Corey Perry was named the NHL Player of the Month for March and spoke with the press on Friday after receiving the Award. Perry is now the league leader in goals and is a leading contender for the Hart Trophy as the Most Valuable Player to his team.
Here is the full transcript from the NHL...
COREY PERRY
DAVID KEON: Welcome everyone. I'm David Keon of the National Hockey League's public relations department and today we have with us Corey Perry. Thanks to Corey for taking the time to join us and answer your questions, and thanks to Alex Gilchrist of the Ducks' PR staff for arranging this call.
Corey helped the Ducks post an 11-3-0 record in March tallying a League high 15 goals including four game winners, propelling Anaheim from 11th place to 7th in the Western Conference standings. He also tied for the March lead in points with Vancouver's Daniel Sedin at 21 and was named first Star of the Month around half an hour ago.
For the season, Corey leads the NHL in goals with 46, and shares first place in game?winning goals with ten and he also ranks fourth in points with 89 and is tied for fourth in power play goals with 13.
The Ducks have five games remaining in their regular season schedule including a home and home series with Los Angeles on April 8 and 9.
Q. Obviously with your recent run here, you've put yourself in contention to win the Maurice Richard Trophy, is that something you thought was a possibility in your career prior to this recent stretch?
COREY PERRY: I don't know if you can ever say that you're going to win it. I mean, you have to have a lot of great bounces and teammates to play with. I have to give a lot of credit to them. Recently it's been going well, and you know, I’m just trying to help the team win. That's all I'm worried about.
Q. That being said, is it going to be possible to avoid thinking about the potential 50 goals in the final week and a half of the season?
COREY PERRY: Iit's tough not to think about it. But you know, you never know what can happen in the last couple of games. We have a handful of games left and we'll see how it goes.
Q. Wanted to ask you about a couple of your teammates, Teemu Selanne, a guy that is starting to get more recognition as the season has gone on. Have you been amazed since you joined that team as to just how ageless he seems?
COREY PERRY: Well, he's a guy that he comes in every day with a smile on his face, and he just loves the game. He's been that way ever since I've been here and ever since I've known him.
Just the recognition he's getting now is nothing new to us. He's done it his whole career. He's climbing into the standings and in the points standings. He keeps passing everybody. It seems like he passes everybody every night. He's a guy that just loves the game and hopefully he comes back.
Q. Just wanted to ask you, kind of give your impressions of Ray Emery. What were your expectations for him when you signed him? I imagine he's already blown past that.
COREY PERRY: He's a guy that came in, and we needed somebody to step up when Jonas went down. He came in and has done what everybody has asked of him. I don't know if too many people know his whole story behind the surgery and everything. He's gone beyond expectations and he's taken this team to another level.
Q. Just wondering about another one of your teammates, and that would be Cam Fowler, a lot of people were surprised, and I think Bob Murray, the most, when he dropped all the way to you guys in the draft. Can you just talk about how this guy has grown and now he's gobbling up big minutes and power play minutes and really giving you offensive force from the back end?
COREY PERRY: Well, I mean, there's been a lot of talk about how he did drop in the draft, but we are very happy to have him. He's a guy that came in and he's playing big minutes for us. He plays on our power play, and he's a guy that, you know, he's going to be a quarterback on the power play for a long time. He's only 19 years old and doing all of these great things. He's scoring game?winners, first in overtime, and he's jumped up in the last few weeks. He's just a guy that's playing beyond his years.
Q. Is there anything that you have been able to take from Teemu Selanne's game that you've been able to apply to your game to make you a better player?
COREY PERRY: I mean, just the way he trains himself off the ice. Just watching him over the past six years has been enough for me. You know, he comes in every day, like I said, with a smile on his face. He loves the game, and the way he works in practice is truly amazing at 40 years old.
It doesn't seem like he's aging at all, and hopefully he comes back for a couple more years. We have a running joke in the dressing room that we are three?quarters of the way there, getting him to come back, so hopefully he's listening to us.
Q. If you could talk just a little about the resilience of the team as a whole. Obviously it's been an unusual year with the Hiller situation, missing Ryan Getzlaf for so long; can you talk about how the team has persevered?
COREY PERRY: Well, I mean, when guys go down with injuries, people have to step up and kind of fill that hole and take on a leadership role. I think guys in the dressing room realized what was going on and where we were in the standings. We had to overcome all of those injuries. So it's not an easy thing to do when you have two big guys go down that kind of carry this team. Everybody stepped up and you have to give a lot of credit to everybody. We kind of ran with what we had.
Q. Do you view the game tomorrow night as sort of a possible playoff preview?
COREY PERRY: I think so. I mean, they are playing well. They are healthy and you know, we are playing well and we are healthy. So you know, it's going to be a lot of excitement. It's going to be fun and we are trying to get the fourth, fifth seed. So you never know what can happen.
Q. Just want to know, you have had a few losing streaks this year, a few big ones, I know you started the year not as you wanted to. What was the toughest streak for you from your perspective for the team to straighten itself out?
COREY PERRY: Nobody wants to start the season the way we did. I think we went 0?3 or 0?4, whatever it was. We have gone through some tough stretches. I think we know what it feels like and we don't want to go back there. So going into the playoffs, I think that's just going to help us.
Q. Obviously you don't go into a month thinking you'll score 15 goals. Do you have anyway to explain what got into you in March?
COREY PERRY: Not really. You just go into every game expecting to play well. Things happened in March that doesn't happen very often. It's one of those things where you go out, you play your game, and you see what happens. But you know, March was a good month, and hopefully there's more to come.
Q. Most players, if they were junior scorers or NHL scorers, but you were more of a passer in junior and in your NHL career you've been more of a playmaker. Is this one of those years where you're shooting more and the puck is going in or what? I think the most goals you had as a junior was 47 in London, and you've got 46 goals.
COREY PERRY: I don't know. I think I'm playing the same way I did back in London. But obviously, you know, the puck's going into the back of the net. I've got to give a lot of the credit to Ryan and Bobby. I mean, they have done everything they can do, and they are finding me and I'm just trying to get open in the slot, and things are going in the back of the net.
More Later...
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