I'm all for change. It's about excitement and entertainment, right? The way to do that is with more goals and more scoring.

The Australian Open Centenary of 2005 raised the bar to new levels of excitement and entertainment at the Grand Slam of Asia/Pacific,

[Given the myriad forms of entertainment now available to consumers,] the excitement of these big events in general is diminished, ... There's just so much out there.

We haven't gotten off to good starts, so that's important for us to do in both games. We want to come home on a good, positive note. L.A. is struggling, but is still a good hockey team. And San Jose, with Thornton in the lineup, that makes them even more dangerous offensively. The good thing for us is we've seen Thornton a lot, so we know his strengths and weaknesses.

It helped him to go to the minors. He went down, worked on his game and got his confidence. In his rookie year, he was a little gun-shy. It was all new for him, but now he's comfortable. . . . We have a good chemistry.

It's going to take time and patience with this group to believe in the system. We've got to keep working at it until we perfect it. You have to know your [responsibilities]. If you make one bad read, the whole thing falls apart.