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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 22, 2016

Mike Eaves

Madison, Wisconsin

THE MODERATOR: After an eight-game home stand, Badgers are traveling to Columbus this weekend for a Big Ten series against Ohio State. Face-off Friday is at 5:30 and will air live on BTN. Saturday's game at 6:00 p.m.

Head Coach Mike Eaves is here and will take your questions.

Q. Among the themes you could have for this season, resiliency would be one with this team, wouldn't you say?
COACH EAVES: If it wasn't when we started, it's certainly one we have to build and include in our repertoire. We've demonstrated that. It's interesting, over the last 24 hours I've had several people, alumni, guys that know hockey, reach out and said they saw the games this weekend and said we deserve better.

We're doing good things. Sometimes that's an important message to carry to the kids because they, as we do, are measured by wins and losses, and the fact that people are reaching out to say, hey, you're doing good things and you've just got to keep pounding away is a message that we'll carry to our kids today and get back to work and keep forging the kind of hockey team we want to become.

Q. Mike, given your experience as a player and a coach, in moments like this, which group is harder to boost up when things are like this? Is it the young guys or the veterans who have been around for a while?
COACH EAVES: First thing that comes to mind is the maturity of the player you're talking about, whether it's a senior or a freshman. I think that maturity helps them understand the bigger picture. If a younger guy understands the big picture, then he's going to be okay. He gets it.

If it's a senior, you'd hope that he's been around and he would understand that big picture, but it's a challenge. It's a challenge to your makeup and how you deal with these things.

You could take a look at history. History is such a great teacher, as we know. You think about what Churchill had to do with England during the bombings, and we've actually quoted Churchill during this stretch that you've just got to keep going. You never, never, never give up, and you just persist. That's kind of the message that we have to our guys.

To your question, I think it depends on the maturity of the person you're talking about, how they handle it.

Q. You did a little shuffling with your lines last weekend. Did you like what you saw? Is that something you'll continue to do as you play it out here?
COACH EAVES: I think we'll start this week with the lines we ended up having on Saturday. I thought actually that Seamus Malone with Rocky and Soleway was very dynamic on Saturday, not only for scoring the only goal we had, but they carried it through.

I thought that Zirbel's line gave us really good energy all weekend. In their role on our time, they're our energy line. They went in, created stuff, played in the other zone, and did really good things.

So the lines that we start with this week will be similar to what we ended the weekend with.

Q. To use one of your favorite analogies with regards to the mountain climbing, which one of your freshmen has made the highest climb this year?
COACH EAVES: Well, the steepist climb has been for Matt Jurusik, I think, and that's because of the responsibility that's on a goaltender's shoulders. I think he's faring pretty well. There are games that you would say, as he's climbing his mountain, he's got a lot of storms that he's had to go through. He's still on the side of the mountain, and he's making progress up that darn thing. So of all the guys, I think he's had the steepest climb and is still on the mountain climbing.

Q. Which freshman has made a consistent leap in his play? Can you pick one out?
COACH EAVES: The one guy that comes to mind here recently is Will Johnson. I thought on Saturday night, especially in the third period, he rose to another level. So I think he's been making a steady climb. As he's become more comfortable and understanding what he can do at this level -- one of his strengths is his skating ability. Although he's not the biggest guy, I thought on Saturday night he was able to get that quick little body inside of people and win puck races and battles, which is something that we've been focusing on. Did a great job that way. He comes to mind right away.

Q. What are the challenges going to Columbus? They've been struggling a bit this season. Not a lot of fans show up for games like that down there. You really do kind of have to get yourself mentally prepared for that, don't you?
COACH EAVES: Their crowds are very similar to ours. Our Saturday night crowds tend to be a little bigger, and that's certainly the case there.

Playing Ohio State, they're a team that can get up and down the ice. They get spanked on Friday night at Penn State and come back and win 7-4. They have the ability to play wide open. If you're sloppy, they can score. They're opportunistic, and they can score.

We need to continue to do what we've been doing and preaching about playing the right way, playing hard and smart as a team to give ourselves to keep forging ourselves into the type of team we want to be.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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