Latest / Coaches Corner / Seg 1 - MHOC Show w Mike Cavanaugh Dec 1

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Seg 1 - MHOC Show w Mike Cavanaugh Dec 1 · Coaches Corner

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Downtown Hartford here at Bear's Barbecue alongside Yukon Men's ice
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: hockey head coach Mike Kavanof. I'm geor do you know?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: With you big thanks to why I hope i'man back
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: in the studio or on site engineer Christia Antonio and coach.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Not often do we go five games between getting a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: chance to chat with you. But it's been five games
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in relative quick secession. You had a pair of wins
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: against the Northeastern Huskies, split a pair against New Hampshire,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and then the game on Tuesday before Thanksgiving against Stonehill.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: How are you after those five games? Just as a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: general sense with five games in just a couple of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: weeks there.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I came in pretty hot tonight, so that for it.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I had to circumvent a few traffic on the way
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: down here, but we did it.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I think right on red is legal in Connecticut. I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: think you're fine.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Jumping in and out of the high speed lane or
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: pass it. What's it?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Well, it also doubled as a high speed lane for
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: you that I.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Did, well did for a little bit. It worked so
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I got here on time. No, it's been an interesting
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: five games. Uh, you know, I don't feel like I felt.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Every now and then the team goes through I think
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: a lull or a rut through the season, and I
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: think that happens to everybody. And these last five games,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I felt were teams that played very defensively. When we
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: played Northeastern and you and H there was a lot
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: of times where they didn't for check anybody in the
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: neutral zone. So there's almost five guys back that you
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: have to get through, and you know, I always talk
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: to the players about I don't want guys that are
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: going to play snob hockey and try to beat those
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: five guys. You have to dump the puck in. But
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the thing that happens a lot of times is if
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: they're very good at it, which they are, it's hard
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: to generate speed and on your four check, So when
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: you're dumping the puck in, you're giving them a little
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: bit of time to break the puck out. And we
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: struggled with that a little bit. But the flip side
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: of it is there's been a tough five games for
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  Speaker 2: us because we've played even Stonehill was a very similar opponent,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: but was still three to one and one stretch, so
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and I felt like we had the unh game at times.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: I really like the way we played at home, and
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: then the third period we just did not close it
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: out and we had a bad period. So you gotta
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: flush it and move on.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Those games against Northeastern. We talked to you before that
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: weekend and how Northeastern and Jerry Keef had that group
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: playing really well to start the season. Did you know
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: style aside in terms of kind of bringing five guys
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: back at times, did it feel like Northeastern was that
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: talented team that you thought they were going to be.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I don't think yes. I think that they are a
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: team that can really hurt you in some ways. I'm
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: not sure if I would put them in the halcyon
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: days of the Northeastern teams that were winning bean pots
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: and championships just yet. They're a good team and they
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: have a good goaltender. But they were a team that
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: did surprise me at times, where you know, I knew
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: how they were going to play, and I knew they
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: were relying on the goaltender, but they had a little
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: more offense than we anticipated.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: But in that weekend, a couple of wins and you
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: scored four goals in each of those games. So what
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: were you able to do offensively? You know, they got
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the transfer Goaldie from Brown and you still were able
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to generate a pretty big weekend of offense.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I think we were opportunistic at times. I thought we
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: did a great job of scoring on deflections and rebounds.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And you know, Jake Percival had I think both of
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: his goals, well, he had three goals on the weekend.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Four goals on the weekend, I believe, right, yeah, he
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: did so. I think he was you know, he had
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: a deflection. I know he had an empty netter, but
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: he did a really good job getting to the front
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: of the net. We got some rebounds and we took
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: his eyes away. And I think with any good goaltender,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: and we face a lot of them, and we'll face
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: another one this weekend, and we're going to have to
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: do a really good job of getting traffic and taking
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the goaltender's eyes away.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: When we look at these five games, of which it's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you know, three to one in one, and then yet,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: as the head coach, you're kind of saying, there's plenty
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of meat on the bone left to work with in
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  Speaker 1: terms of improvement. Does it feel like the offense is
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: still doing what you want. The offensive scored three or
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: four goals in all five of those games. Are you
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: looking for more out of the offense despite the production.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: It's funny because I think we are. We're scoring, However,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like we're dominating offensively like we have
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the ability to. When we're playing really well. We get
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: multiple shot shifts, we have offensive zone time, we can
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: hem teams in, we can get a full change while
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: they're still in the defensive zone. That's you know. I
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: love when we're playing that way and you force the
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: other team to take a premature time out. I don't
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: feel like we've been doing that, but we have found
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: a way to get the park behind the goaltender, and
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: which is good because I don't think we've been playing
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: our best offensive hockey yet and we're still scoring.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Goals on the other side. The last two games New
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Hampshire Stonehill three goals allowed, actually four and three goals allowed.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: So what perks up there defensively for you the last
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: couple of games that you're looking to tweak.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's been a theme all season long
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: that I think the two areas where we really have
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: to get better is one I'm not sure we manage
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: our decisions at the offensive blue line really well. And
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: what I mean by that is a lot of times
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: we want to play on top of people, so our
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: defensemen are going to pinch, they're going to crash, and
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: when that happens, you have to have your high forward
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: cover form. I think a lot of times we're either
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: pinching on situations where we shouldn't, or when we do pinch,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the high forward speculating that we're going to win that
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: pinch and it's leading to oddman rushes. That's a problem
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: and that's something that we certainly have to rectify here
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: going forward. And then the other one is defensive zone
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: face we are we're in the bottom of the country
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: and giving up chances off a defensive zone face offs,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: and that can be a culmination of us not winning
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: face offs, not sometimes knowing our assignment and other times
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: just blowing an assignment, you know, just leaving your guy
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to go cover somebody else, or thinking offense before defense.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And that's an area that we definitely have to clean up.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: When it comes to the numbers you're citing versus maybe
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: some of the more publicly accessible numbers, So in front
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: of me I can pull up that Yukon is fortieth
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: out of sixty in the country an overall face off
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: win percentage, the numbers when you're saying, right, we're breaking
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: it down, we're looking at defensive zone stuff. Do all
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: teams have access to that same information behind the scenes?
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Sure? Okay? And the you know, the face off stat
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: can be a little misleading because a lot of neutral
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: zone draws they might not add up to a whole lot.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: And I know Mario Lemiu would never even try on
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: a neutral zone draw because he didn't want his opponent
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: to know some of his better moves. It's more like
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the defensive zone draws and you know, the offensive zone draws.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: When you win a clean you have a chance to
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: get a good chance and you know, really good shot
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: on goal. So those are the two areas where I
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: think we got to be a little bit better.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: We're here with head coach Mike kavanav yukon men's ice hockey.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Later on in this show, we're gonna meet with sophomore
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: forward Ethan Gardula sophomore defenseman kai Jan Veria. We got
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: plenty more to dig into with Mike as we roll
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: on here from Bear's barbecue and downtown Hartford. Madam Jaredino,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: stick with us. You're listening to Yukon men's ice hockey
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: from Blearfield