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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN HOCKEY MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 9, 2015Mark JohnsonTHE MODERATOR: Women's hockey team was awarded the No. 4 seed and will host Boston University. The winner will advance to the Frozen Four. Head coach, Mark Johnson is here. COACH JOHNSON: Thanks, Brian. Certainly had an exciting trip home from Grand Forks last night. The players are extremely excited and as a coaching staff, it never gets old. As the game ended yesterday afternoon and the players are throwing sticks and gloves up in the air, as a coaching staff it puts a smile on your face because, you know, a lot of hard work and commitment on the players' part. To see them get rewarded this weekend with six good periods of hockey and a trophy for the championship at the end of the day. We're certainly proud of the work over the last couple weeks and the playoffs, especially our seniors. Their smiles were bigger than everybody else's, because they've been through a lot and they finally got a chance to celebrate as champions. As we left, that part of the season is over and now down to eight teams and an opportunity to play for the National Championship. The focus becomes this week getting ourselves prepared and ready for BU. Similar to the last three opponents we've played, if you're fortunate enough to beat the team, their season ends, which makes the task more challenging and certainly more difficult and now it comes down to one and done, and if you're fortunate enough to win the next game, which to me, the quarter final games in the NCAA are the most challenging and the most difficult to win and it will be an exciting Saturday afternoon at LaBahn and hopefully people will come out and support us. Q. When the bracket came out as a whole, describe your reaction to the basket for the tournament. COACH JOHNSON: I wasn't surprised. There were a lot of things going on Sunday morning with who is going to win games. I think there were 624 possibilities leading into Sunday's championship games throughout the country so depending on what Cornell, bumeggied ^ against us and certainly out east, by the end of the day when the games were over, things fell into play and the committee made their selection and the brackets are set up. Q. I suppose some people would like to see a potential match‑up for the national title with Wisconsin and Minnesota, but you gotta play them potentially at some point if you can get by this one, correct? COACH JOHNSON: Yeah, for the first time the CHA Team, their league was given appear automatic qualifier, and our ^ IT earned the right to play in the National Championship game. You're excited you're in the tournament. Each team that you're going to face is going to be good and you never get ahead of yourself. The focus for us is on BU who has been playing very well, obviously they beat the number one team in the country, BC, who has been at the top almost the entire season so they're playing well, they've got some special players. That's the focus point and then, you know, when you're done with that game if you're fortunate enough to win you get ready for your next opponent. I'm sure with all the ear teams and the coaching staffs at this time of the year you look at all the teams in the tournament and like we saw Saturday up in Grand Forks, you need to play well. If you don't, the game can end quick and your season can be over. Whoever you're going to play right now is playing well and of the teams in the tournament, you know, there is a bunch that have a chance to win the National Championship, so I think that's what makes it exciting and I think everybody's job is to try and win that next game and get to Minneapolis. Q. In you are opinion what has made this team so successful? You don't have the big names like Meghan Duggan, Brianna Decker, Alex Rigsby ‑‑ at least they're not their yet, but is it thee even distribution of talent that has helped this team? COACH JOHNSON: I think this group you have good pieces and I think it starts with our senior class, you know, who went through this process last year. As I mentioned earlier, I was really happy for that group, that they got a chance to win a championship yesterday. So some of the things that they learned over the course of time from some of the players you just mentioned, they've carried on and if I put one thing that makes this team special is the chemistry that they have among each other and how they get along, how they go about their business on a daily basis. So if you have good chemistry, people that are willing to accept roles, come to work every day and try to improve themselves, push each other, you have a chance to become a pretty good hockey team. Whether you have a "superstar," or whether you just have a bunch of good players, if you play as a team and you're united you have a chance to do something special and this group up to this point has been able to do that. Q. In the recent years when they put out brackets there appears to be an emphasis of trying to have an east versus west championship game. Do you think the way it's played out or the way it's attempted to play out is good for the sport of college women's hockey? COACH JOHNSON: I would say being on the committee the last two years and all the conversations we have had to get to the eight teams, that really has never been talked about once. Ends up looking that way, but never in the discussions and trying to put teams in the proper place, never was that addressed by any of the committee members. Q. Marie‑Philip Poulin, what do you think of this young lady? COACH JOHNSON: We have a little bit of a history there! She is a special player, she's up for the Patty Kazmaier, one of the three final lists, being a senior, couple of gold medals in her back pocket, was ‑‑ not only the medals but you know game‑winning goals in each of those contests, against myself up in Vancouver and then last year in the Olympics, scoring the game winner in overtime. If you look at the teams in the brackets and the teams that have been successful the last couple of weekends, it's their senior class that seems to be excelling and those seniors, similar to what we're seeing on our team, the finish line is there. They see the end of their careers and for this of them, they don't want it to stop. She, being certainly a special player and leading her team and scoring a lot of goals here the last couple of weekends has put her group in the position to play in the national tournament. Q. Ann‑Renée tied the single‑season shut‑out record with 14 yesterday. She is coming after veteran Rigsby, how do you think she deals with that? COACH JOHNSON: She looked relaxed yesterday. I think she had, I don't know, a conversation if you can have a conversation between the plexiglas with buck key in the band and she seemed to be enjoying herself. I think for her the last probably month, month and a half, her focus and concentration has been really high. I think this past weekend when she is challenged as we were challenged as a group, Saturday afternoon going into Grand Forks and playing against a hot North Dakota team, she accepts that challenge, similar to Alex last year and Jesse when she was here. As the stakes increase they seem to focus more and are really on top of her game and she was on top of her game in the two games that we just played. Q. Mark, sticking along those lines, after a while everybody knew Jesse was special as a goaltender. When Alex came in she was highly touted and some agreed she pushed the bar a little further. Is Ann‑Renée doing that, pushing the bar further than perhaps her predecessors in numbers and performance and stature? COACH JOHNSON: To answer would be‑‑ she is in the process. She is still on the journey. She is just completing a full first season as far as playing. She was able to play ten games last year when Alex went down with an injury. Her path, I think, is very similar. In the next couple years as she matures and gets exposed to playing with the national team for Canada, I think some of those things can certainly take place. Q.  Certain that every time you've been in here you've been asked a question about your special teams, the high quality of your penalty kill and maybe some hiccups with your, with your power play. You need both to be ‑‑ to move on, one would think, but what do you see‑‑ do you likewhere ‑‑ one would think you'd like your penalty kill obviously, but your pet ‑‑ power play, is it ‑‑ is it evolving to the point where you think something's gonna break out here soon? COACH JOHNSON: We scored a nice power play goal in game 1 up there. As you look at the power play, some look ugly at times, some look pretty good in regard to offenses, presence, creating scoring opportunities. Others you capitalize on. Certainly at this time of the year, not only your power play has to come up with timely goals, your penalty kill has to be equal. At the end of the day if your special teams are better than the other team's, then you have a better chance at winning. For us, we will continue to work on our power play. Against Bemidge, yesterday we didn't score a power play goal but if you looked at them, most of it was pretty good. They blocked shots, their goalie played well yesterday. At the end of the day we didn't score a power play goal but if you look at it they were pretty good. Q. Few years ago when you played BU in the National Championship, that was their first appearance on the stage. Did you see that then as a program on the rise that was going to be in the NCAA field year after year and what do you remember about that game? COACH JOHNSON: That was in their home arena. Brian is a good coach. He's a friend of mine, and he certainly has done a great job. Given the resources like we have here at Wisconsin to build a program, he did it very quickly and he's brought in some quality opponents ‑‑ I mean some quality players. He's built a real good culture for kids to have success there and he's got a great coaching staff. He's done a great job. We played them last year out in Veil, in a series where we had Northeastern and BU out there. I'm not surprised. You look at their players and the personnel and it's got the making says of a good team. Q. Mark, going back to your penalty kill, over the last 29 kings ^ , you have killed off 99% of opponent power plays which one would think is pretty good. Outside of the goaltender, who has to play well? Is it blocking shots that you put an emphasis on, is it good positioning, spacing in what are the keys to the performance of those units? COACH JOHNSON: It's all of the above. I think it starts with kids understanding what the other team is trying to do, what they're trying to accomplish, what areas they're trying to take the puck into. With that hockey sense, that willingness to do some of the things as far as blocking shots, winning face‑offs, initially because the team that's going on the power play gets the face‑off in the offensive zone so if you can do some things right off the bat you can create some turnovers and get an icing. Last key, as you mentioned, it comes down to your goaltender and at times they're going to get scoring opportunities and quality looks and your goaltender has to be your best penalty killer. Q. Sarah had a big weekend this weekend. It was something you saw coming or the opportunity that was presented in front of her? COACH JOHNSON: Well I think for Sarah, it's just keep doing what she had been doing. Prior to the St. Cloud series, to finish off the regular season she had played well. She created scoring opportunities. She is getting a lot of high looks and eventually the puck is going to go in if you continue to get that and the as we played St. Cloud and she scored a goal that Sunday afternoon it relaxed her and she has been very, very good up to this point and certainly was a big factor in why we had success this past weekend. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, Coach. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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