Latest / Coaches Corner / MHOC Mike Cavanaugh - UVM Pre Playoff Zoom

Transcript

MHOC Mike Cavanaugh - UVM Pre Playoff Zoom · Coaches Corner

• 0:03
  All right, coach, regular season done with ended it with a five to
• 0:07
  one win over Vermont, headed into the postseason, going to face Vermont at
• 0:12
  home to open the Hockey's playoffs. Just want to get your thoughts heading into
• 0:16
  into the postseason and the Wednesday matchup. Yeah, well, was certainly excited
• 0:21
  to be playing at home tomorrow night, but we also know that last Thursday's
• 0:29
  game there's zero implications on tomorrow night's game. You know, our seniors were
• 0:36
  in this position when they were freshmen, when we beat Providence in the last
• 0:40
  game of the year to get home ice, and then had to face Providence
• 0:43
  again at home the following week and we lost to that team. So we
• 0:49
  understand that playoffs is a completely different animal in the regular season, and we
• 0:55
  expect a much, you know, tougher game tomorrow because you know, for
• 1:02
  both teams, uh one of them, season is gonna end, and when
• 1:07
  that's on the line, the games is definitely a lot more intense. All
• 1:14
  Right, we'll open up for questions, Joe, you want to start us
• 1:17
  off, sure, Good morning, coach, Good morning, Joe. Is
• 1:22
  the intensity the biggest difference in your opinion between playoffs and regular season? Yeah,
• 1:30
  I think so you know, when you're playing for a trophy and a
• 1:34
  chance to play at the Boston Garden, uh or TD Garden, whatever the
• 1:38
  hell they call it now, I'm not sure, but it's uh, you
• 1:45
  know, one, it's exciting. But I think Joe and you know Jerry
• 1:51
  York used to always refer to it as you're gonna take someone sticks away,
• 1:56
  you know, and when you're gonna take someone sticks away, Uh, there's
• 2:00
  a lot of intensity in that game. And I don't care if it's one
• 2:02
  eight, one, twelve, eight, nine, three six, it doesn't
• 2:07
  matter if you know where we're both in the situation. I think if you
• 2:15
  look at all of the first round games, New Hampshire's playing Lowell, Northeastern's
• 2:23
  playing Merrimack, and you know we're playing Vermont. The losers of those games,
• 2:28
  they're season deads. None of us are guaranteed to go to the national
• 2:31
  tournament, so those games are going to be really intense when that's on the
• 2:36
  line. You said you don't the Thursday night game doesn't have any implications on
• 2:45
  Wednesday night, But what that you did, especially well Thursday, do you
• 2:50
  have to replicate tomorrow. I think what we have to do is when we
• 2:53
  get Grade A scoring opportunities, we have to hit the net. You know
• 2:58
  when we we only missed the net I think on one Grade A opportunity on
• 3:04
  last Thursday night, and I've been talking about it quite a bit. I
• 3:08
  think that was one of our major problems early on in the year, that
• 3:14
  or throughout the year, because when you get a Grade A opportunity and you
• 3:17
  hit the net, one it has a chance to go in, but two,
• 3:22
  it usually creates a rebound if it doesn't go in because it's a hard
• 3:27
  on a Grade A, it's hard for a goalie to stop that clean or
• 3:30
  direct it sometimes to the corner. They're usually just trying to make a save.
• 3:37
  And when there's a rebound, that creates another Grade A opportunity, so
• 3:40
  you're giving yourself more chances to score. And last one for me, can
• 3:46
  you talk about Pascucci's development. I mean, he's been a pretty solid guy
• 3:52
  on you for the last couple of weeks. Brings gives you a pretty good
• 3:54
  physical presence, Yeah, he does. He gives a physical president. I
• 4:00
  still think there's times where Jack is a work in progress, but I also
• 4:06
  I have liked where he's come from. You know where you went from maybe
• 4:10
  playing eight games as a freshman to being steady in the lineup now and a
• 4:14
  lot of that's due to his hard work and very coachable kid, and he's
• 4:18
  keeping the game simple and when he does that, he's very effective for us.
• 4:25
  Randy will jump over to you. Thanks, Colin Moran cav How you
• 4:29
  doing today, Good morning, Randy, I'm great. Thanks. I know
• 4:32
  you've mentioned in years past that it's about playing your best hockey this time of
• 4:39
  year, and you know, shoring up certain things and playing your best game
• 4:45
  when you go into the playoffs. What are you What do you think you're
• 4:47
  doing really well right now? And what is one thing that you'd like to
• 4:51
  shore up even even more that you're going to have your focus on tomorrow.
• 4:57
  Yeah. I think, well, when you get to this type of year,
• 5:00
  survive in advance. You know, like you have to find a way
• 5:03
  to there is like we can sit here all we want and say, oh,
• 5:09
  we outshot him two to one, or we played really well, but
• 5:12
  we couldn't find a way to score. That doesn't really cut it, because
• 5:16
  you know, if that's the case, you're going home. So I think
• 5:19
  what we have to do is when we're playing well, we manage the puck
• 5:25
  in the neutral zone, we don't turn it over, we get in on
• 5:29
  the fore check, and we don't give up odd man rushes. You know,
• 5:31
  I think that's really important that we make sure that we're not giving up
• 5:36
  any odd man rushes. Matthew Wood has kind of gone out a bit of
• 5:42
  a tear here at the end of the year, and the two goals he
• 5:46
  scored last game, I noticed that I hadn't noticed from him before just what
• 5:51
  incredible reach he has the one handed effort to knock in that first and just
• 5:58
  out get the for that loose puck in the slot. Can you tell me
• 6:02
  about what a difference his reach, his ability to kind of like go get
• 6:06
  pucks the areas that other guys might not be able to get to. Yeah,
• 6:11
  I don't know if it was so much reach as it was he was
• 6:14
  going to the net. That was the biggest thing for me. On the
• 6:16
  first goal, he's driving to the net and he knocks a pucket. And
• 6:21
  on the second goal, he's driving to the net. He tries to make
• 6:25
  a play to tattle, but he stays with it. And second and third
• 6:29
  effort he gets a puck and you saw where he scored it. He was
• 6:31
  right in front of the net, and I think if he's going to be
• 6:35
  an effective player, and if you look at the goals that he scored against
• 6:39
  Northeastern, you know it's a give and goal. When he's going to the
• 6:42
  net like he's got to the goal. Scorers have to be going to the
• 6:47
  net. Very few are scored. Yes, he has the ability to beat
• 6:51
  a guy with a one timer, there's no question about it. But if
• 6:57
  you're going to score goals consistently, and all a great goals I've seen,
• 7:00
  they don't rely on beating goaltenders from the top of the circles. They get
• 7:04
  to the net, and I think that's the biggest thing for him. And
• 7:08
  how about the final one for me, Joey Muldowney with a couple and a
• 7:12
  guy who's had a lot of chances. I was surprised to see that those
• 7:15
  are only three and four of the year because it seems like he's always creating
• 7:20
  opportunities. How good was that for him to hit the back of the net
• 7:24
  a couple of times with how many opportunities he's been creating this year. Yeah,
• 7:28
  he's been playing great for us, especially the second half of the year
• 7:32
  as a kid. I'm really excited about going forward in this program. But
• 7:38
  it was good to see him get a couple of goals and one being an
• 7:41
  empty netter. But he beat his guy up the ice, you know,
• 7:43
  to get that, and I'm not sure that was going in anyway watching it,
• 7:46
  he definitely knocked that in. So and that ice is a game,
• 7:50
  you know. I think it's it's you know, he's a really good player,
• 7:57
  and throughout the playoffs you have to have balance scoring, you have to
• 8:00
  have you can't just rely on one line or it's going to bite you at
• 8:03
  some point. So we're gonna need him to continue to play that way.
• 8:09
  Thank you. Yep, Dan, we'll jump over to you. You've been
• 8:13
  talking a lot about that Providence game back in twenty twenty one, the double
• 8:18
  against the Do you feel like you went into that playoff game not taking it
• 8:24
  as seriously as you could have because you had just beaten them. No,
• 8:28
  I don't think that was the case. You know, maybe I think we
• 8:35
  took the game very seriously, Dan, I don't think we've ever not taken
• 8:39
  a playoff game seriously since I've been here. I think maybe we're a little
• 8:43
  over confident. You know, because we were up five to nothing in that
• 8:46
  game. I just think it's a good thing, a reminder, like when
• 8:50
  you're in a situation that's very similar, you know, it's a good thing
• 8:56
  to remind the guys. Just because we beat them on Thursday night doesn't mean
• 9:01
  that this is going to be an easy game come Wednesday night. And that's
• 9:05
  my importance of this why I have talked about it. You know, look
• 9:11
  at history and don't let it repeat itself. You know, let's come in
• 9:16
  here and understand that this is going to be a much tougher game than it
• 9:20
  was on Thursday night. Is there a balance though, between getting some confidence
• 9:26
  from that game last Thursday because it has been a struggle to score at home
• 9:30
  and win at home Toscano specifically, that at least the guys know they can
• 9:35
  do it, and just trying to find that balance between not being overconfident.
• 9:41
  Yeah, I don't know. I think every game is its own entity.
• 9:46
  You know, we have we scored against Harvard here, you know, we
• 9:48
  beat Lowell here. I mean we've won games in this building, this team.
• 9:54
  I think when five and two or last year or four, I don't
• 9:58
  know what it was, they had a winning record into is gone last year,
• 10:01
  so this year, you know, sometimes it goes that way. But
• 10:05
  you're only as good as your next game. And our guys have the confidence
• 10:09
  that they can score against anybody. They do and a lot of it comes
• 10:15
  down to making sure, like I said, when we get great a's,
• 10:18
  we've got to make sure they're on the net and we're not letting the goalie
• 10:20
  off the hook. Stan, we'll jump over to you, Hey, coach,
• 10:31
  what's preparation look like heading into the postseason? Is it any different than
• 10:35
  you would approach a regular season game? Do you focus in on anything more
• 10:39
  specifically? What's that like as you prepare for the postseason. I don't think
• 10:45
  we prepare really any differently. I just think naturally, you know, the
• 10:54
  guys are a lot more dialed in. They understand what a stake. So
• 10:58
  our practices have been pretty crisp yesterday and Sunday, so, but we're not
• 11:03
  preparing any differently like we you know, this time of year. I don't
• 11:09
  think you need two hour practices. I think it's more about forty five minutes
• 11:13
  and refining what we do well, that's what we're working on. And you've
• 11:20
  mentioned, you know, you've had a number of players who have gone through
• 11:22
  the Hockey East postseason before and have experience in it. How much does experience
• 11:26
  help in these situations? I think it certainly does help. Because we've had
• 11:35
  a number of players who have played in a championship game, the Hockey's championship
• 11:39
  game, and I think they're I think the experience of that is what drives
• 11:45
  them to get back there. I think that's what helps. You know,
• 11:48
  when you've never played in it, you don't know what it feels like.
• 11:50
  You don't really have a great understanding of it. When you've been there and
• 11:56
  you've been in it, then I think you really have that desire to get
• 12:01
  back to that game. So that's where I think it helps. Great.
• 12:05
  Thanks coach Brandy, you got something I do one more just to kind of
• 12:15
  piggyback on Sam in particular, this senior class has been through COVID, They've
• 12:18
  been to a Hockey East championship, They've had highs, they've had lows,
• 12:22
  opened up the new building. How much would winning a playoff game tomorrow and
• 12:28
  going on and run with this group mean? Yeah, I think it would
• 12:33
  mean I think with any group you Coach Randy, it means a lot.
• 12:41
  You know, I've been fortunate in my career where I've coached back to back
• 12:48
  Hockey East Championship teams and been a part of teams that have won back to
• 12:54
  back Hockey East Championships. And it wasn't like the second one didn't feel as
• 13:00
  as good as the first one. So I think any team you coach,
• 13:07
  it means a lot to that specific group. Now, it doesn't define them
• 13:11
  as individuals, you know, just because Mark Gatcombe and Yakham Condulict didn't win
• 13:16
  Hockey's championships, it doesn't make me think any differently of them. But like,
• 13:24
  the one thing I've told our players is that if you do win a
• 13:28
  Hockey East Championship, you know, the season never ends because they bring you
• 13:31
  back ten years from now and twenty years from now for reunions. So that's
• 13:37
  the thing we're focused on. Thanks go ahead, Dan, anyone that's uncertain
• 13:46
  for tomorrow night, No, as of today, we're full of go ahead.
• 13:52
  Joe. Okay, I've how did Chase come through Thursday night after not
• 13:58
  playing a few games. How did you like how that line worked with Hutson
• 14:03
  and Jink Yeah? I thought they played really well and I thought Chase played
• 14:05
  really well, so he's had another good week of practice. He's full up,
• 14:11
  he's ready to go. Got anything else for coach, guys? Awesome?
• 14:18
  Well, thanks everyone, Thanks coach, good luck. All right,
• 14:20
  guys, have a great day. See you tomorrow, night, See you tomorrow.