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NCAA MEN'S FROZEN FOURApril 8, 2015Jack EichelMatt GrzelcykMatt O'ConnorAhti OksanenDavid QuinnBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS THE MODERATOR: Coach, we'll start with you. Your thoughts? We should start with Jack Eichel spelling Grzelcyk. JACK EICHEL: G‑r‑z‑e‑l‑‑ I just spelled it. THE MODERATOR: Start with your thoughts on being at the Frozen Four and how have things gone so far. COACH QUINN: Well, obviously our team is very excited about being here. A lot of hard work, starting with talent, teamwork, commitment, great goaltending, great D core and a great group of forwards. We know how hard it is to get here. Our guys aren't taking this for granted. It's amazing what happens during the course of a season. When the season starts, you're trying to figure out what your team's abilities are and what the range is to the ceiling, to the floor, and after our season last year, we were excited about the incoming freshman class, but we were also excited about the guys coming back. We knew we had a good core coming back and we knew we were going to surround them with good freshmen. The key to the whole situation was going to be how the returning guys were going to accept the new guys. Freshmen come in for second summer semester every year, and it didn't take very long for us to realize that we might have something special on our hands. When I say that, I'm referring to our teamwork, to the people in the locker room, to our leadership starting with our captain, and all the way down through. In September, as school started and the guys started skating together, as a staff we kind of sat down and thought to ourselves: This could be a special year. And it certainly has turned out that way. Obviously a lot of work to do, but I think the week off gives everybody ‑‑ not only our team, but everybody else ‑‑ a chance to kind of reflect and enjoy the moment, enjoy getting to this point, because it is difficult, and after we patted each other on the back for about three or four days, we got back to work and started practicing and getting ready for North Dakota. It's been a great ride so far, but a lot more work to do. THE MODERATOR: Guys, thoughts on being at the Frozen Four? JACK EICHEL: I think it's an unbelievable feeling to be here. We've went through a lot this year as a team, and no better group of guys to be here with. I know we're really happy. And, with that being said, we still have a lot of work to do, as Coach mentioned. You don't dream about getting to the Frozen Four; you dream about winning it. It's definitely going to be a tough test tomorrow against North Dakota. But all the guys in the locker room are really excited, and we're really confident in the guys that we have in there, starting with our goalie, who's playing unbelievable all season. He's been the backbone of our team, all the way through the defense and the forwards. I think we have a confident bunch, and, like I said, we're really excited to be in this situation. MATT GRZELCYK: Like Jack said, obviously we're excited to be here. I'm sure a lot of the guys feel like we can get the game under way right now, that would be best. It's also nice to be back in Boston, not have to travel too far. We've had some pretty good success on this ice so far, so I think that'll help us really calm our nerves early, and we're just excited to play. MATT O'CONNOR: Yeah, I think like Jack and Grz and Coach said, we're really excited to be here, and we've got a great group of guys, and I think camaraderie goes a long way in the playoff push. I think it serves us well, and we've really got to come together tomorrow night against a really strong team from the Midwest. AHTI OKSANEN: Yeah, there's not much to add. The last two years we maybe weren't as good as we hoped, so now it's an amazing feeling to be in the Frozen Four. Q. David, a two‑part question, please. I'm sure you'd be happy to play in a Frozen Four anywhere, but just the fact that you're a New England team playing in New England, how does that feel? The second question is a bit more serious. You've probably heard by now the verdicts are in in the marathon bombings, guilty on all counts. Considering the proximity of your school, if you can contrast your thoughts on that day and what's happened today and just maybe express how relieved you are. COACH QUINN: Well, first, we are excited about being in the Frozen Four, and I'd be lying to you if I didn't say it was a little bit extra special being in the city of Boston. We've got a lot of local guys, gives our fans an opportunity to come support us. Made the ticket situation more complicated, but we managed through it. I think that also was a benefit of having a week off. It gave us a chance to get the logistics settled and get that taken care of early. As far as the bombing verdict goes, I was actually in Colorado at the time so I wasn't here when it happened, but I certainly felt it being in Denver, Colorado, with all the family and friends here, a very emotional time for the city. Obviously BU being so close to the incident, I know it hit the U hard, but it hit the whole city hard. You know, it's such an emotional time, I think it's still emotional for a lot of people and will be for a long, long time. I know how I feel when you even ask me that question, I know how my mood changed a little bit. We had a nice lighthearted moment there, and then the moment this got brought up, it seemed pretty irrelevant. I think it's starting to give people some closure, now that the verdict has been rendered, and no one will ever move on from it totally, but hopefully events like this help the healing process. Q. Jack and Dave, I was wondering if you could comment on Matt's leadership as a freshman, how he's helped you and the rest of the young guys. And I think, Coach, you touched on it in your opening remarks, but if you could just comment on the kind of leader Matt has been for this team. JACK EICHEL: I mean, I've known Grzy for a while, and playing in summer leagues with him, and then I got a chance to spend a few weeks with him in Sweden last year at the World Juniors. He's an unbelievable person, first of all, and he's such a good person to be around, and you learn a lot from just listening to him. He's so mature for his age. I've been lucky enough to be around him for a while now, and as our captain, coming into the summer, he kind of took the reins of the whole team. We had 10 freshmen, totally new to the whole college scene, on campus, and workouts, whatever it was, he was the guy running everything. But a leader can't tell people to do stuff if he's not doing it himself. That's one thing that's jumped out at me with Grzy is how hard he works. He expects a lot out of himself, and he's definitely hard on himself, but he's an unbelievable player, and he's an even better person. I'm really happy to call him my captain. COACH QUINN: You know, at this age, when you ask your team to vote for your captain, a lot can go into that. Sometimes it's a popularity contest, sometimes they look to the best players, but the one thing that jumped out at me when our team voted on our next captain, I thought our team fully understood what a captain needed to be, and there was no mystery to why Matt Grzelcyk was named our captain last year. As Jack has touched on, you watch him practice, you watch him interact with his teammates, there was a lot of different ways to be a captain, and he kind of reminds me a little bit of Joe Sakic. He's got a great personality but he's not loud. But when he speaks, he means what he says. And not only does he say it, he backs it up, like Jack said. Nobody practices harder and nobody is a better example of a group of 10 freshman coming into college hockey and trying to figure their way through their first season. If there was a question on how to handle a situation, didn't have to look too far to find the right way to do it. As Jack said, we're lucky to have him as our captain. He's had a heck of a season. I don't think there's a better defenseman in college hockey than him. He's had a phenomenal year. He's improved his game dramatically because of his commitment and how hard he works at it. And like I said, when you get to this point, everybody is talented, but there's an awful lot of ingredients that go into getting to the Frozen Four, and we have a lot of those ingredients because of Matt. Q. Coach, you said that after last season you were bringing in a whole bunch of freshmen, a whole bunch of new people. How quick did everything mesh, and then the sacrifices that some players had to make and realize that this was going to be a good team? COACH QUINN: You know, I was shocked how quickly it happened. Actually it happened from the middle of July through August when our freshmen came for summer school and they work out and skate together and a lot of our returning players were still around BU, and you could just see it. With all those new faces there was going to be a lot of uncertainty on what type of team we could have. These guys will tell you I might have thought it was a pipe dream, and I wouldn't say it too loud because people would check me into a hospital if I told you I thought we could win a national championship this year in September based on what happened the year before. But we actually felt that way and we actually said it to the guys in September, after three weeks, we said we think we could win a national title, but we also think we could go .500. The rest is up to us. We've had some fortune along the way, but we've had great players, teamwork, camaraderie, togetherness, great leadership, a little bit of luck, great goaltending, all that stuff factors into it, and we had all of that. We don't take it for granted. We do have a little bit of a swagger to us, but it's a respectful confidence and a respectful swagger because we know we can't just show up and win a hockey game. We don't feel that way. We've got a great work ethic to us, and it's kind of all falling together. Q. Guys, this semifinal is really an East‑West kind of thing. When you look at the East‑West makeup of the semifinal when you're taking on North Dakota and on the other side you have Providence against Omaha, it's really a National Conference versus the Hockey East Conference. When you look at the growth of the game and the way the game has changed at the college level, what does that say to you, especially with the East‑West makeup? What are your opinions of it? What are your thoughts and general overall impressions? MATT O'CONNOR: Obviously with USA Hockey, player development has kind of gotten out of maybe the hockey hotbeds of the East Coast and West Coast from back in the day, but both programs have a lot of history and excellence. Brings a lot of tradition and culture to this game tomorrow night, and I think we're all excited, growing up, dreaming about college hockey. It's kind of a cool thing to be playing a team like North Dakota from the Midwest and such a hockey hotbed over there. I think it just brings back more tradition with fans and culture, but obviously over the years, parity in college hockey is just growing so much over the country. But it's pretty cool to be able to play a strong team from the classic Midwest, and it'll be fun to do it until the Garden. COACH QUINN: Well, it's been touched on, it's changed. In the '70s and the '80s you didn't have the internet and social media and there wasn't the familiarity as there is today. North Dakota, if you ask any casual hockey fan, name the top five or six college hockey programs in the country, every single person will mention North Dakota in one way, shape or form. It may be one, it may be three, it may be four. You're talking about one of the most storied programs in college hockey. I also think BU would be in that mix, and, again, who knows where it would fall. Everybody would have their opinion on which programs are better. But I think that's what makes for such an interesting match‑up. Obviously both teams have had great seasons, and it does make it for a little bit of a juicy subplot. Q. For any of you guys, when you look at North Dakota and their depth and their D core and then you have four guys who have scored over 20 goals this season, how do you anticipate that match‑up playing out between your forwards and their D core? MATT GRZELCYK: I don't think we really read into it too much. First game of the tournament, we played Yale, and they're kind of a shut‑down team. I think we talked in the locker room, we feel like we have a pretty underrated D core ourselves and goalie. I think that might get overlooked sometimes. We're just going to try to go out there and play the best we can and not focus too much on match‑ups. Q. You mentioned your goaltender. Can you speak about Matt and the season that he's had to this point? MATT GRZELCYK: Yeah, I think O'C has been the backbone to our team all year long, and he plays with his own confidence, and I think especially speaking for the D, it really puts us at ease back there knowing that we have a guy back there we can rely on in case we make a few mistakes along the season. I know that stuff is going to happen, especially with four freshmen, but he's played unbelievable. We've definitely relied on him, especially the second half of the season, kind of joking around. We've had a tough stretch over Christmas sort of, but you can really see his dedication in the weight room and how serious he approaches the game. I think that was really one of the focal points for him, making sure that us in general, that we were ready to go for the second half, and just to see how confident he plays in his game really rubs off on the rest of the guys. Q. David and Matt, if you could maybe touch back on you made a comment on Matt upping his game this year, and of course local flavor and being a Bruins draft pick, I wonder if you could talk about how he's upped his game, and, Matt, how you've upped your game this year. COACH QUINN: Well, the first thing I think he's done is consistency. Obviously last year he had half a season, so it was a tough year for him physically. But game in and game out, he hasn't had many bad nights. When the puck is on his stick, he continues to make good decisions. He's got incredible ability to lose the first forechecker. His defensive side of the game continues to get better and better. He's not a big guy, but he's physical and he gets to people quickly. So it doesn't give big forwards a chance to kind of possess the puck and protect it and wear him down. His shot has improved tenfold in the last two years, and he works hard at it. There's a reason he's been scoring at an alarming rate over the last two months. As a matter of fact, I was shocked when he scored his first goal. I didn't realize he didn't have a goal until January. Was it January? Again, he's as well‑rounded a defensiveman as there is in the country. MATT GRZELCYK: I think the biggest thing that I've learned from Coach is knowing when to make a play and when not to make a play. Obviously being kind of a smaller guy, trying to jump in the play offensively, but knowing when to pick and choose your spots, when to jump in the play, when to just get it off the glass and get it to the forwards. It also helps to play with some great players. I think my play has been a product of how hard our team has worked and how skilled we are, and they've played great all year, so I just tried to feed off their energy. Q. Ahti, are people fired up in Finland for the Frozen Four? Do they know what college hockey is? AHTI OKSANEN: I don't think so. I think my mom and dad might watch it, but that might be pretty much it. Q. You're a Boston kid. Can you talk about the emotional impact of the marathon bombing verdict? And, Ahti, as one who doesn't come from this area, can you talk about that, as well? MATT GRZELCYK: Yeah, I think a lot of the guys, especially in my class, really felt the impact that day, and just to make sure our family members and everyone back home was watching, that they were safe. It was a great feeling, and obviously, like Coach said, it's a very emotional time, kind of helps you have more of a peace of mind with it and kind of puts you at ease a little bit. I think the positive impact it's had has kind of brought the city together. Especially growing up in the city, it's nice to see all the people have responded and kind of rallied around each other. AHTI OKSANEN: Yeah, I'm from a small town back home, and it's really calm, nothing happens. It was quite a shock for me when that happened. I was really close to the bombing so I saw all the people running and escaping the bombing. Like Matt said, it was great to see how all the people in Boston responded to the bombing. I remember watching I think it was the Bruins game against Toronto on TV, how everyone sang the National Anthem. For me it was just an unbelievable experience to see how people responded to it. Q. Matt O'Connor, last year after a game against North Dakota where you had a lot of saves, you talked about needing to improve on your rebound control. Can you talk about what you've done to improve on that, and then maybe a couple other things that you feel you've improved on since last year to have had the numbers you've had this year? MATT O'CONNOR: Yeah, a lot of times when a goalie makes a save, it goes unnoticed whether or not he could have prevented some of those saves with good rebound controls. I think getting my stick on low shots, putting into the corner and really eating up anything, especially in the playoff push here, getting whistles even is huge for us to get our legs back and get some match‑ups. But I think just working on rebound control is something every goalie can work on, and I'm hoping to eat up a lot of pucks tomorrow night and put everything in the corner, especially with a lot of good shooters on North Dakota. They'll be putting a lot of rubber on net, maybe from bad angles, so I've got to be alert, get to my spots quick, and hopefully make things easier for my D. Q. We always ask about the wow factor of being in a big moment like this, at a big event like this. Obviously this is pretty familiar territory. Coach, do you expect that this is a place that your players are so familiar with that maybe the routine of this and knowing the surroundings will lessen that? And then for the players, you've been out on the ice, you've seen what it's like. Do you feel like you're maybe a little bit more ready for this than you would be if you were in some arena halfway across the country? COACH QUINN: Well, I think people assume automatically there's going to be a huge advantage for us because of the home crowd and we've played in this building before. But I really think once the game starts, you get so enthralled with what you're doing, obviously we probably will be able to respond to the crowd and the support they're going to give us, but we know we're playing a great team, and if we're jumping to any conclusions that we're at some huge advantage because of the fact that we've played in this venue four other times and we're going to have a huge advantage with the crowd, we're sadly mistaken. I know we're smarter than that. I know we realize the things we're going to have to do for 60 minutes if we're going to put ourselves in a position to win a hockey game. I'm not going to lie, it's going to be a lot nicer playing here than out in Fargo or Grand Forks where they're going to have a home crowd advantage. But in hockey, it's where the NHL Playoffs, and even in college hockey, a road team can do well, and we're certainly aware of that. JACK EICHEL: Yeah, I think it's really nice that we get to have the Frozen Four right here in our home city. Guys had mentioned things about it throughout the season because we had high expectations for ourselves coming into the season, as Coach mentioned. We wanted to be here, so we were mentioning it all year, how cool it would be to be at the Garden for the Frozen Four. But like he mentioned, I wouldn't find it as much of an advantage. Obviously we're pretty familiar with this venue, but the other teams are here, they're all practicing today. Once the game gets going, there's not much of an advantage or disadvantage whether or not you've played here. They're a really good team. I'm sure it'll be a tight checking game, and it wouldn't make a difference if it was here or there. You've just got to focus on what's going on on the ice, and I think that's what both teams are going to do. MATT GRZELCYK: Yeah, like Coach and Jack said, I think once the puck drops, you kind of black out of it and don't really pay attention too much to the crowd or what's going on. I think the team who can eliminate distractions will have the most success, and hopefully, especially for the 10 freshmen so far, hopefully using the advantage that we've had success here, we've won a couple championships, that will kind of put us at ease going into the first period or so. But after that it really comes down to the Xs and Os and who's going to win their one‑on‑one battle. MATT O'CONNOR: Yeah, like everyone said, it's pretty good to be in Boston and we're really familiar with it. But once the game against going, tense games and tense situations, we're not really going to be thinking about whether we've played here before or not. I guess we're just soaking it up today because we're familiar with it, but every team, like Jack said, has practiced on the ice surface by now, and I think it won't be that much of an advantage. AHTI OKSANEN: I really hope so. Yeah, we've had pretty good records so far this year here at the Garden, four games, four wins, so we hope to continue that. But just like the guys said, we've been talking about this the whole year, how cool it will be to play here, but then when the puck drops it doesn't really matter where you play, you're just focused on the game. Q. For everyone except Jack, we all know his ability to contribute to the team through the score sheet, but what does he do on the ice to contribute when the puck is not on his stick, and then also his team‑first mentality? AHTI OKSANEN: Everyone knows how dangerous Jack is, so when I played with him on the same line, even when he didn't have the pack, there was always a D man following him, covering him, so it created a lot more room for the rest of the guys out there. MATT O'CONNOR: Just from a goalie perspective it goes unnoticed sometimes how quick he can get the puck down low in transition up the ice. That's huge, especially with how tight college hockey is defensively, if we can keep the puck moving in that direction, it makes my job a lot easier. And I think playing with Jack has helped me playing the puck, because I've been able to maybe get an assist off of some of his plays just by transitioning quick and having someone who can get really low. And Coach Quinn harps on that for transitional hockey, really support the D and get back there. So I think Jack can be someone that really helps us when he does that. MATT GRZELCYK: Yeah, I agree with what Ahti said. I think obviously Jack gets a lot of attention himself, so he's able to give more space to his teammates, and I think one thing that might get overlooked is his play in the face‑off circle, especially the second half of the season, I think that's something that he's paid a lot more attention to, and it allows our team to possess the puck a lot more, especially when Jack possesses the puck a lot more, it definitely benefits our team. Q. Coach Quinn, talk about the length of the season, probably the longest season in college sports perhaps, and do you like being alone in the spotlight here? Years ago this championship used to be on the same weekend as the Final Four and now it's in the spotlight. COACH QUINN: Yeah, well, obviously when you start in September and here the Red Sox have already opened their season, it tends to give you a slap of reality. This is a long year, but I know I don't want it to end. I know they don't want it to end. When you're around a group like this, it can't go long enough. We love coming to the rink every day. They love playing together. It's made for a wonderful year. What was the other part of your question? Q. Just about the Frozen Four being on its own weekend. COACH QUINN: Yeah, as we were talking with Kevin Sneddon about this, a lot of people talk about being off the week in between, but now that we're going through it, and recalling '09, I think it's a good thing. I think it gives the teams an opportunity to reflect and enjoy the fact that they've had some success, and getting here isn't easy, like I said earlier. It certainly gives a team like us a chance to get our ticket situation straightened out and it doesn't get in the way of your preparation for the game, and maybe there's more attention paid to us because of the fact that basketball is over. I don't think college hockey has ever been more visible than it is today. You can find a college hockey game from October to April on TV every weekend, no matter‑‑ on a lot of different channels, and it just has certainly helped the growth of hockey in general. Q. For Coach Quinn first. You only have two returnees on defense from last year, four freshman were going to have to play a role for you. Yet you moved Ahti to forward. Could you discuss that move, what it's meant to the team?  And, Ahti, if you could talk about what it's been like to move from defense to transition to forward this year. COACH QUINN: I remember Ahti coming to my office begging me to go to forward. Isn't that how it happened, Ahti? You know, we had a glaring need up front, and after coaching Ahti for a year, I thought all his strengths were going to be highlighted up front. The way he sees the ice, his shot, his hockey sense, his strength around the puck. I don't know if anyone has got a stronger set of hands or a stronger stick in college hockey, and we needed a left wing. When I told Ahti that's what we were going to do, he didn't react with a huge smile. There was definitely some reluctance on his part. I had to do some convincing and some arm twisting. But like when I told him we were going to move him up front, I told him we're not going to put you on the third or fourth line, we're going to put you up front and we think you're going to be one of the top six forwards. I said you're going to have a chance to play with Danny O'Regan or Cason Hohmann or Jack Eichel. When I told him Jack Eichel ‑‑ this is in May ‑‑ he said: Who is that? Never heard of him. He went home to Finland and he called again and said: I've been practicing on defense all summer and I'd really like to play defense. And I said: Well, Ahti, you're never going to play another second of defense at BU. We'd love to have you back at left wing, and 20 minutes into his forward career he had four goals and he's never looked back. It's all worked out pretty well, huh, Ahti? AHTI OKSANEN: Yeah, well, just like Coach said, I wasn't too happy about it in the beginning, but now that you say it, thank God Coach brought me to move to forward. Yeah, it's seemed pretty fun so far, scoring a couple goals maybe. COACH QUINN: 24, but who's counting? AHTI OKSANEN: But yeah, it was a huge change for me. Like I said, I practiced the whole summer as a D man. I still believe that I would play D here at BU. But, yeah, I did get lucky in the first game, Jack gave me four nice apples. It's hard to say. It's tough the first game, four goals, it was such a great start for me, and I proceeded to just practice after that, just focus on playing forward. Maybe the first five, ten games I didn't feel as comfortable, but then it just like started coming back. I used to play forward when I was 10, 11, but yeah, it just started coming back, and now I feel great playing forward. I guess I have to say thank you, Coach. COACH QUINN: You're welcome, Ahti. Q. You've figured out who Jack Eichel is, too, Ahti? AHTI OKSANEN: Yeah, I know. Q. David, I know you spent a fair amount of time on this practice doing special teams. Is that just something you would do naturally or were you trying to make any particular tweaks for this match‑up? COACH QUINN: No, that's what we do every Thursday, so we just‑‑ people may think, what, are you nuts, working on your power play with everybody watching? Well, everybody sees tape. We're not splitting the atom here. We're trying to make this as much of a regular routine as possible because at the end of the day, there's a couple blue lines out there, a couple nets, some circles out there, and there's going to be a hockey game. There's going to be a huge crowd and a lot of excitement, but we have to do all the things that we have done to put us in this position. And if we're going to have success against North Dakota, we can't change what we've done. Q. Jack, we've talked a whole lot about where you're going to go in the draft and your individual statistics, but if you had to start a team right now and you had to take one of your teammates to start it, who would you pick and why? JACK EICHEL: That's a tough question. There's so many guys on our team you could take. I mean, yeah, I'd probably just say O'C. Unbelievable goalie. You've got to start with that. But there's so many guys on the team I could have picked. I have two line mates I could have picked. Going down the roster, some of the guys on the third and fourth lines, second line you could pick, just great character guys you want to be around every day. When you look at our D core, my roommate Johnny MacLeod, great guy, Grzy. It's truly a special group. I've been around a lot of teams that come together and I can't really mention one that I've been truly closer with in terms of just going through everything on a day‑to‑day basis, good or bad. I was fortunate to play at the NTDP for two years and we got really close as a group, but I never thought after that that I would get closer to a group. But all the experiences you go through in college, it really makes you realize how close you are with these guys, and I joke about it a lot with Johnny in the room or Fortunato, a couple guys I played with at the NTDP and how close our team really is, and I think that's the reason we've been so successful this season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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