Head Coach Andy Murray

Thoughts on tonight's game

I think whenever you can get a win against Northern Michigan it's a real positive. They're a well-coached team, they play extremely hard, they're very physical. You've got to battle them for sixty minutes. They've beaten some top calibre teams already this year in their building, so we're gratified with the win, but on the other side of it, we can be better.

What to work on between now and tomorrow for another win

I think it's just remembering what we are, that we're a lunchpail crew that's got to come to work every single night, through the full 60 minutes. As soon as we start thinking we're something else we get ourselves in trouble. We've got o be a team that, like a boxer, we've got to come out punching, but we've got to keep our guard up. A couple times we dropped our guard tonight, it cost us the one time, and maybe could've cost us a couple of others. So you have to punch, but you have to keep your guard up at the same time.

On only two penalties

I thought we had the possession of the puck quite a bit tonight, and that's our goal each game. It's that football stat "time of possession." When we had it, they were having to chase us, and that's what we need to do. So I think that helped it. I think our decisions offensively, and not spending a lot of time in our zone allowed us to avoid those penalty situations.

How important was early goal?

You're either going to be the forechecker or you're going to be the forechecked. We wanted to be the forecheckers tonight, and it's much better way to play the game. The objective of hockey is pretty basic: the first 20 seconds of every shift should be spent in their zone. Then they're too tired to play offense, and they have to change, and then we play offense again. We did a good job of managing the puck in the offensive zone, not as good as we needed to do in certain phases of the game, but our start was strong. But what's their coach telling them right now? You've got to start stronger; you've got to be ready to go. So we've got to recognize what their attitude's going to be tomorrow night. They're going to try to come at us, and we're going to make sure that we're just as aggressive tomorrow.

Thoughts on the finish

I don't know, were you looking at me? Did I look composed there when the puck was scrambling around the net? You're holding on, you're getting in the shot lanes, they have six attackers out there, so you have to play compact and smart and make sure you're getting in the shot lanes, and we did a good job of that.

Dane Walters

Take us through your goals

First goal: Chase made a really unbelievable pass. We kind of had a two-on-one there breaking to the net, he slid it right through the defenseman's legs and all I had to do was just put it in. I had the whole right side of the net. Second goal, we were working on the power play. Just went from bottom to top, Berschbach to Chase, up to Brown, back to Tennyson, Tennyson walked to the middle, let 'er rip, and I tipped it right in the five-hole.

Does it take a bit of courage to get in the way of a Tennyson shot?

(Laughter) Yeah, he definitely rips it really hard. He's probably got one of the harder shots in the league, and it's just your job, you know?

On offense

Obviously in every game we want to spend the majority of our time in the offensive zone, and tonight obviously it's no different from any other night: we wanted to get 30 or more shots, limit them to 24 or less, and just work them. They play a man-on-man style down deep, and we have a lot of crafty, fast forwards who are good at rolling off of that, so man-on-man works well for us. We have a lot of guys that can beat one guy, and as soon as they beat one guy it's just quick right up to the net and the other two guys collapse. We got some success out of that tonight.

Trevor Elias

Thoughts on the game and first goal

We came out with a bang, we worked hard, we knew they were going to come out hard as well, they're a hardworking team, we have all the respect in the world for those guys. Luckily I was on the forecheck, and it came up the wall there, and Walters just threw it to the net and I just kind of laid my stick down, went on the perfect angle, and off the post and in there.

33 shots, need more?

They have a good goaltender, we had our chances. We wanted even more pucks toward the net, we wanted to get as much traffic there as possible. We set out a goal for them to have less than 24 shots, and we made that happen. We just tried to get pucks toward the net.

Biggest thing the team takes away tonight

Just the hard work, playing our systems, and being a structured team, all that always benefits and usually comes out to a win. If we just work as a team and work together, we can accomplish almost anything.

Empty netter

I just saw DeKeyser chip it out, and I just went for it. I just put my head down and kept skating and luckily beat the other guy to it.