Sauer Addresses Media at Monday News Conference
December 31, 2001 | Men's Hockey
Wisconsin men's hockey coach Jeff Sauer spoke with the media Monday about the Badgers' upcoming road series against WCHA foe Denver and last weekend's games against Brown and Colorado College. The following is a partial transcript of Sauer's news conference.
You felt the team had momentum going into the break after wins over North Dakota; what about momentum coming out of the break' 'We were awful Friday against Brown. There's no question about it; we were just awful. If we would have played like the way we did against Colorado College against Brown it's a no-contest game, but we didn't. Coming off the holidays, we only had one day of practice. You can give all kinds of excuses along the way, but there are no excuses, we were awful and they beat us. I thought we came back against Colorado College, I thought it was a real exciting event. It ended up being a shootout, which people normally don 't see at the college level, which I think was a real exciting thing. The game goes into the book as a tie'but we won third place because of the shootout. It 's a horrible way to determine a winner, but it was exciting for the fans. '
Thoughts on shootouts: 'Gold medals have been awarded on shootouts. It's a soccer rule. They've lived with it forever, that 's fine for them. For hockey, I don't like it. It's an exciting play, we do it in practice, the kids enjoy it, but to determine a winner, it's a difficult situation. I don't care for it.'
Looking ahead: We're into WCHA play, we're through with all our non-conference games. Now it's down to business. We're 6-3-1 in the WCHA, we've got games in hand on all the teams ahead of us in the standings, we've got a chance now to do something from our own standpoint. It 's a difficult schedule. We've got four games against Denver, four against Minnesota, St. Cloud'so we've got a tough schedule. But if the practices yesterday and today are any indication, guys are anxious and ready. We had a great practice this morning. I'm looking forward to it. A lot of people have kind of said `hey, these three teams are going to run away with it,' and everybody else is challenging. I'm looking forward to it. I think we can skate with anybody. CC is certainly one of the better teams in the country and we stayed right with them. Michigan, Michigan State, we were within a goal of both of those teams, it's just a matter of putting it all together.'
Thoughts on Denver: 'Denver right now has two excellent goaltenders. They're playing very well defensively. They've improved defensively from where they were a year ago. The two goaltenders are playing well. '
Improvements to make: 'We just have to continue to work at it. It's not that we're not getting quality shots; we're not taking enough shots. That's our biggest problem. Regarding two-minute power plays, I think we only had three on the weekend. When you don't get power plays, you don 't get a lot of chances either, you don't get a lot of scoring opportunities.'
Goaltending situation: 'Where we are right now with our goaltending, it's going to be a late-in-the-week decision, in terms of what we 're going to do. My plan last week was to play Kabotoff in the first game, but he picked up food poisoning or something. He was in tough shape the day of the Brown game. We just made the decision to go the other way.'
