Conference Call: Kirk Muller

MONTREAL - Associate coach Kirk Muller took some time on Thursday to chat with reporters.

The 54-year-old Kingston, ON native discussed everything from his '93 Stanley Cup memories to improving the Canadiens' power play.

Here are a few excerpts from his Q&A session.

Question from Martin McGuire, Cogeco Media

Kirk, you've been a part of Stanley Cup teams in the past as a player. Recently, there have been a few TV broadcasts of these Stanley Cup playoff games. RDS and TVA Sports recently presented the '93 Cup run of the Montreal Canadiens. I'm just curious, is it a source of pride to see yourself again in these classic moments?

I have to be honest with you, it's actually been a lot of fun. I'm sitting here in Kingston, ON and these games are coming on, and we've been watching some of the games and highlights from the '93 Cup, and I've never sat down and watched it with my daughters before. It's kind of like reliving memories of way back that we've never shared before. My one daughter is married to Brad Malone, who's a part of the Edmonton Oilers organization, and he's staying here with us. He's an active player, so it's been a fun combination of sitting there and watching the games with my family, and also watching with a player that's playing the present game of hockey and comparing the game from today to back then. Such great, special memories, especially winning the Cup in Montreal back in '93 and that group of people. It's kind of given us a chance to relive the old times that we really don't talk about too much anymore.

Question from Jean-François Chaumont, Le Journal de Montréal

You've been a high draft pick in the NHL. I know you'll say way back ago, but being picked second overall in 1984 by the Devils, when you're looking at a guy like Jesperi Kotkaniemi, he's starting in Montreal, he's not starting in New Jersey for his first two seasons in the NHL, but can you try to help him maybe to deal with the amount of pressure? And what are you seeing from Kotkaniemi? We all know that this year was a tough season.

It's a good point as far as comparing his situation to mine because they're so different. First of all, the expectation of the team when I was brought into New Jersey, we were a young team, it was all pure rebuilding at the time, and in a market where we were allowed to go out and play and make mistakes. That was the direction. We had myself who was 18, John MacLean was 19, Pat Verbeek was 20, so we were a really, really young group of guys. And the game was different back then. There were more mistakes, as far as the game, if you watched the highlights of the games being played right now. And so when you played, it was just a whole different mindset back then. With KK, I think the biggest thing with him is, you see the qualities that he has, his size, his skill level, his knowledge level of the game, but today the game is so fast and it's so competitive, and it's such a great brand of hockey that we have, that it's a process to get better each year. I think that's the biggest thing, is he just has to continue the path of playing and learning the NHL game. I grew up in North America. I knew the Canadian, North American game. He came over from Europe, which is all in it's own another transition to play over here, so you look at him, he's one of the youngest kids from that Draft, and he's still a very young player. As long as he positively progresses and learns, and we keep teaching him, it's a transition that he's going through and I think he's on the right path. I think people just have to understand, it's not an easy step to step into the NHL right now at such a young age and just take over and play. A lot of good things, he's learning the game, the North American game, and I think if he continues that, we're just going to see a player that's going to get better and better. I will say one thing as a coach, I love coaching him because he's very receptive to learning and getting better. If he keeps that attitude, then obviously those types of players just keep progressing.

Questions from Eric Engels, Rogers Sportsnet

The feeling of scoring a Cup-winning goal in Montreal, when you look back on it, how can you describe it?

Oh, boy. All of us that are hockey fans or sports fans, just reliving moments like we're all doing right now, and probably watching all these sporting events that are going on, I'll sit back and look over different decades and great hockey and sports moments and everything, and then you sit back and you think, when people ask me about the Stanley Cup and scoring the Stanley Cup winning goal, I always say it wasn't so much about just that year, about being with a great group of guys and doing something you never forget, it's a dream you have when you were just a kid. It's about as innocent as you can think of. Playing and growing up in Canada, playing outside, and you hear the story over and over with people, but just think, you're a young kid and you dream about scoring the Stanley Cup winning goal in the NHL and it actually comes true. You know that you could just finish your career and go, 'I did what my biggest dream was to do, to win a Cup and score a Stanley Cup winning goal.' To score it in Montreal at the Old Forum, and to score it in front of all my family that was there and the fans of Montreal, I can't have a more memorable moment in my head these days as an athlete to say, 'Wow! I'll never forget that moment!' I'm sitting in my office right now. I've got the gloves and the puck and everything from that. I didn't collect too much when I played, but I made sure that I collected that memorable moment and kept that stuff right here in my office.

Without focusing on a specific player that might be out there, what is one element that you think could be added to this power play? What is the one thing that you think could be a major help for the current power play of the Canadiens?

I think the personnel is there. I think Drou being injured was one issue that hurt us, when he went down in the Washington game. But I think the biggest thing is looking at the personnel and saying, 'Hey! Listen, why are we the number one, number two or number three right now - but for the most part, number one power play this year in the League on the road, but 30th or whatever at home?' The ability to score on the road, I think, is the big thing. We have to keep it simple. It's a shooting mentality. We want to simplify and have everyone work together. I think what happens is, what hurts us is the production at home. I think that's the biggest obstacle. We've got to learn to play in our rink, simplify the power play just like we do on the road, stay the course, stay the system. That's the biggest thing, is making it a better play at our home rink.

Question from Jessica Rusnak, CBC Radio

I'm just wondering what your daily routine is like during quarantining. Some people are getting really into cooking, some people into fishing, what's kind of been going on in the Muller household to keep everyone busy?

I am busy. I went back to Kingston, ON where I'm from. I have some land here that the local farmers farm and I'm on a lake. So basically I'm never back at this time, so I've been Mr. Outdoorsman. I've been working on the outdoor property, cutting trees, weeding. I've been purely working on the land that I haven't had the chance to do in 15 years. That's been keeping me busy despite the fact that it's been freezing cold and rainy and windy. I've been pretty much outdoors most of the days. I've been fortunate. This has been a very tough time for people and everything, but I have two of my daughters staying with me and I have my grandson, so between the two-year-old grandson making me run around all day outside and working outside, I'm pretty full on the daytime stuff. It's been busy. I haven't been bored. And of course we're continuing to do our stuff with hockey, working in the office and talking to Claude and the other coaches, and just always staying prepared. That's been my biggest time-consuming thing I've been working on, those few things.

Question from Alexis Champagne, La Presse Canadienne

You've been through a lockout as a player, a lockout as a coach. How different is the wait right now? Is the anxiety or stress that you feel during this confinement any different from the ones you felt during a lockout with all the uncertainty that comes with that?

This is so much different. The lockouts, I've been through a strike, it's more related towards business, trying to come up with a solution and negotiation and all that. This virus that happened, this is universal. This hasn't discriminated against anybody. This is the public, this is the players, this is coaches, this is owners, we're all in this together. Through the lockouts, it's the ups and downs going based on negotiations, but this is all based on the health and welfare of this virus. It really controls everything that's going on. It will decide what the next step is in the world and the public. If anything is coming from this right now, what I see just talking to family and friends is how everyone's slowed their life down a bit, and everybody's appreciating their family and the simple things in life. It's really taken everyone to just pull back and really appreciate the simple things. Basically, for me, I find the anxiety of this is just the whole well-being of just your health. We all have older parents and grandparents, and we're all concerned about people that are a little bit more vulnerable than others, but anyone can get it and anyone can have problems with it. This is a little different that way, I guess, than the lockout because this has certainly unified everybody and hasn't discriminated, so everyone's in this together. Hopefully, everybody continues to do their role and stay home and social distance and do the things that we've been told, washing their hands so we can get a hold of this thing.

Question from Sean Gordon, The Athletic

As you're chopping wood and sort of considering the lake, do you occasionally reflect on how you could maybe get a little bit more production from your blueline on the power play? You've got 33 goals so far this year, six of them from Petry and Weber.

During the day, it's sort of a break just being outside, going day to day and hanging out with my grandson, but I think more about it when we sit down at night. Brad and I have watched a lot of the recaps of these games, so we get into the hockey discussions and all that, which is fun. I like it because he's an active player. I played before and I'm obviously coaching right now, so getting different perspectives and everything. He's also a penalty-killer, so we have fun going back and forth with each other. They both have unique talents that you need on the power play. Petry's got the skating ability and the shot and he's mobile, and of course Webby's got his shot, so I think the biggest thing is, if you look at the power plays, and you look at Edmonton right now, if you really dissect their group, all five guys are working together so they're all a threat. I think that's the biggest key, is we've got to get back to all five guys on the ice being a threat together so people can't just utilize Webby and take him away. It opens up more plays, more options, and I think that's the flexibility that we need. In doing that, keeping it simple. We've done that on the road, we just haven't done it at home. I think it's just more of a cohesiveness of working together with five guys.