Kings defenseman Matt Greene claims he isn’t very good with numbers, whether it’s cell phone numbers or even remembering his own birthday at times. But, bank on the back there’s at least one digit he’s not having trouble with – four. It’s the playoff victory number that’s eluded him and his teammates each of the last two seasons.
“We’re focused right now,” Greene began, when talking about what’s still left to be accomplished for a group sitting at 3-1 in their best-of-seven series vs. the Canucks. “Guys are ready, they’re focused and they know what’s at hand. Darryl’s done a good job of driving that home – what it’s going to take to close this series out and not let this opportunity slip away. We’ve worked hard to get to this point in the series and now we need to take advantage of it.”
When he looks back on game four though, Greene realizes the Kings may have let one get away.
“I think they (Vancouver) played well, but I think we made mistakes that led to them winning the game. We have to be better. We have to get our own game going better, that’s it right now. You have to go out and win games, you can’t just go out and play.”
Away from the rink, he doesn’t have any superstitions he’s too worried about at the moment. However, there is a pattern of consistency.
“I have the same routine pretty much every time. There’s a group of eight of us, we all go to the same restaurant. I pretty much eat the same thing and take a nap. Then, Stolly picks me up to come to the rink. It’s pretty cut and dry, it’s pretty boring.”
At lunch, Greene says the conversation is a mixed bag, alternating between hockey and a myriad of random topics.
“It’s a little bit of everything, whatever the conversation flows to. The guys are pretty loose around each other. So, it’s a pretty easy going conversation and hockey gets mixed into it, of course. But, there’s a pretty wide variety of topics discussed every day,” he said, followed by one of his typical sneers and under his breath laughs. We’ll assume there were still some leftover thoughts from one of those recent roundtables.
As he gets ready to head back to Vancouver tomorrow, we asked if he’s heard about Jeff Carter wearing the same suit for the first four games and if he was packing anything special for the plane ride tomorrow.
“I’ll wear whatever suit’s clean in my closet. Whatever’s fresh and pressed, I’ll take that.”
What he takes isn’t nearly as important as what he brings back. Win number four, that’s the only souvenir needed.
Now, if he happens to pick up a goal along the way – something he’s yet to do in 34 career post-season games – he’ll likely remember the number associated with it.
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