University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Postgame Quotes
11/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Goaltender Alex Kangas
On his first collegiate shutout:
“It seems like it has been four or five years since I have had one. It feels good to get the monkey off my back. We played a great game today. I had only thirty-eight shots but most of them were from the outside.”
Do you remember your last shutout?
“My last shutout was when I was playing juniors and we were playing in Indiana. I don’t remember who we played against. It was the year before I came to Minnesota. It has been a while. It feels good and hopefully we can keep up the defensive effort because we have to be ready to go and play Denver.”
Head Coach Don Lucia
On today’s game:
“I felt that there was still a struggle. The previous four weeks has taken a toll on us and we did not have a good week of practice. Mentally, I think we made some mistakes that we have not made in the past. All weekend long, we were not moving as a five man unit. We were not quite in the rhythm were are normally in and Michigan Tech makes it difficult in the way they play. We scored a couple of power play goals today and got that important goal today in the second period.”
On the team’s emotion:
“Even after the first period today we felt that we had to get through it. I have been doing this long enough to know that some games you are more emotionally in it more than others. Even after the first our locker room was pretty quiet and that is going to happen but we still got three out of four points and anytime you play Michigan Tech, you are going to have to earn them.”
Did you feel that the guys were looking ahead?
“I think that has zero to do with it. Our guys and coaches have too much respect for everyone in our league. We knew how difficult this weekend was going to be. I don’t think our players have had time to take a breath this year and Michigan Tech presented problems. The last game they got beat 6-0 against Wisconsin and five of the goals were on the power play and only one was a five on five goal. You are not going to score a lot on five on five. We had one tonight and scored on two on the power play. You have to be able to just grind through it and today we were able to do that.”
