Nov. 27, 2010
Recap | Final Stats
Head Coach and Player Quotes
Wisconsin vs. Michigan State
November 27, 2010
Head Coach Mike Eaves
On how often most of the goals over a weekend are scored by defensemen:
"Not very often, I can't remember a weekend that's happened here in our time. It was one of those nights and one of those weekends for our young defensemen. Part of our plan is to have them be involved in our offense. I see here that Justin (Schultz) had eight shots tonight. In basketball terms, they weren't giving us the pull-up shot and we had to take the three-pointer, and we blasted a lot of shots with the power play."
On sophomore Justin Schultz's wild night:
"Yeah, if you look at the fact that he scored three goals, and then he scored one for them, but above and beyond that, he had some breakdowns when he didn't have the puck that were not like him, so he had the whole spectrum. Some nights you can't explain that."
On Scott Gudmanson's night:
"He looked really sharp. I thought he jumped right back in there, played with a great purpose. The thing I really liked about his game tonight was how decisive he was with the puck. I think that's always a very telltale sign of where he's at mentally, and he was very sharp there tonight."
On taking positive things from this weekend's matches into next weekend:
"We spent a lot of time (talking about that). We talked about it last night after the game, we talked about it this morning during our video session, and we tried a couple of things we hoped would try to create that energy. I talked to some people about it and I looked back at some of my notebooks from teams that were very similar to that here. When you're a young team, there's that prospect of FEAR, which is "Future Expectations Appearing Real", where you create something that doesn't really exist. I think it was a combination of things--we're going through that process of learning how to deal with those things as a new group. We've only played 16 games together; we're a young team."
On a theme for the College Hockey Showcase:
"Our hope -and we won't know until we continue to play-is the fact that we learned how we need to come out. We talked about having a great start, and what it takes to create that great start, both physically and mentally. Coming out and playing hard, playing with energy, not respecting your opponent too much--playing with that edge. We'll be able to tell in a couple of weekends if we've learned that lesson by the way we approach the first part of the last four games we have."
Wisconsin Player Quotes
Sophomore Justin Schultz
On his crazy night:
"I had a little bit of both (strengths and weaknesses). The power play was working tonight, and the pucks just seemed to go in for me. I obviously need to tighten up a few things defensively, and I'll just work on that this week and get ready for next weekend."
On improvements from a year ago:
"Yeah, my shot's definitely gotten better and just being more confident with the puck. I think having an extra year under my belt has helped me a lot."
Senior Scott Gudmandson
On his strong performance:
"I thought I played pretty well. After the last game against Duluth, I was pretty upset with how I played, I thought it was frustrating when I got pulled, and I wanted to respond."
On winning the game in regulation:
"I think it was nice to just win in regulation, to get the W. I think it was six games we went without a win there, and that was a long stretch."
Junior Jake Gardiner
On the defensemen scoring most of the goals this weekend:
"It just shows how much talent we have. Any of us can score on the line. Coach thrives on us jumping the play, and we've been able to do that a lot this weekend."
