On how the team handled all of the up and down emotions: "First of all, the emotion that was in the locker room was disappointment. As competitive as we are when we play athletics, they were disappointed. We had a 2-1 lead going into the third period against the No. 2 team in the country, we would have taken that if somebody had told us that would’ve been it. On the other side of the coin, it’s probably the formula that we got outshot 43-20, and that’s probably going to be a formula for a while in the fact that we need Joel [Rumpel] to play well for us until we can get more experience under our young people and figure out our roles. There were moments we were good, there were moments that we weren’t good—they played at a higher pace with more purpose and tenacity. And that could be a byproduct of us not playing for a couple weeks and being young and then we lose Eddie early in the game and we’re down to five young defensemen. So there are a lot of contributing factors, but that’s probably going to be a pattern for a while, that Rumps [
Joel Rumpel] is going to have to play well, steady the ship, let us get some experience and then we can start figuring out how to win some games."
On if you believe in moral victories: "You can define success in several ways or victories. There’s the flat out left column, right column, a win or a loss, and then there’s the victories of, “Did we grow as a team? Did we get some valuable lessons from this?” We’ll be judged on the wins and losses, but on the inside, there were some things that we did well that we will build on. We need to be better and we will be better. We said to the guys tonight, we told a story. When we first went to Calgary in 1983, we played Edmonton 12-15 times a year—with Gretzky and all his guys. It took us three years, but we figured out how to beat them, and every time we played them we got better. We play good teams like North Dakota, it draws us up to a higher level, and we’ll be playing at a higher level because of the way we played tonight."
On Eddie Wittchow’s injury: "Broken finger. Upper extremity, how’s that for detail? Broken finger. When you see that cast on his hand you won’t have to guess. He’s out, I haven’t heard from the doctor definitively (how long) but he won’t play tomorrow, he’ll be out for a while."
On relying on young defensemen and young players to play so many minutes due to injury and circumstances: "Yep, they looked tired at the end. It was like biking against a 40 mile per hour wind: it’s tough work."
On North Dakota having five straight power plays and how that affected the rhythm or been a turning point: "Well you’re bringing up referees and I’m not going to go there. It is what it is. The penalties that we had, if they’re penalties that’s fine, but there were some calls that I thought they could’ve made just as easily and didn’t, and it broke up the rhythm, yes."
On how getting first lead, power play goal, etc. is part of the “process”: "Yes. Those are tangible things that we see, but even things that you don’t mark down on paper…the shot blocking that we do. Are we blocking shots? Are we getting to spaces and taking time and space away from them like they do to us? Just the pace and the tenacity in which they do those things, we’re a step behind right now. We’re a step behind. And again, by playing that and feeling that, that’s going to bring us to a higher level."
Jedd Soleway
On the locker room atmosphere: “We’re just trying to learn every game. Especially when you play good teams like this you learn even more. It’s tough to swallow the loss obviously. But in the end, you learn more from playing these good teams so we’re hoping to bounce back tomorrow.”
On his faceoff success tonight: “I think everyone tends to focus when you’re up on faceoffs on the dot. Sometimes you have good nights and sometimes you don’t. You just have to win it back. I had some help from the wingers for sure.”
On Wisconsin’s performance: “Honestly, we’re learning every game. The past two weeks, or almost three weeks if you count the days after our game against Northern Michigan, we’ve been building every day; we’ve been working hard every day. You’re starting to see less and less mistakes but at the same time they’re there and they’re starting to cost us. Really at this point, it’s going to start affecting us positively because it’s going to happen in a game and people learn a lot more in a game than they do in practice so just getting reps when it counts, I think is what’s going to help us most.”
On blaming the loss tonight on the young team: “That’s the easy way out. We played hard tonight. We had our first lead of the year, going into the third period leading 2-1. With all these young guys—although they’ve been here for a while now—we just have to learn to close out the game.”
On managing emotions throughout the game: “As hockey players, your goal is to stay as even-keeled as possible— no super highs and no super lows. We get really excited when we score goals, but the next shift it’s right back to work. The same goes for goals against. We try and do that as much as possible and stay even-keeled.”
Grant Besse
On losing Defenseman Eddie Witchow: “Obviously it’s tough back there with only five defensemen. Especially when we had to kill penalties— a lot of them were out there for most of the time. They did good on blocking shots and getting the puck out so it’s not an easy loss, but I think some of the younger guys like [Keegan] Ford and [Jake] Linhart really stepped up.
On if North Dakota’s five penalties in a row was the turning point in the game: “I don’t think so. When they took the lead on the power play, that was tough, but we played well overall. We had a lot of guys step up and block shots and that’s something we’ve been working on so that’s a positive we have to take away from it.”
On what Wisconsin did well: “I like how we progressed from where we were at Northern Michigan and what these past two weeks have been like. I like how we scored goals tonight. That’s kind of been a big struggle for us. The opening four games we weren’t scoring a lot so to score three goals against a team like North Dakota, that’s a positive. Overall, we gave a good effort.”
Chase Drake
On blaming the loss on a young team: “That definitely is the easy way to go. I think that’s the first time playing with a lead in the third period. We’re hungry. We’re all frustrated right now. I think some guys are just pressing a little bit too much and we took some chances maybe we shouldn’t have that led to breakdowns and goals for them.”
On losing Defeseman Eddie Wittchow: "I think it was tough. We had young guys playing their first game in the Kohl Center so a lot of nerves. Once we lost Eddie, guys had to step up and I think they did. Keegan, Jake and Jack [Dougherty] — they played a lot of minutes tonight and were simple and they got the job done and that’s what we needed from all of us. Hopefully tomorrow we can stay healthy and play a more complete game.”
