Head Coach Andy Murray
On takeaways from tonight's game…
“It allowed us to get a look at our team in a game situation. A number of our players were playing in their first college game so it gave us an opportunity to evaluate players and see exactly where we are. There are certain things that we have to a lot better. I give credit to Lethbridge and Spiros Anastas at coming in here and beating us as hard as they did. We give them credit and we look back at the things we can do better, as well as a lot of coachable moments. We just had a discussion in the dressing room about the things that we need to do.”
On first exhibition loss since 1998…
“I don't care if it's the first exhibition loss since 2000 or 1903, we just didn't play as well as we needed. We played everybody in the hockey game tonight. We played five lines and eight defensemen. We sat some guys out and get a read on our players. We have so many new guys that we are working on integrating into positions. Our goal tonight was to win the hockey game but there are some things we have to do better. I like our team and I saw a lot of good things in a lot of players and some things that exposed some other guys but there's a lot to work with here. We plan to do well next weekend against Ferris.”
On team chemistry…
“Today was the first official day we were allowed to practice per the NCAA rules. It was the first day we could have an official practice to see things like line combinations. It's going to take a bit of time before we know who is going to play with who you've got to get through some games to see where you are. It's one thing to test yourself in practice but we need to see ourselves against an opponent. We thing we've got some good combinations going and some guys trying in different positions and tonight's game was the time to try that. “
On the loss overall…
“We gave up four goals on 16 shots and that's around a 75% save percentage. We need to be better and smarter and the bottom line is that we didn't score any goals. They got the first goal and we need to play better and get more pucks to the net. I credit our opponent they played really hard. This Canadian team had 16 major junior players on their team and they played well tonight. We were just not as good as we needed to be.”
On team discipline…
“Terrible. It was terrible tonight. We addressed it strongly after the game. If the referees had not taken Mike McKee out of the game when they did I was going to because he was not playing another shift. I told the players on the bench when that happened that he had played his last shift in the hockey game. Mike is disappointed in himself. You can see his game is improving but to see him do that type of thing on the ice is anti-team and Mike is not that kind of guy. He would have paid the price but ultimately our team paid the price because we were rolling in the third period and then he took those back-to-back penalties that put us in a tough situation. We don't get anything from doing that. The crowd gets excited and the Lunatics love it but ultimately our responsibility is to win hockey games and there is a way you need to play.”
Sheldon Dries, Junior, Forward
On team chemistry…
“There is no excuse. We've been playing together for a full month now doing captain's practices but they were a hard working team and they out worked us tonight.”
On team discipline…
“That was a stupid play on my part. We just got done talking about it in the room and we learned last year that penalties killed us. That was our demise last year. As long as we talk about it and punish the guys who do that we will learn.”
On tonight's loss…
“It may not count in the win/loss bracket but it's on our schedule and we wanted to win. So when we lose it hurts but we'll learn from it.”
