHERFORD: We expected a letdown for a period of time, but we certainly didn’t expect a letdown for 82 games. The fact that we were inconsistent for most of the season, we still put ourselves in a strong position even with a few weeks left in the season. When you look at it all, we had 88 points, I’m sure easily with our core play and inconsistency you could look at a minimum of five games or six games that would have got us to 100 points in a year where we were inconsistent and not focused from the start. We can look at this on a negative side, which it is, we can take as many positives out of it and move forward, which I think that’s what we intend to do. We intend to prepare ourselves, prepare ourselves for the first day of camp like we did the year we won and have a chance to win again.
On the New Jersey Devils being the last team to win the Stanley Cup and miss the playoffs the following year
RUTHERFORD: We have a similar structure, I believe, to the Devils. I don’t want to start comparing player to player, but a lot of their success was built around having such a great goalie. This was a year where we were in a transition year of a young goalie becoming a number one goalie. Unless you’ve been a goalie and been through that, you really don’t understand what that means.
Both our goalies are good, John Grahame (http://javascript<b></b>:void(0)) gave us some games, he’s a good goalie. Cam Ward (http://javascript<b></b>:void(0)) is going to have a great career, but his toughest year of his career is behind him, that transition year. So if you carry that over into your question about the Devils and where this team can go with the need to have great goaltending to win the Stanley Cup again, your answer is yes, we could do that. The nucleus of this team is very strong, we have a lot of good players, and we have the structure in place to win again.
On his meetings with the players Monday
RUTHERFORD: The player meetings for me are more fact-finding meetings as to their thoughts of how they played and some of their thoughts as to what went wrong during the season. Peter had his meetings also, so he’ll have some information from the players. We’ll gather this information and put it all together to see if that can help us make some decisions going forward.
I think if you go back in general, the year we won the cup, there was a focus from the first day of camp, and it was all business. The players were anxious to play, and anxious to win. We might as well not have even had training camp this year. Not anybody’s fault, but the players were still tired. They weren’t rested. There wasn’t the focus on that camp that there needs to be, and that’s one thing that we’re going to be able to do this year, unfortunately. We’ll have five months to prepare for it. But we’ll have the same focus at the start of next year’s training camp as the year we won the cup. We’ll get off to a better start, we’ll have more team togetherness, and the players will be more hungry. That’s basically the general message I’m getting from the players.
The transcript is lengthy, so here's the link:
http://hurricanes.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=298761