Jan. 2, 2010

Recap |  Box Score

Head Coach Mike Eaves Post-game Quotes
On Craig Johnson stepping up tonight: "First of all, it's hard for people outside looking in to recognize what a difficult task it is to try to insert three players into your lineup where you're chemistry is changing. You're missing Derek Stepan and Jake (Gardiner) and Ramer (John Ramage). You've got to quickly try to find chemistry and combinations of defense pairings, and to have Craig step right in there right away and get a goal, and you have Bendickson playing defense in his first college game--we felt that he got better as the game went on--so overall, did we do some things that we wish we hadn't? Absolutely. We looked rusty, there were too many turnovers, held on to the puck too long. In the second, we did some good things and got a lead; in the third period, we didn't get a shot for the first six-and-a-half minutes, and that team didn't go away. I give them credit. But we called a timeout and said, `Hey, we've got a challenge in front of us right now. Let's handle it.' Ryan McDonagh got the game puck because he scored a big goal at the time that we needed it and that's a good sign for us, with what we had to do with our lineup, and with the adversity we had within that, we found a way to win."

On Jordy Murray's state of mind today: "Well, we grabbed Jordy this morning and we spoke for a few moments and the good thing for Jordy and his family is that Andy (his father) has been through this before. We understand the ranks of professional coaching and we kind of joked at the time that you're not really a coach, or a professional coach, until you get fired one time. If you read the articles about how he left his job, it was such a classy thing--he left a note for the incoming coach--and that's Andy, he understands business, he knows what it's all about, he did some good things, but in the business, if you're not winning then you are the head guy and you're responsible for making changes. Unfortunately his record at home was probably his demise, and Jordy understood and I think his dad made it to the game tonight, so if McDonagh hadn't scored the winning goal, I think Jordy would have had it (the game puck) because that was a highlight goal, that's the type of thing that he can do, and I'm sure he was pleased to be able to perform like that in front of his pops."

On Scott Gudmandson's two breakaway saves: "I think that for Goody, it was the same type of night that we had from everyone in front of him. He made those two huge saves on the breakaways, but I think if you talked to him, he probably would say, `I'd like some of those back.' The third one hit our guy and went in, I don't know if you can do anything about that, but it's about getting in the game speed and tracking the puck and controlling pucks. He probably gave up more rebounds tonight than I've seen in a while, but again, first game back in three weeks, this is a good game to get that back and going."

UW Player Post-game Quotes
Craig Johnson
On his role in today's game: "They (Merrimack) started out strong, getting two goals right away. Good playing by the forwards, they worked up low, kept the play going and Matt (Thurber) came out of the corner with the puck and rolled it right to me. He set it up perfect for a nice goal. I haven't scored since my freshman year, so it was pretty exciting. It was a good momentum change for us. We picked it up after that."

Ryan McDonagh
On coming back from a three-week lay off: "I think you have to look at it first and foremost as the lay off, but we were playing that humongous series before break against North Dakota, and we proved that we can be a pretty tough team to beat in a tough environment, and now that we've proven that to ourselves, we have to build back to that point. But I have all the confidence in the world in this team, I think we can do it."

On stepping up as a captain and scoring a much-needed goal: "Yeah, I guess you can look at it that way. I was just doing what we practice the whole year, just getting pucks on net, and big Mitch (John Mitchell) had a big screen, and I don't think goalie could see it (the puck)."

Jordy Murray
On his reaction to the news of his father's job status today: "I got a call from my dad pretty early this morning, but he wasn't bitter and he knows how the business goes and that you need to blame someone, so why not blame the coach. That's how it goes. I'm fine with it, it has happened before, and he actually came here tonight, so it was the first time he's ever seen my play live. So I gave him a pretty good game."

On his highlight goal of the night: "I got pretty lucky, the puck hit my stick and it didn't go all the way to the corner. I guess it was stuck on the ice because the ice wasn't the greatest, but I got it and the goalie came out pretty far, I was a little surprised by that, so I didn't really have an angle to shoot it, so I kind of faked it and basically tucked it in to a wide-open net. I was pretty excited at that point."