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NCAA MEN'S FROZEN FOUR

April 9, 2016

Tampa Bay, Florida

North Dakota - 5, Quinnipiac - 1

MODERATOR: We're joined by Quinnipiac head coach Rand Pecknold, Soren Jonzzon, Travis St. Denis and Michael Garteig.

COACH PECKNOLD: I want to congratulate North Dakota. I thought they were outstanding tonight. Coach Berry and his staff did a great job getting them ready. 12, 13 draft picks. Four All-Americans. I mean, just the talent package that they have, the most talented team in the country, and they compete. It's a really good formula for success. It's pretty impressive. And they gave us a lot, and we just couldn't handle it tonight. We didn't play our best, but we got some bad breaks with some noncalls there early in the game.

Obviously I can't comment on the officiating, but we needed some breaks, and we just didn't get them. But in the end I'm just really proud of our guys and how hard they compete all year long. Four losses in 43 games is phenomenal. I think it's been 19, 20 years since a team has done that. It's a real credit to our locker room. Certainly we have talent in our room, but we've only got the two draft picks.

But we've got some really good players, and to do what we did this year was special. So proud of them. Not just the three guys next to me but the battle level we had, the compete, the culture that we have, we overachieved so much, we achieve. And I'd also like to thank the city of Tampa. I think they did a phenomenal job here with hosting the Frozen Four again. Hopefully they'll get the opportunity to get it back here again.

MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Michael, can you just take me through that second Dakota goal, the short-handed one, what happened?
MICHAEL GARTEIG: I'd rather prefer not to talk about it, thank you.

Q. The two seniors, Michael and Travis, can you --
MICHAEL GARTEIG: He's a senior, too.

Q. Travis, just in the four years, the growth you've seen and the kind of culture that you've developed in Hamden with the club?
TRAVIS ST. DENIS: Past four years have been the best four years of my life, credit definitely the coaching staff and all the past and present players. They created a culture, and it's our job to maintain it. And, yeah, the culture in our dressing room is just unbelievable.

SOREN JONZZON: I think when we came in, the seniors were fantastic and they really started the culture and showed us, kind of showed us the ropes, and just kind of come our role to pass that culture on. You see the way that we play and the way that guys battle and compete for each other, and I think that it's a special thing and we're so proud of it.

Q. Michael, you stopped that break-away in the second period. Did it feel like the momentum was turning at that point, and there was an opportunity there to get back into it?
MICHAEL GARTEIG: I thought we played a strong second period. And, I mean, I guess maybe after that save, yeah, maybe a little bit of momentum shift, but in reality I thought we had a really strong second. And we hit a couple of posts and couple of bounces that maybe just didn't go our way. And unfortunately we couldn't pop one in and make it a 2-2 game going into the third, and just kind of the way hockey goes sometimes.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. You said yesterday the last change, getting that last change is going to be so important in trying to match up against that CBS line. What made it so difficult just tonight throughout the entire game?
COACH PECKNOLD: I mean, they're really good. You know, I don't like to put it any other way. That line's special. We haven't seen a line as good as that all season. And we've played against some good ones. Obviously the VC line (phonetic) at Harvard is outstanding. We just saw three really good lines at Boston College. We've seen some good play. We played St. Cloud twice, swept St. Cloud. I haven't seen a line like that. They're high-end NHL talent. They're honest. They compete. They win battles. It's a pretty special combination of ability there.

Q. With your seniors that just left the podium, what can you say about them? They were there from when you guys really had your start in 2013 where people started to notice you guys. Can you talk about what they've done in these past four years to put you in the pinnacle of where you guys are in college hockey?
COACH PECKNOLD: I'm proud of them. A phenomenal group of seniors, and what we've accomplished this season and all four years is truly remarkable for a small school like ourselves. We had -- Kenny Sweeten told me yesterday we were trending No. 1 on Facebook. And I was like, what do you mean, Connecticut? He was like, no, in the world. Donald Trump is 2. We're 1.

So that puts in perspective what this program, what those kids have done not just for hockey but for Quinnipiac University and for me personally. It really is a special group. And, I mean, they battle. We're resilient, and some of the stuff we went through was awesome. Just awesome. It was a disappointing end today, but it's not going to take away from the year we had.

Q. Can you compare this to the championship game four years ago?
COACH PECKNOLD: You know, it's different. Different circumstances. I think that year we had beaten Yale three times and beaten them three times easily. So that was -- and we still haven't lost to Yale since. It's like 14, 15 games in a row we've lost once. So that to me I really felt we were the better team that year. I still do. I think we were. One and done, anybody can win.

I think what North Dakota showed tonight is they were the better team. Doesn't mean we couldn't beat them. But that's the best team in college hockey. They are just loaded with talent and they're honest and they compete, and the backcheck, the goalie was great, Johnson was excellent.

Again, tonight, can we beat them? Absolutely. We hit a couple of bars, had a couple of great chances. Timmy Clifton there, I think that's when it was 2-1, on a power play, when Sam poked it out to him. Sam has the 2-1-1, hits the bar.

We certainly had our chances. In the end, we just didn't defend well enough tonight. We didn't play good enough defense. We struggled a little bit at times, and you've got to credit North Dakota for how well they played.

Q. You'd seen that line for two periods, then they came out in the first two minutes like an even better line than you had seen. Did you feel and see it? Did they step it up even higher than they had the first two?
COACH PECKNOLD: I thought they had spurts the first and third when they got it going. And, again, for us when we've played against these top lines, we gotta go play offense. And we just didn't get enough of a sustained forecheck going. And that's part of us not making good decisions at times, not good puck management.

I think we turned the puck over probably too much. I don't think our battle mode was off the charts, which it needed to be to beat a team with that much talent. I thought it was good and it was much better in the second, but we had to do it for 60 minutes. And we had a couple of kids that struggled a little bit tonight.

Q. Sam had been banged up through the tournament, but what can you say about the effort, not only tonight, but through the entire tournament, that you played through an injury with you guys?
COACH PECKNOLD: It was a tough night for us from an injury perspective. Sam wanted to play, and we need him out there, but he was struggling. He's actually worse these two games than he was against Lowell and RIT.

Derek Smith really -- like he's banged up. He played hurt. K.J. played hurt. We had three kids take elbows to the head that got hurt during the game. There was one point we were down to like nine guys and four D, we had so many players hurt.

That's part of hockey. You gotta battle through. We were a little bit of a M*A*S*H* unit. Going back to Sam and Derek, those guys really gritted it out. Two of our leaders. There was no threat of them getting injured anymore. It was just a pain tolerance thing. Sam was 50 percent and still made some plays tonight.

Q. You talked a lot all season about you stick to your identity; you got rewarded. Do you feel that North Dakota kind of veered you away from that identity, and how did it really impact the ultimate end of the game?
COACH PECKNOLD: Yeah, I think we played to our identity in the second period. We didn't do it in the first and third. And I think it's a combination of us not playing well and a combination of North Dakota being really good. Like they really came after us. And, again, an impressive combination of talent and compete and honesty in their game.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

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