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NCAA MEN'S FROZEN FOUR

April 6, 2017

Chicago, Illinois

Denver - 6, Notre Dame - 1

COACH JACKSON: Congratulations to Denver. Certainly a great team, seemed like a team on a mission to me. So hats off to them. We looked a little bit more like we did a few weeks back in Boston Garden. But we certainly had a tough opponent, and that certainly had a lot to do with it.

MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Andrew, as the game wore on, Denver scored three more goals during the second period. Was there -- I guess what was the sense that came over you guys? It was kind of unwinding on you there in the second?
ANDREW OGLEVIE: I wouldn't say there was any unwinding. We were battling for each other and battling for Notre Dame, and we didn't give up. And we take pride in that.

Q. Jordan, you guys probably didn't feel as though you brought your A game today. What were the kind of things that you would go and say were why, other than just Denver's superior play?
JORDAN GROSS: I thought we probably could have had crisper passes out of the zone. We struggled with some turnovers in the neutral zone. And we needed to get pucks and wear down their defensemen. If we did a better job of that, I think it would have been a better outcome.

Q. For both of you, was Denver just the best team you faced this year or at least close to that?
ANDREW OGLEVIE: Throughout the tournament, I think we faced three really good teams. And hats off to Denver, they played really well tonight, and they're a very good team.

Q. For Andrew, how does this kind of ending reflect on this Final Four run for you? Does it spoil it in some way?
ANDREW OGLEVIE: For me, I think it just makes us more hungry to get back here next year and come in with a better mindset, and similar to what this Denver team here did. So we're going to build off of it and have a good offseason and come back ready.

MODERATOR: Questions for Coach.

Q. How much of what you saw tonight was nerves or play by your team, and how much of it was just how good Denver was?
COACH JACKSON: I think it's a combination of both. Denver's an extremely talented hockey team. To me a lot has to do with depth. We haven't talked about it much, but we've been playing with our fourth line as our third line. And we've actually had fifth-line guys playing as our fourth line for the last two or three months.

And they certainly matched up. They matched up their two grind lines, their third and fourth lines, against our two top lines. That was a huge factor. Having last change is extremely important.

But I thought our youth showed up again, I thought, tonight. It showed up a few weeks back in Boston, especially with some of our young defensemen making some plays coming out of our zone. But that's a growing experience.

Hey, I'll be very honest with you, I'm extremely proud of this group considering what they did in the second half of the season. They overcame some obstacles. They fought back. And they had a couple of blips in the last month here against very, very good teams.

Q. Jeff, it seemed like early in the second period your team made a push there and only down 2-0. Did you sense still an opportunity if you could get one at that point?
COACH JACKSON: Yeah, I felt we were turning the corner and then we have a defenseman fall down, and then everything changed. So, no, I thought we started getting a little bit more comfortable playing the game at that pace. But that third goal was the back killer. It was very similar to the Minnesota game last week where we got that next goal. And that didn't happen tonight.

Q. You mentioned in your opening statement Denver seemed like a team on a mission. What did you mean by that? And were they one of the best teams you think you've faced all year?
COACH JACKSON: Certainly. I knew that going in that they were going to be -- I mean, they're the No. 1 ranked team in the country for a reason. You give them their due. I mean, they're a great team.

I just didn't think we played as well as we're capable of playing. I could take that and put that on me, but it's also about learning and growing and experiences and maybe we can be that team a year from now. They were here last year. They were not happy about losing, and they came back. And that's why I say they seem like they're on a mission right now.

Q. Could you talk about the way Cal played in goal, faced a lot of shots, made 36 saves, which any other night is a fantastic night for a goaltender. But could you talk about the way they played in offense?
COACH JACKSON: He's been our rock all season long. I actually thought -- just I thought he had a couple that he probably would have liked back, bad angle situations, things that he usually stops off the post and they expose -- he was a little too aggressive in a few situations, but he also made some saves for us giving up a bad goal here and there.

But he's our leader back there. We left him out to dry a few times. When you give up backdoor goals, you're certainly not doing a good job protecting your goaltender, and we gave up a couple of those today. And we didn't do a good job at the net front, either. It was a lot of pucks bouncing in and around the crease. That's Denver's game and our inexperience, our youth on defense. So it's a combination of both.

Q. When you face such a high-pressure forechecking offense, kind of talked how much pressure puts on the defense, how does that affect your offense?
COACH JACKSON: You don't have any. Puck management, when we're playing well, that's our game. When we manage the puck out of our zone, we're not playing our defense.

We improved so much of the second half of the year, and it showed up again tonight where we weren't making good plays coming out of our zone or good plays through the neutral zone. If you don't do that, you're going to be forced to play defense. And we did, and we're chasing too much.

Q. How do you reconcile the ending with the runs they made to rally out of the regional to get to this point, only the third Frozen Four in program history?
COACH JACKSON: Like I said, I'm not going to be pleased until we win one of these things. Getting here is great. I said it earlier, I give these kids a lot of credit because I don't think anybody expected them to be here over the last -- over the regional and even before that.

But, hey, they got within a point of first place in Hockey East. They got within a game of the championship in Boston Garden. They got within a game of playing in the National Championship game. So something has to be said for that.

And the core of our team, a lot of those juniors, some grew over the season and gave us the opportunity. We were basically a .500 team in the first half. They certainly did something right in the second half of the season, and the credit goes to the kids for making that change and adjusting and growing, frankly, maturity, with a lot of those young players. We graduate two seniors off this group, and one of them is a fourth line right winger, one is our third string goaltender. So it's a young group, and yet they grew a lot over the season.

Q. You talked about it already how your offense was stymied by Denver's defense. Just talk about how they were able to stymie you guys hold you to 17 shots on goal?
COACH JACKSON: A lot of it was people don't always think, well, you're a great defensive team if you don't give up a lot of shots you don't give up a lot of goals, but their defense was their offense, their defense was their puck possession, their puck management, they do a good job with their defensemen making good plays coming out of their zone. They do a great job in the O zone where they possess the puck.

That's how you hold teams down in shots. If the other team doesn't get the puck, they're not going to have many shots.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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NCAA MEN'S FROZEN FOUR

April 6, 2017

Jordan Gross

Jeff Jackson

Andrew Oglevie