Hockey Quotes: WMU vs. Miami 2/9/13

Head Coach Andy Murray

On the weekend overall...

"As I was shaking the hands of the opposing coaches I complemented them on having their team ready to play; they started very strong. To me, what cost us the hockey game was the way we played in the first seven to eight minutes of the game. They're a great team obviously. They're sitting where they are for a reason. They've been a national contender every year since Blasi has been there. We needed to be better at the start then what we were. I always take responsibility, and that's my job. I'm not going to let this loss deter from what this team has been doing all year. This is the first time we have been beaten in regulation in the CCHA and that's a pretty tough thing to do at this point in the season. We are coming to come to practice on Monday and get ready to go for our weekend against Ohio State. Our goal as a team is to try and get home ice advantage for the playoffs. If we win enough games down the stretch here, especially the first game against Ohio State, we will be where we want to be. I am disappointed we didn't play better, but I am proud of what our team has done all year. If you look at the hockey game, there were a couple of strange goals, and players who made individual mistakes that we would like to have back. We had a number of great chances to get back, and our guys really believed in the third period that we were still going to find a way to get some points. It's a credit to our team, and it's a good lesson for them. They haven't had to suffer many lessons this year. You have to be ready to go from the drop of the puck and we just couldn't match their intensity level at the start of the game."

On playing Hafner...

"Frank wasn't feeling well tonight, and it was a 3-0 hockey game at that point. He just wasn't feeling well. We felt that in that situation from a health perspective that it was the best thing to do. He just wasn't himself. It was a good decision, and an opportunity to put Hafner in there. Frank just wasn't well. It had nothing to do with his play or special motivational tactics. He was getting worse so it was just time to take him out."

On pulling the goalie early...

"We had a wide open net and I don't know how we didn't score on it; it would have made it into a 3-1 hockey game. I ask our players to keep playing for the full sixty minutes, and as a coach you have to keep coaching for the full sixty minutes. That is my responsibility to keep coaching. You can wait until the last minute and a half, but it won't make any difference when you're down three goals. We felt that if we scored with six and a half minutes to go we'd have an opportunity to have a different kind of game. But we took an unnecessary penalty after a great scoring chance."

Junior Defenseman Dan DeKeyser

On Miami's energy...

"I thought they did a good job at setting the tempo of the game in the beginning. We had our game there in spurts, but for the most part we just didn't have enough."

On the split...

"Nobody is ever going to be content with a split on this team. I give a lot of credit to them for how they came out, they made it really tough for us."

On this weekend being a learning moment...

"We took it on the chin tonight. They are a good team. It just shows us that if we aren't ready to play on any given night the opponent can take it to us."

Senior Defenseman Luke Witkowski

On thoughts coming in to the third...

"My main message was let's just start with one and go from there. If you can get one we knew the crowd would be with us, but obviously it didn't go that way."

On goalie being pulled...

"It's frustrating. But at the same time we didn't manage the game very well before that point. That's not much of our worries right now. We came out pretty slow in the first, and they struck first. And most games if you score first you're probably going to win."

On the split...

"We knew it was going to be a battle. They are a great team. Obviously it's going to be a battle the next couple of weeks; we've got Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Michigan State. There's not going to be an easy game, and there never really ever is. The main thing we have to take from tonight's game is that we have to play the full sixty minutes."