Opening statement
Well, let’s pick out all the positive things, and there were a lot of them. I thought that my goaltender played real well tonight, for the first time since shutting out Providence in this building last year. We needed a win and he got it for us. He stood tall in the third period especially. I thought despite the fact that we gave up three power-play goals, we did a pretty good job killing penalties. We had so many to kill. And the 5-on-3 really got a couple guys exhausted. They scored a 5-on-4 because the 5-on-3 guys were exhausted and couldn’t get off the ice when it was 5-on-4. We had gone quite a long time without getting a 5-on-5 goal and we got a few tonight. Nice to get Rollheiser back. Obviously nice to get Bonino back. Probably, we’ll have the guys who were out of the lineup back next week, give us a little different look in our lineup.
But these guys played pretty hard tonight. I thought everyone played pretty hard most of the time, played stupid sometimes with penalties. I thought our forecheck was great, the way we were playing it against their stretch. Then we got caught off-guard with the defense crashing, gave them a 2-on-1 for a goal to make it too close a game than it should have been. Nice to see Ross Gaudet get his first goal of his college career. I thought he played very, very well. I thought the best player on the ice for us was Joe Pereira. I thought he played great. Our All-American defensemen, Shattenkirk and Cohen, I try to keep both of them in sometimes with some of the plays they were making.
Once we were up 4-0, I thought we self-destructed two ways tonight. We got up 4-0, and I thought we tried to make too many cute plays, tried to make a big play instead of just playing them straight, the way we were playing them earlier. And then we self-destructed tonight because of the penalties we took. Real disheartening to see us, you know this game’s in the bag, we’re up 4-0, and all of the sudden we’re making foolish, foolish decisions with the puck, and not protecting the puck thinking we can wheel out. The amount of turnovers we had in that second period was like night and day compared to how we played in the first period. And believe me, it wasn’t them who was doing it to us. We had complete control of the puck, and then we just wanted to make something special happen and turn it over. But the 5-on-3 goal was huge in the second period when Colby got that. It was a bomb, which is what he can do. In general, it was a much-needed win.
On whether or not Bonino plays if the team’s 6-2 rather than 2-6
Yeah. He could’ve played last night. I don’t think he could’ve played two games in a row, conditioning-wise. It has nothing to do with his shoulder. His shoulder’s fine.
On what worked on the top line
They had a lot of energy. Pereira really gave them a lot of energy. Nick was gasping a little bit. He’s not quite in game shape, but he made some nice plays, looked like himself out there. And I think Connolly played extremely well. Connolly’s been playing well all year. He’s been getting a lot of shots, but I think now, at least he got two goals tonight, which is nice after being snakebitten for quite a while. I thought Bonino played well. That line had a lot of jump for us, and a lot of opportunities. And I thought Pereira was the guy that gave it that jump. His determination really changed things around for them, and opened up some areas for the other two guys.
On his decision to change up all four forward lines
The saying is, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ So, the opposite is true, too. We went 217 minutes, I think, without scoring a 5-on-5 goal. So, mix it up. And we could mix it up because we got Bonino back. All of a sudden, Megan goes from a first-line center to a third-line center. When we get Alex back, we’ll have a different look. When we get David back, we’ll have a different look. And all of a sudden, everyone gets moved around a little bit, and the whole lineup gets stronger top to bottom. So, Bonino made that lineup stronger top to bottom, just by being the first-line center. And, also, he made us stronger because he’s so good, too.
On what allowed his team to get out to a fast start
We changed the forecheck a little bit to what’s known as a triangle plus-two to offset their stretch guy. It gave us the opportunity to go forecheck without worrying about the guy behind us, so I’d say we played it almost 75 percent of the game. Other than that one defenseman crashing down that one time when he shouldn’t have and gave them that 2-on-1, I thought we controlled most of center ice, which we didn’t last night. Last night, there’s the stretch guy. and then passing it back, the guy’s flying and our gap isn’t really there. Tonight, we were able to keep the current gap, so to speak.
On what he makes of the current Hockey East standings
I picked Maine to be one of the dark horses and to make the biggest improvement. Everyone knew that Merrimack lost, I think they lost 12 one-goal games last year, and they added some new players. BU and Northeastern don’t lose what they lost and come back. For us to be the preseason favorite in the league was a bit of a stretch considering what we lost compared to the guys we’re having come back. That was still a little polish from the national championship last year. But then we start off with some of our key guys not playing well, and then we get all the injuries, and the injuries really made a mess out of it for a while. We had guys out with the flu, guys out with whatever. What goes around comes around. We had Strait miss about five games last year, and Higgins missed about four games last year, but that was it. This was a mess right off the bat.
But the good part about it is if we can keep our head above water here and get everybody back, we had some guys step up and some guys play different positions. And I think Gaudet proved he needs to be kept in the lineup, and Santana has proven he needs to be kept in the lineup and given more opportunity to play. Megan’s proven he can be a center and a pretty good player out there for us. And maybe those guys wouldn’t have had opportunities early if everybody’s here. And Rosen wasn’t playing much, and he’s shown us he can play. I certainly don’t like the idea that we’re so far down in the league as far as the games we’ve lost, but at the same time, it gave us an opportunity to see some other guys we wouldn’t have seen.
On his decision to sit Andrew Glass and Kevin Gilroy and play Victor Saponari
Well, I sat Glass and Gilroy because we were going to play Victor and Bonino. Bonino obviously is coming in the minute he gets back healthy. Victor hasn’t played a game this year yet, and I thought those guys were the easiest two guys to take out. I needed to take a right wing out, and I took a left wing out, but I put Gaudet on left wing. He played center last night. I thought he played well. Another guy I thought played great tonight was Luke Popko. He had a great night. What he does for us so well, there’s not many guys that can do it as well as he does. So, I was happy to see that that line played pretty well. I thought Ross played well going on left wing, which is not his usual position. I thought he played well. So, we’ll see what happens here in the next few games, and we’ll get some different combinations. We’d like to get Alex back. I’m pretty sure we’re going to get David back. We may not get Alex back. It all depends on how he feels these next two days, but we’re pretty sure David probably could’ve played tonight.
On what caused his team to unravel a bit in the second for the second straight night
Two things, two completely different things. Last night, we unraveled because we got rattled. We acted like, they made it 3-1 at home, we’re afraid to lose. And we’re playing like, ‘Oh my god, we’re going to lose this game’. Tonight was just the opposite. We can do what we want out there, and then all of a sudden, we’re giving up turnover after turnover after turnover. We weren’t covering anybody last night. We were giving away turnovers tonight. So, we were rattled last night. We thought we were too good tonight. Neither one of those scenarios is very good. I don’t know if it’s leaders. That creeps in every once in a while when you get a big lead, always has. People get satisfied, the other team gets a little more determined, especially when it’s 4-1, 4-2. When it’s 4-0, ‘Aw, the game’s over.’ The game’s over when the game’s over.
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