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NCAA MEN'S FROZEN FOURApril 9, 2015Jack EichelBrandon HickeyCason HohmannDavid QuinnBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Boston University – 5 MODERATOR: Coach Quinn, it's up to you. The floor is yours. COACH QUINN: Well, obviously an incredible game. Funny game in a lot of ways. You're up 4‑1, seven minutes to go, eight minutes to go, and you think you go on the power play and you think everything's in good shape, and your goalie let's in a goal that he hasn't let in all year. And too many men on the ice penalty that we haven't had all year and then it's 4‑3 and we're hanging on for dear life. The game was similar to the Duluth game in a lot of ways. We got off to a great start. Get up 2‑0. I thought they started the take the play to us a little bit towards the end of the first period, and obviously we weathered the storm for ten minutes in the second. I thought they had a lot of chances. They were possessing the puck, they were playing at a pace. Then I thought we started getting a little smarter and obviously we got opportunistic, we started getting pucks to the net. A.J. Greer's blast, great shot. Great pass by Jack. Gives us some breathing room. Then we make it 4‑1, and I thought we started playing smarter and better as that second period ended. Then the third period, obviously we're up 4‑1, playing a little bit different, don't want to play conservative but we certainly want to be smart, and I thought we did a pretty good job. And you get the power play and flukey, flukey goal, we get demoralized. And then a penalty I still need to look at because I was a little bit surprised that it was called, too many men on the ice. But our guy blocks a shot and he's down and out and they score and make it 4‑3. But we got it done. And at this time of the season you just have to find ways to win. There are all sorts of ways to win. We've been very fortunate this year, we've won games a lot of different ways, we won one tonight in a way we hadn't had to win one all year. It's a great sign. It's a great sign. And I like to congratulate North Dakota on a great year. It's a heck of a hockey team. We know how fortunate we are to live another day, but we also think we deserve to live another day. There's only two teams standing, both from Hockey East. I congratulate Providence as well. It's going to be heck of a game, heck of an atmosphere. Looking forward to Saturday. MODERATOR: Questions for the players. Q. Brandon, can you comment from your end from looking at this team as it's developed, what has gone into making this group of freshmen as good as they were, especially in a game like this, with the composure piece, becomes huge as you get down the stretch right at the end of the game? BRANDON HICKEY: I think there's a lot of freshmen. Everyone gets a lot of chances to play, with all that chance to play, you develop faster and all of a sudden you feel like you're really comfortable in the situations that you get put in like late in the games. And I think coming in with so many freshmen has helped us out, because it's helped us play a lot more. Q. Jack, on that first goal, could you see the net, or was that just the no‑look back in there? JACK EICHEL: To be honest, the puck got away from me a little bit. I had seen the goalie kind of come out on Ahti's move. So I just tried to get it on net quick, and I was fortunate enough to go in. Q. Cason, can you talk about that play towards the end of the game where you're down against the boards. Looked like you lost your stick for a second. You had to dig that puck out. And, Jack, can you talk about the effort that Cason had to put together to get the puck to you for that empty netter? CASON HOHMANN: Yeah, started with Grzy in the corner making a great play and the puck was on the wall, and somehow I ended up on top of it. And I was saying to myself in the short period, no matter what's going to happen here, this puck's getting out of the zone. So I just put my nose to the wall and it was getting out of the zone. So just glad that Jack could bury it off the play. JACK EICHEL: Like he said, Grz makes a great play in the corner, move the puck up. Hohy goes in there. I think he's battling three guys, and he's able to make a great play. I don't think he even had a stick in his hand and the puck squirted out to me. I happened to be over there. I just tried to put it on net. To be honest, I thought it was going wide. I think it hit a divot in the ice and rolled in. It was a lucky play but Grzy and Hohmann made a spectacular play in the corner to ice the game. Q. For any of the players, do you almost have to check yourself after the second period? North Dakota had put on such a kind of storm on your net there and you still wind up by three goals. What's the feeling after 40 minutes, and do you have to be prepared for another storm at that point? CASON HOHMANN: I mean, we played a great game, too. They played a great game as well. It was 4‑1, hit a couple of posts and crossbars, but we were feeling confident in the locker room saying stuff like let's not change anything up, keep going. Our goalie played great. He rolled four lines. Everyone played phenomenal today. It was a great team effort. North Dakota is a great team, and they came after us with everything they had in the third period. And we weathered the storm. O'C played awesome today. Q. Jack, how do you and the rest of your teammates manage to keep your cool with so many ups and downs, especially over the last 20 minutes of that game? JACK EICHEL: I think pretty similar to what Cason said there. We just tried to weather the storm. All season we've been pretty confident going into the third period. I don't know how many games we went into third period with a lead. So it might have been a little different. But pretty similar to getting popped going into the third period with the lead. They get a couple of goals. Maybe the momentum was on their side. We just wanted to battle. Like I said, weather the storm. And all season we've really worked hard on our D zone coverage, playing our man, bearing down in our own zone in practice. Coach Quinn really harps on it. It might get annoying, but at the end of the day it really pays off. And you could tell at the end of the game when all of our D, all our forwards are really bearing down, chipping pucks out of the zone and taking their man out of the play. So a lot of credit to the coaches in there. Q. Jack, what did you see on the play that led to Greer's goal? JACK EICHEL: It was a change. I think pretty late Coach kept yelling: Eichel, Eichel, Eichel's line. COACH QUINN: Say that a lot. I'm doing it in my sleep (laughter). JACK EICHEL: I just jumped on the ice actually pretty late. And Diff makes a great play to beat the first forechecker. Slides me the puck and got over the blue line. Saw A.J. opened up. Tried to put it in his wheelhouse where he could hammer one. He works on his shot a lot, and I wasn't surprised at all. He's got a great one‑timer. It was a big goal in the game. Gave us a little bit of cushion. MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach. Q. Coach, in the year that your top guys have kind of dominated the story lines, what does it say about the depth of your team when Somerby gets his first goal of the year for the game winner and A.J. has a big, his first in three months? COACH QUINN: We thought we've had depth all year long. Obviously when you've got guys scoring at the rate that Jack and E. Rod and Danny are, they obviously get a lot of attention, and rightfully so. But we wouldn't be here if we were a one‑line team. And this was a funny game in a lot of ways. There was a lot of peaks and valleys. I thought for the first ten minutes we played really well. I thought we were moving the puck. Spent a lot of time in their end, got up 2‑0. I thought they started taking the play a little bit. We gave up the goal early in the second. It was so similar to what happened against Duluth where we got deflated. I think our youth showed. A little bit demoralized. And again we weathered the storm. You're going to have to do that at this time of year against good hockey teams. You're playing in the Frozen Four. People aren't going to lay down for you. It's a well‑coached team. A lot of good players, and they fought hard and there was a little desperation in their game when they're down 2‑0. And desperate teams are dangerous teams. And they were dangerous. It's 2‑1 and we're holding on and holding on and we get a big goal, get a huge goal to relax us a little bit. I thought we started playing better as the second period was ending and Doyle gets a great goal. We hoped our D would be involved a lot in the offensive zone. He has done a great job this last month. Doyle has been really active in the offensive zone and finally great to see him get rewarded. I thought we played a smart third period. Obviously we would love to spend more time in the offensive zone but they're throwing everything they have at us. They're taking chances. I thought we did a good job defending and keeping things on the perimeter. And then we get the power play, and like I said, things that haven't happened to us all year happened in the last seven minutes. But when the game was on the line, Cason, Hohmann and Matt Grzelcyk and Jack Eichel weren't going to be denied. And they made a huge play and ended the game. Q. Can you talk about the thought process that went into moving A.J. to the second line and how that's worked out for you? COACH QUINN: A.J. is a really good player. He's a guy that's the youngest kid in college hockey. He's had his ups and downs like most freshmen do. I thought Hohmann and Ahti really could have used his speed and his strength. And he's got a good skill set. I just thought it gave us the best‑looking lineup when we made that decision, and it's been a good line. He's active in the offensive zone. He's big, strong. He's getting more confident and being more responsible defensively. And I think that's our best lineup. And he's earning a lot more trust from the coaches, and he's doing a heck of a job. Q. First of all, did you see what happened with Evan's play, the penalty he took that in the game, your thoughts on that? And a follow‑up, did you talk to your team about keeping their cool in the last five minutes when they were putting the pressure on? COACH QUINN: We were talking about keeping our cool all game. That's something we touched on before the game. I didn't see the penalty. But the fact that he put himself in a position to go to the penalty box tells me all I need to know about it. That late, after the scrum, again, he hasn't done that all year. So we're lucky it went 4 on 4 and not 5 on 4. And hopefully we're going to learn some lessons tonight. We dodged some bullets, but we're living another day. And we better learn from this, because if we do stuff like that Saturday night, we're going to be in trouble. Q. Just want to talk about tonight, you came out strong. All year you've been winning games in the third period and tonight you had a really strong first period, and you mentioned winning in different ways. That's kind of what it was tonight. Can you kind of go over that? COACH QUINN: Yeah, I was actually‑‑ we've been having better periods. I know overall, if you look at our season, you can say we're a slow‑starting team. We started really strong against Minnesota Duluth. We've had better starts over here in the last six weeks. So it was exciting to see the way we started playing at a pace and possessing the puck. And I think I looked up at one point, the shots were 7‑0, seven minutes into the game. But it's awful hard to sustain that. Like I said, you're playing in the Frozen Four. North Dakota is a really good hockey team. And once we went up 2‑0, I thought they turned it up a notch again, a little bit of desperation on their end. Human nature might have kicked in on our end. But I'm hoping we got off to that start Saturday night as well. Q. Did you sense panic when it got to 4‑3; and if not, is that a great sign for the youth that's on this team to not panic? COACH QUINN: I didn't sense panic. I did not sense panic. I thought that it was similar to the feeling that I got when Northeastern tied it in the Beanpot. And, again, everything was okay. They got a great scoring chance shortly thereafter. But I thought thereafter we were okay and we take the penalty and change the complexion. But I thought we did a good job the last minute and a half when they had the 5 on 4, when they pulled the goalie, and we just competed and had good sticks and Jack scores a fifth goal. Q. You said you didn't have a real good look at Evan's penalty at the end of the game. Have you since had a chance to see it on video? COACH QUINN: I haven't had a chance to see it, no, I've not. Q. Are you concerned in any way that the NCAA might discipline him, suspend him for the next game? COACH QUINN: No one's even told me about the penalty. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure. It's the first I've heard that maybe it's a penalty that might warrant a suspension. So I can't answer that. Q. If you look at the video and you see something that's objectionable to you, might you enact some discipline of your own? COACH QUINN: I'd have to see it, yeah, I'd have to see it. Q. I asked both the Coach and the player from North Dakota about that play, and they just want to walk away from it. So it looked like he took a stick across the upper body. So you haven't seen that? COACH QUINN: I have not seen it. No, I've not seen it. MODERATOR: As he said, if he hasn't seen it, he's not making it up. Let's not belabor it. Q. I'll ask my own question. So is this something you want to look at tonight? COACH QUINN: Yeah, I'll obviously look at it, obviously. Q. How do you think Matt O'Connor rebounded after allowing that kind of strange second goal? COACH QUINN: He made a huge save when it was 4‑3. He's made big saves all year. So it's a sign of a mentally tough kid when you give up a goal I know you'd like to have back, and you play as well as he did at key times in the last six or seven minutes. Q. You haven't seen Providence or played Providence since October. Can you give us a quick rundown of what you expect from them, what their strengths are what you expect from them Saturday night? COACH QUINN: Obviously they've got a great goalie. They play hard. They're strong. They're physical. They make you earn every inch of ice. They're well coached. Structurally sound. It's going to be a heck of a hockey game and huge challenge for us. Q. You've had Cason's play along the boards. It looked like Brandon had some kind of gash on his head. I know O'Regan took a big blow and went out for another shift. Are you impressed with how hard your team had to work; is that about as hard as a team that's up 4‑1 has had to work? COACH QUINN: One of the reasons we're still playing is we've got some talent. But our guys work compete and they hard and they don't get intimidated and they play tough. And you have to in this game. If you're not playing tough and hard, you're not going to survive. I think that may get overlooked at times, because we do have guys that can show a lot of flash and dash, but we do have a gritty group. And they compete hard, and they don't get intimidated. I think it's the main reason we continue to play. Q. What have you seen in A.J. Greer's game since moving him up to that second line? COACH QUINN: He's playing with more confidence. Anytime you get put on the second line or play with guys like Hohmann and Oksanen, you're going to feel more confident. He earned the opportunity. We didn't just throw him a bone. We liked a lot of things we've seen in games and throughout practice. Again, I thought it was a good combination, big, strong left winger who can skate, has good hands, can shoot the puck, can bring a physical element to that line, and he's done a really good job. MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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