Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Post game 2 with Timonen & Leino

Kimmo Timonen wants the Flyers to add more speed to their game.

"As soon as we skate and every guy moves, we will find those open guys and we are a good team. We held back a little when it was 0-0 and didn't just go forward as much as we should have."

Timonen wants to see the Flyers play full 60 minutes the way they played the third period.

"Now that we go home we have no other option than put pressure. We have to play hard for 60 minutes. If we play 60 minutes like we played the second half of this game, we will find those holes we need to find. We need to use this game as an example; we will beat this team by skating. There's no other way."

The trash talk seemed to go up a notch in Game 2. Timonen says three Blackhawks players threatened to kill him during the game.

"What can you say to that?", Timonen smiles and shakes his head. "Other than: 'Okay. Go ahead'."

Ville Leino got the ice time he was looking for in the third period, but it felt too little too late.

"It doesn't work that way. It's like you push a button and suddenly you play double shifts. You can't score right away then. If you play two minutes per period, it's pretty hard to get the feeling and get anything done. The third period was like a first period for me. At least I was fresh there."

Leino says his deke on Brent Sopel was well planned and compares it to soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

"To quote Zlatan: I went right, then left, and Sopel went on to have a hotdog."

"Eh, just kidding. I already saw earlier that he goes down to his knee pretty easily and we also knew that he blocks a lot of shots, so I decided that if I get a 1-on-1 against him, I'll try a fake shot."

Nothing has been lost yet if you ask Leino.

"We haven't lost anything. We haven't lost any games at home and you can only go one game at a time. We won't lose our faith at this point, we've battled back from 0-3."

Like Timonen, Leino wants to see the Flyers play the whole game like they did in the third period. He wants the Flyers to be "angry".

"If we play like we now did in the third period, we won't have any problems. We have to get angry right from the start, so we'll be ready to play desperate hockey."

The star of the game, Blackhawks goalie Antti Niemi is looking forward to play in Philadelphia. He has never played a game there.

"It's interesting to go there. I'm sure the crowd is amazing there. And like we saw today, the Flyers always battle hard right until the end. That team is ready to work."

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