Eaves Addresses Media Monday
December 31, 2007 | Men's Hockey
Head men's hockey coach Mike Eaves returned to the UW's weekly Monday news conferences ahead of the UW's home series against No. 4 Colorado College. Eaves answered questions on the CC-Denver challenge to start the second half, the play of Ben Street and Patrick Johnson among other topics. A full transcript follows.
To view the archived video of the news conference, click on the audio/video link to the left.
QUESTION #1: Mike, you like the, I mean, you get CC right out of the gate here to start the second half and then Denver. I mean, these are the two teams that have kind of separated themselves at the top of the league so far. Do you like the challenging coming up, coming right out in the second half of the league schedule to play the teams that have established themselves right away'
MIKE EAVES: Most assuredly, yeah. It's good for us. I think we're, you know, if you were to talk to any of the players, they're excited. There's teams that are above us, teams that we've already gone into CC and been swept, so there's some motivation there, so a lot of good reasons why we're looking forward to these next two weekends.
QUESTION #2: Mike is there a simple reason why your teams in the second half of the regular season have struggled compared to the first half' You've had injuries. You know, maybe guys getting, you know, breaking down a little bit during the second half, there just seems to be a rather big discrepancy from how well you've performed in the first half, at least in terms of wins and losses, compared to the second half.
EAVES: That would be true for every year but the year we won it. You know, how do you explain that' You know, we traditionally got out of the blocks real well, and for various reasons, it's been different, and then the year we won it, we get out of the blocks great and we struggle, but we pick our boots up and we get it done. So I don 't think there's any one definitive reason. I think that we go into the season with a plan. We know it's a long journey. We're going to hit storms. It's about working through those storms and keeping your head about you.
QUESTION #3: Coach, how do you feel about the way your team played without three of your best players and then moving forward into this weekend without them again'
EAVES: Really encouraged. I thought our kids did a great job. I think that's the best we've come back other than the year that we won it, our tournament with, well, that was the year that we won the NCAA, the guys came back with a real definitive plan to try to win that tournament, as we did this year, but that year that we won the NCAA and we won our own tournament, I don't believe we were really missing anybody.
But this year, having those three difference-makers off the roster, I thought the guys came back and, for five out of the six periods, did a lot of really good things which I think and I believe in our hearts that's going to set us up for these next two games without them.
QUESTION #4: Mike, both Andy Bohmbach and Tom Gorowsky seem like quiet young men. I 'm not sure if they are off the ice, but on the ice it seems that way. But you see them work hard to get into the lineup. What type of feedback do you share with them prior to this weekend and during the start of the year when they're trying to work their way in' Is it, hey, be patient, you're going to get your chance' I mean, what's the conversations like between you and those two young guys '
EAVES: Well, we touched a little bit on that topic Saturday night, in fact. It 's a definition of what their role is and understanding what that role is, and we talked about that on Saturday night that their role in the team is to provide us energy, to be responsible without the puck, not to take penalties, and to chip in offensively, with chipping in offensively probably the last one. And I think the positive energy that they have to have on the bench as well, and then those are the things that they have to understand.
And then they have to control what they can control, and that's working hard every practice and in every situation in practice showing us that they're right there, they're understanding what we're doing, they're doing it as best they can, so that when we do happen to have an injury or we have a penalty or somebody is kicked out of a game, whatever the circumstance, they're like an understudy. They have their role, but should somebody get hurt, then they have to be ready to step in, and they were given a little bit more responsibility as the trust builds up with the coaching staff.
QUESTION #5: A couple questions about Ben Street. You mentioned after Saturday night you thought maybe it was his best weekend of the year. Do you think that was because he was playing center'
EAVES: Could be a lot of reasons. You know, you could say, when Ben first got back and we approached him to say, Ben, I think for our team right now, it might behoove us to have you go back to center, and he was, yeah, that'd be fine. It's been a couple, you know, it's been a year or so, but I've got to take some face off, see what's in his mind, right back to that.
But I think Ben is just, you know, you can see on a couple of goals that he got, like his physical size and strength now, he's able to win battles and he created scoring chances. I think it's more that, his understanding what the league is, having experience and size and strength now. He understands what needs to get done and is executing that. So I think those are the biggest reasons.
QUESTION #6: And the other thing, just you have obviously a week before you have to make this decision, but when you get your guys back from the World Juniors, do you anticipate Ben staying as a center' I mean, it's going to be a tough call, I would imagine.
EAVES: You know, I started to look at that a little bit, and then I said, why put myself through that. Let's get through this weekend, and we'll see, you know, who's healthy, what's going on when these young men get back, and we 'll go from there. But yeah, I recognize that that bridge that we have to cross is out in the horizon, but I'll wait a little bit longer before we address that.
QUESTION #7: A couple of Johnson questions, Craig Johnson, how do you think he played over the weekend'
EAVES: You know what' For his first college games, I thought he was pretty darn good. You know, you throw a young man that hasn't played a long time into a situation, playing his first college games. I think the highest compliment that we as a staff could give Craig is the fact that, you know what, we didn't notice him very much, and as a defenseman, that's an ultimately compliment, especially a guy who 's got to be a stay-at-home guy, you know, do the right things with the puck that are simple, block out, all those kind of things. I thought he did a very, very fine job.
QUESTION #8: Did you realize you were getting such a feisty package in Patrick '
EAVES: Yes.
REPORTER: Really'
EAVES: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think people are kind of somewhat surprised by some of the success that Patrick is having, but we a staff are not. We've watched him since he was 15, and, you know, because he's in town and some of the select camps and such, and we knew the package we were getting both as a competitor and as a skilled hockey player.
QUESTION #9: Do you have to rein him in at all' Seriously, I mean, he was involved in some, a variety of things, and frankly, he's just not that big, as his mom told me after the game.
EAVES: You know, I think that we have addressed that at times. He has to be really intelligent. Like when he's going to make contact with people, he can't rely on his size obviously because that doesn't exist to a high degree. But because of his skating ability, he can be effective in his physical play by getting in front of a player. And I don't care if he's 150 pounds or 190 pounds, if he has the right body position, you have to go through that mass. And he has to have that skating, or he has to utilize that skating ability to be effective, and we have talked about that.
QUESTION #10: Mike, it's easy for us in the media to look at your power play, look at your penalty kill stats, you know, you see the percentages. But five-on-five, you think you're playing pretty well and continuing to improve there'
EAVES: Well, I think five-on-five, we do a pretty fine job. Obviously there's always fine tuning needed. There's areas now that we can go to that are very detailed, and so we will continue to do that. And I just said, the specialty teams, you know, we've tried different players, I still think we're trying to define who those people are, what the chemistry is in the power play and such, and, you know, all those areas we'll continue to work at.
