Wisconsin Postgame Quotes
Wisconsin vs Victoria
October 1, 2016
Kohl Center - Madison, Wis.

UW Head Coach Tony Granato
On whether or not he got everything he wanted out of the exhibition:
"I did. I think that the one thing that's sometimes hard when you get rolling is that sometimes you back off and it was important for us, obviously we have five (forward) lines dressed and eight D dressed, so we needed a lot of players to get into the season. We've talked about confidence a lot for the first month that we've been on the ice and been on campus and tonight was a night where you saw a lot of our skilled players be able to make plays. That's gaining confidence. 
 
"I thought that if you look through our lineup and you saw the 25 guys that played, everybody had a positive night everybody did something really well and something that we've asked them to do from a concept standpoint, and what we've been trying to teach them through the practices so far this year and they were implementing it into the game so it was a good night for us."
 
On how he views the team's seven penalties:
"Well first of all, you never want to take that many penalties. It's the first game out - you're anxious and trying to make an impression on the coach and make an impression on the fans, so sometimes you play a little bit too aggressively. So a couple of those were probably that situation. The other thing is from a penalty-killing standpoint, we haven't had time to work on it. Our first PK meeting was this morning, we gave them what we wanted them to do on forecheck and their responsibilities and so on. Having the opportunity to kill that many times in a game is a positive thing as well.
 
"We'll have a lot of film and video to be able to draw from to work on exactly what those responsibilities are as the week goes on. So I didn't mind the fact that we took that many penalties from that standpoint. It was a good night to have practice on and I thought we saw some great things too, saw a couple guys lay in front of slap shots, when the score was 7-0 or 7-1, that's pretty courageous. We saw a lot of positive things out there tonight ok the PK as well."
 
On the team's power-play performance:
"Again, we showed them some basic concepts and some ideas of what we wanted to implement and then this morning was a short tutorial on what we wanted to do. When you have skilled guys on the ice at the same time, if there's a lane available and I'm shooting with a stick cocked and I can get to him as we saw a few times. 
 
"It's a positive and we'll continue to make more gains with the specialty teams. That area is something that now that we can practice more consistently and now that we're in the season, we'll be working on it a lot this week and moving forward."
 
On everyone being healthy:
"Oh yeah. It was nice, we played 25 guys and I thought that the rhythm on the bench was good and we had to sit a line each period and we played the four lines. I think that actually worked out really well. Like I said, you look on the roster and you see a lot of positive things from every guy in the lineup tonight."
 
On the player chemistry:
"A lot of the forward played together last year and this group of forwards that we did add to the lines are really skilled. So the practices we've had are really up tempo and what I think you saw are guys that have familiarity with each other, especially with the Kunin line. Those guys played together a lot last year and really all the lines that were out there tonight looked like they had good chemistry, even away from the puck as well. But I guess that the skill is showing more."

On players warming up between periods: 
"That was a nice thing that happens when you have two rinks in the same complex. Our guys that didn't play in the first period warmed up as the first period ended and the guys that didn't play in the second did the same thing at the end of the second. Just from an injury prevention standpoint, that was really big. We could've put five lines on the bench and rotated through but there wouldn't have been a lot of flow to it, so we decided to go four lines each period and save one out, so it worked out really well."

On having a hungry group: 
"I think anytime you start a season, these guys have been waiting to play a game for six months now, and last year they didn't win a lot of games, so when you get a chance to start a season fresh, everybody's 0-0 and I know this one doesn't count, but you want to make a good impression. You want to get off to a good start, you want to show your new staff and you want to show the fans, and you want have a positive start to the season. So I think that's a pretty accurate statement by their coach and I told him that after the game. I said, 'You ran into a team that was ready to play, we've been waiting for this game for a long time.' The positive of what I've seen for the past month is our guys have prepared and done whatever they could for this chance. And obviously it doesn't mean a lot. We don't get any points in the standings and we don't go up in the rankings, but what it does, it gives us a good feeling. We are going to play a hungry team next weekend in Northern Michigan. We will have to be a lot better, but we will be prepared and we will work. I think the theme that you saw tonight, through these 60 minutes, we didn't stop working. Like I said, when you're leading a game and you're playing a team like that, you sometimes back off and get a little lazy and that's when bad habits come into play. I didn't see any bad habits and I didn't see us stop working. It was a good 60 minutes."


On the team's hungriness to win: 
Luke Kunin 
"After the last few seasons here, we are hungry to be winners and I think that showed tonight. I think that's going to carry on to the rest of the season, so I'm very happy how the boys performed tonight and hopefully it keeps moving forward here."

On line chemistry: 
Seamus Malone 
"We have been playing together since we started here, so a couple weeks, we've been practicing for a little bit and I think right away we started clicking. I think it showed as the game went on, and we kept getting better and better."

Dan Labosky 
"Max Zimmer was playing great tonight too, and I think each of us compliments each other really well. It's nice to get that chemistry going and get some confidence in before next weekend."

On playing his first game at UW-Madison:
Dan Labosky 
"It's exciting, honestly there's going to be little butterflies, playing your first game, unbelievable program and unbelievable fans. Just tried to stay calm and got to enjoy the moment and the first game; it was definitely a memorable time."

On playing his first game as captain:
Luke Kunin 
"It's special, very humbled and honored to be selected, but it doesn't really change anything for me. You have to go out there and play my game every night and do the things that I can bring to this team to help us win."