Photo by: David Stluka
Transcript: Johnson previews WCHA Final Face-Off
February 29, 2016 | Women's Hockey
Wisconsin takes on Minnesota Duluth at 2 p.m. on Saturday in league semifinals
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin women's hockey head coach Mark Johnson met with members of the media Monday at the Kohl Center to preview the 2016 WCHA Final Face-Off in Minneapolis, this weekend. The top seed in the league tournament, the Badgers take on Minnesota Duluth at 2 p.m. Saturday at Ridder Arena.
Video of Johnson's media session can be found above, and a complete transcript of his remarks is below.
JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. As I look back Friday night and Saturday afternoon, very impressed with the way we came out Friday night and started the game, especially the first three or four minutes. You know, as a coach, you are prepping the team to start that way, and they responded and came out and had a fast start and created a lot of opportunities. As we tend to see in playoff games sometimes it becomes a little bit more challenging to score then maybe during the regular season because people tighten things up.
Overall, it was a great weekend. As I told the team Saturday after the game, we put ourselves into position to be guaranteed one more game, and that will game will be against Minnesota Duluth Saturday afternoon.
QUESTION: The numbers would suggest with the record that Ann-Renee Desbiens is having the best season for a goaltender in NCAA history. Would you say that she's having the best season of any goaltender you have ever seen?
JOHNSON: I think the numbers and the record speak -- to answer that question, yes. She has been consistent. She's gotten better over the course of the season, especially -- you know I think she made another step after our Christmas break, so kudos to her for putting up those numbers.
As I looked at them Saturday night, they're a little mind boggling because as a coach you don't think about individual players, a goaltender doing that, because we've only played 36 games and over half of them have been shutouts. That's probably an unrealistic number if you're sitting here in September looking over what you might want to do over the course of the season. It's become what it is and certainly happy for her and happy for our team.
QUESTION: Mark, if I remember correctly, you alluded to in the days leading up to the series (against Minnesota State) the fact that they would come in with nothing to lose. I'm curious about what your level of concern going into this series was, about how your players would start, whether they would be able to start quickly against a team that could come out and just throw everything at you.
JOHNSON: As I mentioned in that conversation, when the playoffs start, I remember in the NHL it was the same way, whether you finished as a 1 seed or 8 seed, you throw everything out and the object is to prepare yourself for who you're playing against. The easiest thing for a player to look at is the statistics of the opponent and figure, well, it's going to be an easy game, and your mind-set shifts in that direction, where in our business a goaltender can win you a particular game.
You look at Bemidji (State) and Minnesota Duluth, if you look at their records you might say, okay, well, this team is going to win, but at the end of the their first game, Minnesota Duluth wins 5-1, so that's the mind-set and the preparation and all the things you do leading up to the game.
And as a coach you're waiting for the puck to drop and see how your players respond, and that's what I liked about our team this weekend, we came out and played the first period very fast and very quick, and sent a message to everybody in the building and the opponents that we were here to win.
QUESTION: Mark, it seems pretty obvious who your most consistent player has been this season, I would assume it's Ann-Renee, but what about the rest of your team? Who would you put at the top of your list in materials of your skaters as having had consistent -- a lot of consistency in the season?
JOHNSON: I would probably off the top of my head think of a couple of kids. Sarah Nurse has been quite consistent throughout the year; Emily Clark has been consistent; I think Jenny Ryan has been consistent; Courtney Burke, you know the last month has elevated her game and I think she's been pretty consistent all winter, so there is a handful of kids that are pretty consistent and certainly, you know, played well and put ourselves in a position to be a good, consistent team and something as a coach you look for at the beginning of the year, how consistent we're going to be, and there are things that are going to happen. Kids are going to have to go to Four Nations, kids will get hurt, flights will get delayed, buses will break down, and you don't know what to prepare for, but I think this team has been consistent and certainly is in a good place right now.
QUESTION: How does the approach change this weekend knowing it is only one game, and you don't have the luxury of if you drop the first one you get the next one the next night. How do you change the approach with your team this weekend?
JOHNSON: In practice you look at things that will give you a good chance to be successful, and as we break down Minnesota Duluth, and we do what we need to do to give yourselves an advantage, and then it's just business as usual. I think for the players it's exciting, because at the end of the day you know that's out there. So if we're fortunate enough to win, the hard part is Duluth's season will be over, so when you are up against a wall hopefully it brings the best out of the players and creates that can excitement.
And, again, you're looking for similar things I saw this weekend, that first period Saturday afternoon come out with a lot of excitement, a lot of jump, a lot of energy and wanting to win the game.
QUESTION: Last weekend Minnesota State seemed focus defensively, that they were going to sit back and try and keep you from scoring. Do you expect a similar approach? How different is Minnesota Duluth and what they might throw at you?
JOHNSON: From their standpoint they have to be confident coming out of this past weekend, and their top line is probably as good as any line in the league. Offensively they can create some problems. They can score some goals. It makes their power play effective, so our standpoint is preparing similar to what we did against Mankato.
If they want to clog the neutral zone up and make it difficult to bring the puck from blue line to blue line, we need to be prepared for that and do some of the things we did this past weekend, get pucks in deep and get pucks to the net and do some of the things that will give us an advantage.
At this point it's more about us and what we can control and how we can play, and if we're continuing to do what we want to do all year, it's get better every weekend, it's building off Saturday's game and getting ourselves prepared for this upcoming Saturday's game.
QUESTION: Mark, you had a reputation as a player of stepping it up in the playoffs. You've have your best players here, your Patty Kaz winners have stepped it up in the playoffs. What does someone like Annie Pankowski have to do to move up that level that you would expect from someone of a Patty Kaz finalist?
JOHNSON: I think last year she showed that, especially in the quarter final game, scoring in the first shift and creating an excitement that helped us win that game, and had a very strong game Saturday. Your good players, you know, the real good ones, tend to get more excited in the playoffs than maybe some of your other players, and then they have the ability to go out and execute and elevate their play. She has had some success with us in those situations. She had a chance to play in the World Championships and have success and hopefully that will help her continue to build in these type of games.
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Video of Johnson's media session can be found above, and a complete transcript of his remarks is below.
JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. As I look back Friday night and Saturday afternoon, very impressed with the way we came out Friday night and started the game, especially the first three or four minutes. You know, as a coach, you are prepping the team to start that way, and they responded and came out and had a fast start and created a lot of opportunities. As we tend to see in playoff games sometimes it becomes a little bit more challenging to score then maybe during the regular season because people tighten things up.
Overall, it was a great weekend. As I told the team Saturday after the game, we put ourselves into position to be guaranteed one more game, and that will game will be against Minnesota Duluth Saturday afternoon.
QUESTION: The numbers would suggest with the record that Ann-Renee Desbiens is having the best season for a goaltender in NCAA history. Would you say that she's having the best season of any goaltender you have ever seen?
JOHNSON: I think the numbers and the record speak -- to answer that question, yes. She has been consistent. She's gotten better over the course of the season, especially -- you know I think she made another step after our Christmas break, so kudos to her for putting up those numbers.
As I looked at them Saturday night, they're a little mind boggling because as a coach you don't think about individual players, a goaltender doing that, because we've only played 36 games and over half of them have been shutouts. That's probably an unrealistic number if you're sitting here in September looking over what you might want to do over the course of the season. It's become what it is and certainly happy for her and happy for our team.
QUESTION: Mark, if I remember correctly, you alluded to in the days leading up to the series (against Minnesota State) the fact that they would come in with nothing to lose. I'm curious about what your level of concern going into this series was, about how your players would start, whether they would be able to start quickly against a team that could come out and just throw everything at you.
JOHNSON: As I mentioned in that conversation, when the playoffs start, I remember in the NHL it was the same way, whether you finished as a 1 seed or 8 seed, you throw everything out and the object is to prepare yourself for who you're playing against. The easiest thing for a player to look at is the statistics of the opponent and figure, well, it's going to be an easy game, and your mind-set shifts in that direction, where in our business a goaltender can win you a particular game.
You look at Bemidji (State) and Minnesota Duluth, if you look at their records you might say, okay, well, this team is going to win, but at the end of the their first game, Minnesota Duluth wins 5-1, so that's the mind-set and the preparation and all the things you do leading up to the game.
And as a coach you're waiting for the puck to drop and see how your players respond, and that's what I liked about our team this weekend, we came out and played the first period very fast and very quick, and sent a message to everybody in the building and the opponents that we were here to win.
QUESTION: Mark, it seems pretty obvious who your most consistent player has been this season, I would assume it's Ann-Renee, but what about the rest of your team? Who would you put at the top of your list in materials of your skaters as having had consistent -- a lot of consistency in the season?
JOHNSON: I would probably off the top of my head think of a couple of kids. Sarah Nurse has been quite consistent throughout the year; Emily Clark has been consistent; I think Jenny Ryan has been consistent; Courtney Burke, you know the last month has elevated her game and I think she's been pretty consistent all winter, so there is a handful of kids that are pretty consistent and certainly, you know, played well and put ourselves in a position to be a good, consistent team and something as a coach you look for at the beginning of the year, how consistent we're going to be, and there are things that are going to happen. Kids are going to have to go to Four Nations, kids will get hurt, flights will get delayed, buses will break down, and you don't know what to prepare for, but I think this team has been consistent and certainly is in a good place right now.
QUESTION: How does the approach change this weekend knowing it is only one game, and you don't have the luxury of if you drop the first one you get the next one the next night. How do you change the approach with your team this weekend?
JOHNSON: In practice you look at things that will give you a good chance to be successful, and as we break down Minnesota Duluth, and we do what we need to do to give yourselves an advantage, and then it's just business as usual. I think for the players it's exciting, because at the end of the day you know that's out there. So if we're fortunate enough to win, the hard part is Duluth's season will be over, so when you are up against a wall hopefully it brings the best out of the players and creates that can excitement.
And, again, you're looking for similar things I saw this weekend, that first period Saturday afternoon come out with a lot of excitement, a lot of jump, a lot of energy and wanting to win the game.
QUESTION: Last weekend Minnesota State seemed focus defensively, that they were going to sit back and try and keep you from scoring. Do you expect a similar approach? How different is Minnesota Duluth and what they might throw at you?
JOHNSON: From their standpoint they have to be confident coming out of this past weekend, and their top line is probably as good as any line in the league. Offensively they can create some problems. They can score some goals. It makes their power play effective, so our standpoint is preparing similar to what we did against Mankato.
If they want to clog the neutral zone up and make it difficult to bring the puck from blue line to blue line, we need to be prepared for that and do some of the things we did this past weekend, get pucks in deep and get pucks to the net and do some of the things that will give us an advantage.
At this point it's more about us and what we can control and how we can play, and if we're continuing to do what we want to do all year, it's get better every weekend, it's building off Saturday's game and getting ourselves prepared for this upcoming Saturday's game.
QUESTION: Mark, you had a reputation as a player of stepping it up in the playoffs. You've have your best players here, your Patty Kaz winners have stepped it up in the playoffs. What does someone like Annie Pankowski have to do to move up that level that you would expect from someone of a Patty Kaz finalist?
JOHNSON: I think last year she showed that, especially in the quarter final game, scoring in the first shift and creating an excitement that helped us win that game, and had a very strong game Saturday. Your good players, you know, the real good ones, tend to get more excited in the playoffs than maybe some of your other players, and then they have the ability to go out and execute and elevate their play. She has had some success with us in those situations. She had a chance to play in the World Championships and have success and hopefully that will help her continue to build in these type of games.
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Players Mentioned
Defense
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Forward
/ Women's Hockey
Forward
/ Women's Hockey
Forward
/ Women's Hockey
Defense
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