Head Coach Andy Murray
Tone throughout tonight's game
“Again, we had a problem last weekend with the second period and tonight it was more of the same. We are very disappointed, we give credit to our opponents they are a feisty group, they play hard, and they compete. We had them down 3-1 in the hockey game and they just continued to play as we told our players they would. Obviously I did not coach a good enough game tonight and enough of our players did not play well enough and those are the results you get when you are not at your best. The college game is a tough one and you have to be on top of it all the time. Unfortunately for us, we weren't where we needed to be tonight.”
Thoughts on shots on goal
“I think we scored four goals, to be honest, in this league if you give up two or more, your chances of winning are not very good and that's our goal every night. Our goal is to give up 23 or fewers shots which I think was the case here tonight but we cannot be giving up the goals we gave up in the few shots that they generated here tonight. I give a lot of credit to Northern Michigan, they're a scrappy group, they were up in Alaska last weekend and found a way to battle back and win that second game up there. We needed to be forewarned that they were going to compete for 60 minutes. Very disappointed with not getting the job done here tonight and again, I am the one that is accountable.”
Thought on power plays and penalty kills
“Our power play, we had a number of good looks. We had opportunity on a four-on-three in the second period where we needed to move the puck a little bit quicker. Start of the third period on basically a four minute power play did generate a number of chances but to me the whole story of the hockey game is giving up the number of goals we gave up. When you give up five goals in a hockey game, you don't win in college hockey; you don't win in any kind of hockey, you don't win in women's hockey, you don't win in pee-wee hockey. It is ridiculous that we gave up five goals, I am responsible.”
First period- strong start
“I think everybody was feeling pretty good about themselves and thinking that this is a night where it might be a point night for me and then you start to forget about the details of the game. Frank is a part of our team as well and he has been there for us on many nights and it was not one of his better games tonight. Ultimately we had a lot of guys that made mistakes right in front of him as well. We are totally, all of us are accountable, the coaches are accountable and that is what I told the team. I am accountable, I went around the room and asked each player how they felt they played tonight and we go a fair and honest response from all of them and I appreciated that. Bottom line now is to get ourselves regrouped and to make sure that we are ready to play the full 60 tomorrow night because I know that this Northern Michigan team is thinking of coming in here and winning both hockey games. It's our building and we need to play better in our building, giving up five goals in unacceptable.”
Thoughts to slow down NMU's “scoring line”
“They are all very good players and we had a plan tonight to slow down their scoring as well but obviously we didn't do a good enough job. They got some goals that they scored on from the outside and we need to do a better job on them but they are great players and they play real hard. Vigier might be the top player in college hockey right now with the way that he is playing; he is just strong on the puck and he's a small guy. So simply we need to man up against them better and we need to win our matchups scenarios. They beat us and they beat us in transition because we turned pucks over, we saw a lot of goals were scored basically on transition opportunities where we didn't take advantage of our chances in the offensive zone and they came down the ice and buried their chance. Again, I don't care who they are and I don't care if they bring in Steve Yzerman tomorrow night, we cannot give up the number of goals we gave up here tonight, we need to be better. It's a challenge every night we got young men and they have to learn what the essence of competing for the full 60 minutes is and to this point we have had trouble with that and that is my job to make sure that we are ready to go tomorrow night. I don't care who they play tomorrow night, they got to be better.”
Senior Forward Chase Balisy
Overall impressions on play
“Started off pretty strong in the first and they kind of took it to us in the last two period. It is kind of disappointing to have a 3-1 lead at home in the first and end like that, that's a pretty bad performance on our part.”
Beginning of 3rd period—4 ½ minute powerplay
“That is a huge moment, you have a five minute power play like that and you didn't get too many chances which really cost us, if we had gotten a goal there, it's a whole new game and its disappointing. “
Powerplays
“We have to work harder on the power plays, I think we got outworked on the power play and it is unacceptable when you have 5 guys on the ice to their 4. We just have to be better tomorrow.”
Changes in tomorrows game
“It is a matter of playing harder and playing smarter for sure. I think we got away from our system there in the second and third we have to stick to our game. When we play our game, we are capable of beating anybody.”
