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NCAA MEN'S FROZEN FOUR

April 10, 2010

DETROIT, MICHIGAN

THE MODERATOR: All right. We have Coach Mike Eaves, and once he has a drink of water, we'll start with an opening comment.
COACH EAVES: Thanks, David. First of all, my congratulations to Boston College. They played a very good game today and they deserved to win. First period I thought we did the things we wanted to do with the puck, both at our blue line and their blue line, and the second period we picked it up. Started getting momentum coming.
And in the third period we never got that next goal, which could have possibly changed the game. They got the next one and the game was just about over.
They did a tremendous job of getting and shooting lanes. We couldn't get pucks to the net, they blocked a ton of shots. I thought that was one thing they did really well. They ended up winning the specialty team contest. Scored a couple goals. We couldn't score on ours.
I just didn't think we had our best effort tonight in terms of being sharp. I thought that -- typical, our last power play, Brendan Smith had the puck right where he wanted to, and he fanned on it, Michael Davies knocked the puck out of the air, was rocking on the breakaway, it bounced on him, and just didn't seem to be our day. But that doesn't take away from what Boston College did.
THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Mike. Right here in the front.

Q. As hard as you tried to get that next goal, how much credit do you give Muse for stopping you from getting that next goal, especially with the intensity you guys subjected them to in those first two periods?
COACH EAVES: I think that we needed to get more rubber at him. It would have made his job more difficult.
Again, I go back to the comment that I thought the BC forwards and defensemen got in shooting lanes and blocked shots. That was to me one of the keys to the game. The fact that they did that, that Muse didn't have to stop as many shots because they got no shooting lanes and were willing to give up their bodies.

Q. Were you surprised that they came out as physical as they did, because obviously they have a lot of speed.
COACH EAVES: No, not at all. I don't think that we were not physical. Again, in the first period to me it was our inability to get the pucks out at our blue line and get them in deep below the dots. And we got better in the second period and we created more shots because of that, but we weren't surprised at the beginning of the game.

Q. When they're doing that with the shooting lanes and whatnot, is there anything you can do to tell the guys what to do? And was the ice condition at all a factor in being able to make an extra move or whatnot to make a play in that situation?
COACH EAVES: I'll make one comment about the ice, and I don't think we need to address it anymore. The fact is both teams had to play on it. Was it the best ice, it was slow and soft, but both teams had to play on it you deal with it.
As far as getting more pucks to the net, we thought if we could get the puck and release it and drop a shoulder and get a step and get it to the net quicker that might have helped us but they made good adjustments. We were not able to get as many pucks through because of the blockages they had.

Q. You know how hard it is to get here. Can you comment on BC's ability to get here year after year and now win two out of three national championships, as an opponent over the years, can you just capture how strong they've been?
COACH EAVES: Well, they're one of the elite programs in all college hockey. They had the ability to attract the top end kids because of the type of school they are. Because of coaching staff, because they have the reputation when you go there you believe that you have a chance to win. So they're able to get good, quality athletes and people in there.
And Coach York and his staff do a great job once they get them there. It's something that we all strive for, and they've got it going right now. They've got a little bit of a roll.
THE MODERATOR: Ben Street, Blake Geoffrion, Ryan McDonagh are here with us now. We'll shift gears and take questions for the players.

Q. Ben, Blake, maybe, as tough as this loss is, what do you think this season and this run of the final means?
THE MODERATOR: Ben.
BEN STREET: Right now it's hard to -- it's pretty disappointing the way the game turned out. But I'm sure when we have time to look back and reflect on it, we did some special things. We win a game at Camp Randall, which is kind of the highlight of the season, but right now it's disappointing.
THE MODERATOR: Blake.
BLAKE GEOFFRION: I think he pretty much covered everything. We had a great journey, great run with these guys. Developed a great relationships with everyone that's on the team and obviously right now we're pretty disappointed in our play today and they're a better team on the ice.
As he said, right now we'll go back and reflect on a couple of days here and look back on it and we should be proud of ourselves.

Q. Blake, can you talk about what BC was doing to effectively bottle up the neutral zone and really turn the game into a turnover game where they were forcing you guys to make mistakes?
BLAKE GEOFFRION: I think it was their defense did a good job of blocking shots and collapsing down low and pressuring us pretty hard and getting the turnovers high in the zone. They were able to transition off of that and get good goalie chances.

Q. Ben, you played in the 2006 game with BC, and Blake and Ryan, you guys watched it. And come here to Wisconsin. When BC is up 1-0 after 20 minutes do you start to think where have we seen this before and think you can come back like the '06 team did?
BEN STREET: You know, we've been down 1-0 a lot this year. It's not anything different. We kept the same mentality. I thought the last half of the first period and on into the second period we had pretty good momentum going. We just never found the back of the net.
We'd been through big games where we were down before. Michigan at Camp Randall we battled back, same type of thing. We knew we had it in us. That was the battle cry. We knew we were able to battle back. It's just unfortunate tonight wasn't our night.

Q. Ryan, can you just talk a little bit about dealing with their speed and what kind of challenge that was tonight?
RYAN MCDONAGH: Well, it's definitely one of their strengths. We knew that coming in. They like to keep the puck on the outside. And use their speed. Try and go around us. I thought we did a pretty good job handling it in the beginning of the game. They got around us a couple times and made us pay. No question about it.
THE MODERATOR: Okay, guys, thanks very much. Couple more questions for Coach Eaves.

Q. Can you follow up on Ryan's comment about did you expect BC to be this quick? You watched tape, but when you go out there, get a feel for the ebb and flow of the game, did you expect them to be this quick?
COACH EAVES: Absolutely. Their team concept hasn't changed. We talked about it yesterday. They try to get those quick little guys, and our inability to take care of the puck at the blue line, there was a couple takeaways they had as we were attacking and we didn't do as good a job in that area as we needed to.

Q. When Derek went down, Derek Stepan went down, was that insult to injury? How much did that hurt your team down the stretch?
COACH EAVES: You take a 50-point guy out of your lineup, you battle being down, it takes a little bit of your zip away. But that was part of the game and injuries are a part of the game. It's one of the things you have to battle through. But it definitely, you lose a guy like that, it affects your power play and your ability to score goals.

Q. Mike, along the lines of what I asked the players: Do you think this run sets up some future success for your program?
COACH EAVES: We talked about this thing as being a journey. And we got near the top of the mountain. Weren't quite able to stick the flag in the top. But we accomplished some great things.
And the things -- the fundamental thing you want to ask your players is did they leave everything on the ice? Did we leave everything on the ice? Did we do that tonight? And absolutely we did.
With that being said, we can walk out of here, even though as disappointed as we are, our heads can be held high. I think the boys alluded to in a couple days we can step back -- we did some wonderful things this year. Didn't lose back-to-back games all year. Won the Western Regional, those types of things they alluded to.
We walk out of here proud but disappointed. In a couple of days we'll take a look at the journey we had and know we did some wonderful things.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Mike.

End of FastScripts

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