Nov. 17, 2009

MADISON, Wis.-Wisconsin men's hockey coach Mike Eaves addressed the media on Monday, November 16, following the team's weekend sweep of the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves. The Badgers (6-3-1, 4-3-1 WCHA) outscored UAA 11-3 in the two games. Wisconsin hits the road for the first of two weekends outside of Madison. This weekend, the Badgers take on St.Cloud State (4-4-2, 3-2-1 WCHA). The puck drops at 7 p.m. both Friday and Saturday night.

To view Eaves' press conference live, click here.

BRIAN LUCAS: The men's hockey team hits the road for the first time in about a month with a pair of games against St. Cloud State this weekend. After a weekend sweep of Alaska Anchorage, the Badgers are 6-3-1 on the season, including 4-3-1 in the WCHA. Coach Eaves is here, and we'll answer any questions you have.

QUESTION #1: Could you have asked much more out of the six game homestand than what you got?

Mike Eaves: The results are real good. You take a look at being 5-1 and those type of things, and sometimes it reminds me of your golf game where, you know, you think a couple birdies on the greens. I think a couple of games that we had, well, the one game we had we felt we could have done better, had we scored a little bit more. But overall, couldn't have asked much more for the kids. We got ourselves rolling here, and good way to hit the road.

QUESTION #2: When Kyle Turris came in as freshman, he came in highly touted. People know about him. Maybe Craig Smith wasn't at the same national known level for some fans. What does his skill set remind you of other players, what is it that makes him so special and unique as a player on the ice?

Mike Eaves: Coach Oz was talking after the game on Saturday. He reminds Coach Oz of Paul Ranheim. Now I didn't play here with Paul, but Paul was, my recollection of Paul, watching him at the pro level, was just a tremendous skater. I know in the minors he scored about 66 goals one season, then he went up to Calgary and, you know, was a consistent goal scored in the high teens, but very focused, very good skater, very determined, took the puck to the net well, was kind of, the things that Oz talked about Paul Ranheim, and the same could be said for Mr. Craig Smith. So that's a nice analogy, and I'm sure Craig would like to hear that.

QUESTION #3: Mike, you said at the beginning of the year, coaches teach, players take ownership, and then you become a pretty good team. Were there two good examples of that Saturday night, one of which 11 seconds later you score after they take the lead? And the other one being the open net goal where Davies, who was out of the lineup, gets back into the lineup, he unselfishly gives it up for the open net for Schultz. Is that what you're talking about when you talk about . . .

Mike Eaves: Yeah, those are two good examples, and there's a bunch of other things that you wouldn't see just sitting up in the booth where you sit but we see on the bench. Patrick Johnson getting the guys up in between, you know, the TV timeout and talking to the guys about what we need to do. But those two that you gave are outstanding examples of, it's starting to come, and it takes time, and we're still in the process. We just need to keep seeing that growth as the season goes along.

QUESTION #4: Where's your power play at right now? Are you seeing enough that you think sooner or later you're going to convert a little bit more frequently?

Mike Eaves: We'll be fine. It's funny. If you go back and look at the tape, we scored three power play goals that were within five seconds of being over, so the guy coming out of the box wasn't a factor at all. I know in Pittsburgh with Kevin Constantine, he had his own power play stats, and one of them was when that guy got back in and was part of the play, then he didn't count that, but we were really 3 for 8 by our standards. So did we do everything that we wanted to do, no, but in the end we scored, you know, what you could say would be three power play goals because the guy coming out of the penalty box wasn't a factor in the play.

QUESTION #5: Mike, how has your recruiting philosophy changed, if at all, here in the last three or four years? You're going to have another exciting class here later this week. Has it changed a lot, would you say?

Mike Eaves: Well, we've talked about this earlier. The biggest change has been the fact that we talk more about being very cognizant of not having those kids that are going to be one and done or two and done. We talk a lot more about not having that imbalance, having a few of those high end guys, but having guys that are going to be here for sure three, four years that are going to make us an upperclassmen team. When we just finished a stretch where we haven't been an upperclassmen team in four years, and that creates a lot of holes in your lineup in terms of depth, in terms of experience. So that's been the biggest change in the recruiting world for us.

QUESTION #6: You had a chance to sweep on your first road trip of the year at Mankato. Do you feel like with this homestand that you just went through, this team is even much better prepared to go out on the road and take those things now and try to meet that challenge?

Mike Eaves: Without question. I mean, we stubbed our toe in Mankato. It was a big stub of the toe, and taking those two penalties, but we actually played well enough in that game to almost win that. So playing, we've been on the road, we know how we can play. We've got enough older guys that know what it's like to play on the road, and the way we played coming off this homestand should give us momentum and carry us on here.

QUESTION #7: Mike, one of the big advantages that you've talked about with your team is depth at forward and the veterans that you have at forward. Do you find yourself going into games saying, no matter what, we're rolling four lines, that you're pushing that philosophy further and further back into the game?

Mike Eaves: Yeah, without question. We have gone into games this season with the thought of matching. And as the game has gone on, the danger in matching is you take guys out of their rhythm, and guys are worried about their matchups rather than just playing. And sometimes it's a benefit to do that, especially if there's a disparity and you want, you know, your certain defensive guys that you can trust to play against their top offensive guys. But with the group that we have now, and you can see it in our numbers and in all factions, that we can just play, and we will play at a high tempo. We will roll lines, and we feel pretty comfortable with that.

QUESTION #8: Mike, Patrick Johnson made a comment that if he couldn't score on his feet, he might as well score on his belly on Saturday. He's a type of guy that you need to have someone on the bench or in the locker room yapping a little bit. I don't know if he got away from that or if he was just feeling better about himself this past weekend, where he was more part of that?

Mike Eaves: Well, what I think we saw was the Patrick Johnson from his freshman year, who was really excited to play. He was focused on hockey. He's come back this year a more mature young lad in terms of Patrick's very easy going. And one of the things that we've tried to get him to do is come to practice with more of a purpose, a deliberate practice is what we try to have. Just don't come, put your books on the shelves and get your mind in the hockey mindset and get out there and get things done. Well, Pat's just a guy that would come and, you know, it's great to go on the ice, but what are you getting done, Patrick? And I think his sophomore year he got away from that because his first year, he was excited to be there every day. But he's gotten back to that, and he's always had that leadership thing, getting guys fired up. He's playing hockey again like he needs to, which is a, you know, I thought Bendy, him, and Mr. Mitchell were outstanding this whole weekend. And again, that leads to our depth. If they can score for us, as a fourth line, that gives us something special.