Eaves Addresses Media
November 14, 2006 | Men's Hockey
At Wisconsin's busiest Monday news conference of the year, including seven coaches, men's hockey coach Mike Eaves addressed the media. Eaves fielded questions on John Mitchell, the team's defense, and Jack Skille, among other topics. A full transcript follows.
To view archived video of the news conference, click on the audio/video link on the left side of the page.
QUESTION #1: Mike, you talked before the season about always the opportunity for surprises in your lineup. Does John Mitchell fall in that category with how he's played this season'
MIKE EAVES: Very much so. You know, John came to us midway through last year and was having a rocky road in junior hockey. He'd been traded three times. And one of the things that John needed is that he needed to work on his strength and his conditioning, so rather than staying that bumpy road, he thought it might be better for him to come in, get settled in school, start training. He put on between 15 and 20 pounds this past summer.
And he started playing this year, and he made himself noticed by the way he was playing physically. And I think he had some scoring opportunities early with us, and he finally got his first goal, and I'm hoping that opens some floodgates for him because he has created and been a part of a lot of scoring chances. So if he can continue to bloom, that 'd be a real nice thing for this club.
QUESTION #2: Mike, coming into the season, your defense was put in the category of one of your strengths. Has that, has your defense played up to your expectations to this point as a unit'
EAVES: I think at times they have, Andy. I think when you're dealing with young people, one of the issues is always consistency. And I think as we get going and we play more and they get back in the role of things, that that consistency level will get up there. And then when we have that consistency level to a higher degree, then we'll say that they are once again one of the strengths of this team.
QUESTION #3: Assuming Jack has not been cleared to play this weekend, are you more, are you tempted to err on the side of caution with him, to let that heal as much as possible knowing that it's so early . . .
EAVES: Yeah, without question. Without question. You're dealing with a joint, and not only for our sake, but for Jack's future that we want to make sure that that thing is solid.
QUESTION #4: That being said, I know he was supposed to skate yesterday. Is he, is it possible he'll play this weekend or definitely out'
EAVES: I wouldn't say not definitely out, but probable. I mean, he's going to start shooting this week. I mean, that's where the doctors are at, so he can start putting torque on that joint. And then we'll go from there, how does that make his joint feel. If it handles that well, can we accelerate or do we just need to go day by day. So the shooting is the next good step for him, and that'll determine his next step.
QUESTION #5: With regards to some of the goal-scoring issues this year, the freshmen have all got talent, all have scored at the other levels that they've played at before they came here. As a freshman, when you come to this level, do you have to learn how to score and be able to find your goals in that offense at this level as compared to where they were before'
EAVES: I think there's two things that come to mind. You have to have confidence. And you take a look at, let's say we're talking about Jack Skille. Jack Skille comes from the national program, pretty good program. They played against college teams. They played about 30 games last year. It still took him until after Christmastime to find his stride, to find his confidence.
I think as a goal-scorer you come in, you think, you know, I've scored, I should be able to score right away. It's another gear. It's another speed level. It's another strength level. And they have to adapt to that. And I think we saw a little bit about Mike Davies coming, recognizing some of that, and he stepped up. He went to another gear this past weekend against a pretty good team. And so I think that, you know, we see that in Mike, it's starting to come from him, and I think that 'll start to come for some of our other young men as well.
QUESTION #6: Mike, offensively you had 42 shots and they came from various areas, which I'm sure pleased you. It wasn't just throwing the puck at the net. You generated different offensive options, is that right'
EAVES: Forty-two shots is a great step in the right direction. I mean, Wayne Gretzky scored, you score on zero percent of the ones you don't shoot, and now that we 're getting the puck to the net, we're driving to the net better. We 're doing some things that are going to increase our percentage in the scoring. So we talked about our need to address that and the fact that we made those steps.
We gave ourselves, I watched that game yesterday at home, and in some cases, I can 't believe we lost that game because we did so many good things. And that 's just, sometimes that's the way of sports. But we will move forward knowing if we play that way and when we play that way again, we're going to win some hockey games with . . . boys.
QUESTION #7: Mike, to what degree does Minnesota have an inherent recruiting advantage given where they are, kind of like Ohio State in football, Texas in football, that so many good players come out of there, that they kind of have a pick of the good ones and you can fight them for them, but more often than not, they're going to go and stay home '
EAVES: It's hard. If you're looking for percentages, I don't know that we could categorize it in that. I think that their challenge is to make sure that when you're putting a team together that you have a blend of good players that become a team. And that includes players that are talented. That includes players that will accept their role. That includes having good goaltending.
There's a lot of factors then because it's a team that ultimately wins. You can have, I think in your scope of recruiting, you've got to take a look at that. And yes, they do have a great natural ability because hockey is one of the key sports in that state. But still, their challenge is to put a team together that is a team, that will become that team that can win a championship. You just don't win on talent alone.
QUESTION #8: Getting back to John Mitchell for a minute. His goal Saturday night, if you had a chance to look back at that on tape, I was interested in your feedback on that. It seemed like he had a lot of awareness and being able to recognize that he had an opportunity to move the puck up ice and a lot of control in recovering the puck after it was blocked and obviously some good finishing touch. You know, it seemed like a pretty good effort all around for him.
EAVES: Well, John was in his line rush four. He recognized that the defenseman was backing in. That's one of the things that we had noted. He attempted to take a shot that was blocked by a defenseman. And then his natural abilities came and he controlled a loose puck, took a look, saw that the goalie was down, and, you know, very, very nicely put it over a fallen goaltender right in, you know, in the top shelf, right up there with the peanut butter.
And, you know, those are the kind of goals that when he tells his grandchildren about his first goal, he really did score upstairs on a goaltender. It wasn't a shot that went five hold and barely got across the goal line. So he's one of the rare people that can do that.
QUESTION #9: If there is any thought by some of the guys of maybe hanging their head because of not getting the production and the wins as of late, does having a Minnesota on the schedule this weekend help with that and the focus of the team and that energy level being up this week'
EAVES: Without question. I don't think our guys, the way that they know they played intrinsically, they're going to come back to the rink thinking, okay, we 've got something going here now. But the fact is that we are playing who we 're playing, it's a good thing. I think that we'll have, we 've got an extra day here because we play Saturday/Sunday to kind of work on some details and get those down. And it's always fun going into Mariucci, and you know the kids will be ready to play.
