GM 1 Morning Skate: Ducks Getzlaf on Series with Flames

Comments from Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf following the Anaheim Ducks morning skate in advance of Game 1 vs. the visiting Calgary Flames…

On the kind of game he wants to play given the layoff:

“The important thing was our practice this week and the preparation. I thought we did a great job of ramping things up and competing in practice. I think when you get out there in the first five minutes you’re trying to have to get involved right away.”

On the Ducks dominance of the Flames at home and getting on them early:

“We’d like to, that’d be a great thing. When it comes to playoffs, year by year I don’t put a whole lot of thought into it. It’s a matter of going out and executing our game plan.”

On being able to tell how crisp the practices has been:

“One thing we had was at the end of the season we had a couple times where we had three or four days off between games, and we were able to maintain what we wanted to do going into those games. So we drew upon that and prepared the same way.”

On how many of the Flames games he saw during the first round:

“I watched a few of the games; I can’t remember the exact number. I watched them play a little bit here and there and I thought they played great last series. It looked like they were really skating hitting and getting involved, so we’re looking forward to the start tonight.”

On the game plan for Calgary compared to Winnipeg:

“We don’t want to change our game plan too much, we just want to go out and execute. The similarities I thought were they both skate hard, they both hit. Calgary in term of playing physical, their D are little smaller but still get involved. We’re going to have to be wary of their defensemen mostly I think.”

On Calgary playing their top 4 defensemen heavily and if the Ducks will key in on that to wear them down:

“Yeah it’s a seven game series. We’re going to have to go out and force those guys to play 200 feet every time. Make sure we’re getting everything deep in their zone so they’re not turning on the attacks. That’s part of our execution of the whole thing.”

On what they learned in the regular season against Calgary that can work for them now:

“We executed our game plan. At different times during the year we were able to play a lot within our system. We could kind of smother teams and not allow them to get going. We’re a skating team like Calgary, but big.”

On being the favorites and the Flames playing the underdog role:

“Those are media mind games. They said the same thing last series. This isn’t about playing games in the media and who’s the favorites. We’re all here, we’re all in the playoffs, and there’s eight great teams in our conference that deserve to be here.”

On if he expects a lot of goals as there were during the regular season:

“It’s hard to say. The playoffs you never really know. We’d like to keep it closer obviously. Run and gun isn’t our game and isn’t the way we want to play. But in the playoffs you’re always going to have to win in different situations and different ways.”

On knowing Jonas Hiller’s tendencies:

“To tell you the honest truth the tendencies out there in the league, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing against, who you’ve played with or against. You watch video and you can tell anything about a goalie in five to ten minutes in the video room with the coach. We’re just looking to go out there and make him compete. He’s a good goalie that plays well and gives them a chance to win and we got to make sure we get to him.”

On the toughest part of playing just nine games in April:

“It’s about that mental strength to keep going. We’re taking it as an advantage. We’re able to rest our legs as well as stay engaged. Playoff time is no reason to be let down at all, this is an exciting time of year.”

On any advantages or disadvantages against Jonas Hiller:

No. I mean he’s a goalie. I’m just saying there’s no advantage. Any goalie around the league you can spend 5 minutes with the video coach and you can figure out his tendencies, what he does and doesn’t do well. It’s the same thing. This is a great goaltender that we’re going to have to get to early.”

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