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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 1, 2012Mike EavesTHE MODERATOR: This weekend the men’s hockey team opens the season Saturday with an exhibition game at 8:00 p.m. If you want to talk to any student athletes in hockey or coaches, contact me. We can set it up. There's no official practices, but I will help you get interviews. With that, we'll open questions for coach Eaves. Q. What's it like your first official day of practice, and then you play a game that night? COACH EAVES: Well, we've not done it before. It will be a little new experience for all of us. Our discovery has been the fact that, having these   we have two hours a week. So our process has been to split our time into three practices, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. The kids go on the ice with our skating instructor and have a warmup. The captains run about 15-20 minutes of some skill drills. Which is good ownership for them, the process has been good. The coaches will come on for 40 minutes, and then coach Snyder will come on the bench and do a conditioning skate. So it works out pretty good. I'll tell you one thing, I've never seen 40 minutes go by so fast. It seems like 5 minutes, and we're looking at the clock, and we have to get off the ice. At least we've been able to get to most of our systems and plant seeds and remind guys of what their jobs are. There's actually ten practices before our first game, as we mapped it out. I think, what it has done is highlighted this first game. These practices actually have a meaning and a purpose because our very first official day, we play at 8:00 that night. So I'm interested to see how that pays off. I think the attention has been raised to a higher level because of the fact we have that carrot there. We're playing our first date. So we need to be ready. We need to stay focused, even the brief time we have as players and coaches has been very well received, and there's been a good attention level. Q. Mike, I don't know if you can answer this question at this point, but if you look at where this team has ended up at the end of the season, in '06, where you build up and win the title in '06, you build up and get back in ten. Where do you think this team might be if you plotted that out on a graph given the personnel you've got coming back. COACH EAVES: Well, based on history, you would like say these are two years that we need to harvest our crop, so to speak. And that's what we looking to do. I think we start further down the spectrum certainly than we were last year in power play and specialty teams and all our team play. We've had young men play in situations they probably weren't ready for last year, that have been there and done that now. As we said last year, we liked our team. And so, if we can pick up somewhere along that spectrum closer to where we ended last year, we're looking to get off to a much better start. Q. Mike, of these little snapshots of practice that you've had, have they allowed you an opportunity to assess what you have in your freshmen? COACH EAVES: Yes. There's no question. They have been able to jump in there and give us a glimpse of what they're capable of. The interesting thing about this type of year as opposed to last year or the year before, our freshman class and our sophomore class, they're so big. Now we have two forwards and two defensemen and a goalie and a young man that's kind of going between defense and forward. So they're able to go to the back of the line and watch several times as to how things are being done and have a better idea when it comes to up to their turn. So their learning curve and their process, they have good examples in front of them before they have to actually jump in there. But because of that fact, we're able to see how they fit in and the kind of skills they have. Q. Mike, you mentioned some guys having to be put in situations to do things they might not have been ready for last year. Who are some of the guys that will benefit from that? Who, whether it's taking a big jump or just be more consistent this year? COACH EAVES: I can take a look at anybody who was in our sophomore, freshman class last year. Woodsy, Navin, Rumps, Petersen   all freshmen last year thrown into pretty significant situations right away. And once again I think, by the end of the year, they had matured where you could see some definitive growth, and you could see some success in what they were doing. Q. As far as the goaltenders, obviously, that was a big question, going into last year. That's only going to help them. We saw Rumpel really kind of mature in the second half last year, would you agree with that? COACH EAVES: No question. I think part of that maturation was the fact that he knew that Mr. Petersen was right off his shoulder every day in practice, and the games he got to play, he played very well. So as a coach and as a coaching staff, we would like to have that kind of situation in every position   goaltending, defensemen, and forwards. I think we do have that this year much more than compared to last year. Q. Mike, every NCAA Tournament team that you've had has had a marquee focus, whether it's Blake Jeffrey, Joe Pavelski, any one of those guys. Where does Mark Zengerle fit on that graph in terms of comparing his impact and what types of things he can do for your team? COACH EAVES: If you look at his numbers over his freshman and sophomore years, those are pretty dynamic numbers. I think last year you take a look at the forwards that were in the league, he was kind of lost in the   maybe the lower third of those top echelon forwards, and I think that's something he's very much aware of. I think he comes in with a target on his back. I think he welcomes that. He wants to be that guy. He has ability to be that guy. I think Mark will just kind of pick up where he left off. He's a guy that produces points and wants to produce points and will carry a big load for us this year in that fashion, just as he has his freshman and sophomore year. Q. Do you have any puck rushing defensemen out there that can fill Justin Schultz's shoes? COACH EAVES: Not to that degree, but I like our core in terms of from top to bottom. There's a real good, solid base. Obviously, we don't have that magic that Justin provided us. I think on our power play, we're going to give Mr. Lee an opportunity to play that. He's played that part as a   when he played junior hockey. He skates well enough backwards that I don't think that he's a liability. Certainly not the first time we've done that here.  We had Andrew Droty back there as a forward playing defenseman. And he has good vision. He has good skills. I don't think he has quite the magic shot that Justin had. Not many people do, but I think he'll be able to fill that role for us a little bit. No, there's not been one young guy that's jumped up. I think as people mature, we'll get closer to having a Justin Schultz in there, maybe from a guy like Mr. Schulze because he skates very well and sees the ice. So we're hoping someday that he might provide some of that. THE MODERATOR: Any further questions? Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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