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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 21, 2014Travis BoydDon LuciaKyle RauST. PAUL, MINNESOTA Ohio State – 3 THE MODERATOR: We are joined by forwards Kyle Ralph and Travis Boyd. We'll start with an opening statement by head coach, then questions for the student‑athletes. COACH LUCIA: Obviously first congratulate Ohio State. Their best player made the play in the third period to score the game‑winning goal. Disappointing from our standpoint. Obviously something we talked about was playing on Saturday night to play for a championship. We're not going to win very often scoring one goal. That's the part that's most disappointing to me is we had some opportunities. We get a couple pipes, but they didn't go in tonight. Like I told the guys after the game, this is our last opportunity as a learning experience and you don't get any or opportunities after that. We'll get back to work. We'll practice tomorrow, take Sunday off, then get ready for the regional next week. THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student‑athletes. Q. Kyle, it seems like your team dominated the first period for long stretches, yet Ohio State came out of it 1‑0. Did you feel like you escaped at all there or were you feeling pretty good after 1? KYLE RAU: They definitely outplayed us in the first period. I don't think we got lucky being down by one. Yeah, I feel like we escaped because they had an extra second on the clock at 2‑0. Q. Travis, you were flying around the third period. Unfortunately couldn't get the goal. How were you feeling towards the final stretch? TRAVIS BOYD: I think we got better as the game went on. Might have been a little bit of tiredness in our legs. But coming down the stretch we thought we had pretty good chance to tie it up there. Just couldn't find the back of the net tonight. Q. You played in the tournament here last year on a Friday night. Different atmosphere, different opponent, or is it similar at all? TRAVIS BOYD: Yeah, I mean, pretty similar. Might be a little different. Crowd‑wise it was a little bigger, more into the game. Same thing, conference tournament. Once again, we kind of laid an egg here on Friday night, so... We got to learn from it and get better going into next weekend. KYLE RAU: Thought it was pretty similar. We didn't come out ready to go. When you play desperate teams, you have to play desperate with them. We didn't do that. Q. Seems like going forward into next weekend this is going to be a similar sort of game, low‑scoring, desperate. Do you think you learned anything in this game that you can take into the NCAA tournament next weekend? KYLE RAU: I think we just got to learn that we got to play like we did in the third period, come out ready to go. We got to do whatever it takes. Your best player gets the shot. We have to make sure we know where everyone is, mark our guys. TRAVIS BOYD: Half our team has been through a situation like this where we've lost on Friday night the last two years. Going back to my freshman year two years ago, we were able to rebound and end up winning the regionals. Going forward, we rely on our upperclassmen to lead the way, move into next week the best we can. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Travis and Kyle. We'll continue with questions for coach. Q. Seems like the last seven minutes they were holding on, trying to run the clock down. Must be frustrating you couldn't put it past them. COACH LUCIA: That's hockey. We did come out. We had a few chances in the first period. Hit the pipe in the first. I think it was Sam again who hit the pipe in the third period that could have tied it. This time of year it's hard to score goals. You got to get to some second shots. Maybe blew the whistle on the one where I think Ambroz would have scored on the rebound. That's all part of it. I was really hoping we could get to tomorrow for the added experience. Six freshmen forwards out there just to experience playoff hockey. But it wasn't to be tonight. Bottom line is we've got to score some goals. You got to score at this time of year, too. For the most part I think we did a good job defensively, gave up the one power‑play goal and the one five‑on‑five. Kloos and Cammie came in with a quick two‑on‑one. Justin probably should have delivered the puck to the net. Didn't look to do it. Passed it right back, we got nothing. You have to pass pucks to the net when you get opportunities because you don't get a lot this time of year. When you get a chance to deliver it, you have to deliver pucks to the net. If you don't score on the first one, create a second‑chance opportunity. Power‑play did their job. Got us back into it with the power‑play goals, nice feed off Cammarata off to Rau on the backside. We didn't drive one by them, it was just a tap‑in off the side. They scored one on a tap‑in off the side as well. I think their game‑winning goal might have came off of Holl's stick. Have a chance to watch video with the guys, spirited practice, get ready for the regional.  It's disappointing not to win tonight to get to tomorrow, but that's all part of the process of the year, just like any weekend, when the weekend is over, you have to turn the page and get ready for the next week. Q. Any additional comments as far as what you can improve on? COACH LUCIA: Well, scoring. Go back to last weekend. Brady had both our goals the Saturday game. Our forwards don't have a five‑on‑five goal the last two games. Q. (No microphone.) COACH LUCIA: Well, no. We had some good looks tonight. You want to win. Every team wants to win this time of the year. I said it going in, that sometimes you have a little bit of an advantage,[] big game, too, when you played the night before. You have some rhythm to your game. You're used to the rink a little bit. They had that. But if we could have scored a little bit earlier, got some better rhythm to our game, especially from an offensive standpoint, I think that would have helped. But you know what, you look around, that's playoffs this time of the year. You look at all the teams that get beat, whether it was first round in some of the leagues, bottom teams advancing on the road. There's not that much difference between teams. It's a fine line. Tonight we didn't do enough from an offensive standpoint to win. Q. You mentioned the power‑play. Other than each team having a power‑play goal tonight, did the volume of special teams play have an effect? COACH LUCIA: Yeah, I think so. If you look at most of the games we played, there hasn't been a lot. I don't know how many times we killed tonight, five or six, whatever it was. Most games we're two or three. Why, I'd have to look at some of the penalties that were called. Whether they were just or not, I can't answer that right now. It does take some of the rhythm out of a game when there's a few more penalties. Based on our team this year, we probably prefer to play the game five‑on‑five than special teams. Q. Many of these games have been 2‑1. What does that say about the league? COACH LUCIA: We talked about how there's not that much difference. If you look at the quality of the goaltenders in the league this year, right on down the line, the kid who played tonight came in at Christmas, he's done a really good job. Hildebrand's numbers, Wilcox, right on down the line. It's not easy to score goals, especially this time of the year. Sometimes you have to try to manufacture them. We're going to have to try to manufacture some goals next weekend. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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