Recap |  Final Stats

UW Head Coach  Mike Eaves

On if the difference of UW's play before Penn State's first penalty in the third vs. after Wisconsin's power play:
"I don't know if they let up and we kept trying to play. But we didn't do enough during the game to maybe even draw a penalty. We're disappointed as a coaching staff because last week Saturday night we played pretty well and we had high expectations coming into this game tonight. We let a team come in and dictate. They won races and battles and took time and space away. All of the things that we wanted to do, they did. And we ask ourselves as a staff, 'why?' We talked to the kids after the game. Why did something like this happen? Is that the inconsistency of youth? Is that why we double-clutched in a chance to do something? I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but it was disappointing especially when we had the expectations that we had. We saw growth last week. We as a staff wanted to keep that going, and we didn't get that tonight.

On if there are any takeaways from tonight:
"I really like the way that Cameron Hughes played tonight. It's a shame that he got the boot. He was playing with great energy. He was making things happen. He was one of the guys that had what they had in terms of the jump, the focus, the energy and the winning the battles. We missed him because he was our leader. He was probably the most dynamic guy we had and we lost him."

On Penn State switching their lineup before the game and if that changed Wisconsin's mindset at all before the game:
"Our guys don't know who those guys are, so that didn't change the players mindset at all. We as coaches didn't bring that up. This is the first time we've played them, so we just went out and played their lineup. They were just better than us tonight."

On Tim Davison getting called for roughing after trying to protect the net in the first period, and if there was frustration playing around the net knowing that Penn State is the type of team that frequently crashes it:
"No we talked about it. We knew that's the way they play, they play hard. I think that call in particular was inappropriate because of the fact that the kid lost his balance. Tim (Davison) was down in there and the kid lost his balance and fell and the referee interpreted that was roughing. So that was too bad."

On if there is any point where they start to look at the upper-class leadership:
"No question. We do that every game. We do that every day in practice. They have a done a masterful job off the ice with these young people, and I think that they sometimes try too hard in what they do on the ice and try to do too much. They have to find that balance. They didn't have that tonight for us."


Wisconsin Players

Senior Goaltender Joel Rumpel
On how today's game felt after a significant step forward last weekend:
"Yeah I mean, we played so well, top to bottom last week, and we came out a little flat, which was unexpected, I thought we were going to come out a lot stronger and it starts with me obviously too as well. It's unfortunate, but you learn a lot more from losing than you do from winning, so we learned a lot tonight, and tomorrow we're obviously not going to come out quite as flat. It's tough to come back from a two nothing deficit."

On how you felt about your play tonight: 
"Any time you let in four goals you can't be that good out there. I mean, Penn State's a good team. They got lots of pucks to the net. My d-men did well in front of me, blocked a lot of shots. I obviously have to be better out there, whether it's better second save opportunity or better rebound control or finding pucks through screens. It's unacceptable letting four goals in any night, so I need to be better."

Freshman Defenseman Tim Davison
On the perceived energy boost after the power play goal:
"Yeah I mean definitely we try to build off of good things that happen. Obviously a goal's a good thing, so I think we got good energy from that goal, but obviously it wasn't enough and we're going to have to regroup tomorrow to try and get the W."

On what they saw in the game to use moving forward:
"I think for Penn State specifically, we saw that they have a lot of shots on net. Every time they'd get the puck it seemed like they were shooting on net, so we [have to] be able to prepare for that, try to block some more shots, help Joel (Rumpel) out, and just know that they're coming to the net hard. Especially defensemen [have to] be standing on their toes, making sure nothing's getting behind them, and just making sure we are blocking the shots and trying to counter their shots."

Senior Forward Morgan Zulinick
On what this game tells you about the Big Ten:
"It tells us that no games are going to be easy. I think we can't take anybody lightly, no matter what team it is, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, you can't take anything lightly, every team is good in this conference." 

On the perceived energy boost after the power play goal:
"Yeah I think being a little bit more consistent throughout the game too. We can't wait that long to get that goal. We have to start right off the start and they came out harder from right off the bat."

On if Morgan Zulinick thought his goal would jumpstart the team:
"I thought it was some good energy, but it didn't last long enough. You know, we didn't build off of it like we should have. It was a good shot by the D-man, we need to build off of that."