Hockey Quotes: WMU vs. ND 2/23/13

Head Coach Andy Murray

On special team's performance...

"I thought our penalty kill was very solid. We did a great job of getting in shot lanes and keeping their power play shooters to the outside. Our power play got us a goal, but we had a couple of opportunities where we came up short. We had a couple of good looks with ten minutes left in the hockey game. We need some more finish from our power play players. We got a power play goal and ended plus one on the night for special teams so we'll take that."

On the first period...

"I thought that we were not very good in the first eleven minutes, and then in the last nine minutes we generated about eight or nine shots on net. They came out very strong, and it looked like we were still in the middle of our Senior Ceremony. I was concerned for us, but if you take a look at the shot count for the remainder of the hockey game for us to play a team like that as hard as we did and out shoot them we thought we were solid. These were tremendous hockey games. If you want advertising to get people to come to games, this weekend was it. The good thing for us is that we are keeping this rivalry going forward. Next year, even though we are not in the same conference we still have two series against each other. They're just great. These were tough and physical games, where you would rather be a player than a coach."

On the weekend overall...

"I mean we expected tight games. It was interesting, in the Ferris series I didn't think we were as good as we needed to be; in the first game against Miami I didn't think we were as good as we need to be, and when we went to Ohio State I don't think we were as good as we needed to be. I think these games were real good for us. We've got two big games against Michigan State next weekend, and they're going to be battles for us. What's important is that we play solid games back to back like we did this weekend."

Senior Defenseman Luke Witkowski

On the game overall...

"Obviously there was a lot of emotion in it tonight. As a freshman you never thought senior night was going to come, but here it is. There's a lot of emotions on the ice, and tomorrow at the senior breakfast there will be even more."

On shutting down ND's offense...

"We definitely came out pretty slow. They were beating us to pucks, and hitting us pretty hard. We put some credit to the Lunatics, something about waking up, and it kind of turned it around there. We realized we needed to kick it in the butt."

On Cichy's power play goal...

"We work on that play a lot. When Cichy is playing well, our power play is playing well because he has the puck on his tape a lot. He had a great night tonight and put the puck in the back of the night."

Junior Forward Mike Cichy

On this weekend overall...

"We go in to Ohio State and give up six goals and that's not our game. We played well. We definitely played them hard."

On not having a true "win" in awhile...

"We had our chances, and their goalie was hot. Then Kessel's goal got called off that we definitely thought should have counted, but you can't do anything about that. We take a lot away from tonight, it's a step forward."

On his goal...

"I looked up to pass and saw Summerhays shift his body to the other side, so I just ripped it real quick and hit the post and in."

On ND's offense in the game...

"No excuses but it was Senior Night; we had that presentation in the beginning and it was a little emotional for all of us. This is their last home game here and it touched us. But once they came out and gave us a rude awakening on that power play it really woke us up because we were getting dominated pretty bad."