University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Postgame Quotes
3/8/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Minnesota Postgame Quotes
Head Coach Don Lucia
On seniors' play...
“We are playing good hockey right now. I think we came off that open weekend and they knew that their careers were winding down. You have to have your seniors step up and they certainly did tonight”
On offensive play...
“We made a couple of good plays to start out the game. Both Blake and Ben had great plays when they opened up for the one-timers. It is nice to see us to continue to score on the power plays. I thought that Alex was sharp tonight. I thought we had some guys with dead legs tonight that weren’t great but we just told them to keep the game simple”
Is it turn the corner time?
“Well, I don’t know if it is turn the corner time, all we can control is what we are doing, not what anybody else is doing. It looks like we are going to be on the road to start the playoffs but that’s every year. If you look at the league the last few years, there are a lot of teams on the road that have won and we are going to have to do that. But that’s a week away. All we can control is tomorrow so we want to make sure that we take care of what we do tomorrow, continue to play well, and get ourselves going as we head into the playoffs”
How big was the penalty kill, 5 on 3?
“We were fortunate that the period over-lapped so they had about 20 seconds on each side of the periods. They didn’t have 40 seconds at the same time. To start the 3rd period, you have a face off and only 22 seconds left, so to kill that and the initial penalty to start the 3rd, could have been a real momentum swing”
Is this team playing its best hockey right now?
“I think we have played a lot of good hockey, if you look back to the North Dakota series and all the way through. If you look at the second half of the season, there haven’t been many games or stretches. We just weren’t really good. We just needed that ability to score. We played everybody toe to toe and haven’t been able to get over the hump. Now, we are scoring a few goals and that makes the game a lot easier”
