Michigan State 3, Lake Superior State 2 (OT)
1/19/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
Jan. 19, 2007
Michigan State Head Coach Rick Comley
On the game ...
It's like I told the team, they are frustrated right now, but it is still a good win. You are playing a goalie who doesn't look like he is going to give you anything, and they are a solid team. I liked how they came down the ice when we attacked them, and when we gave them time, they picked through us, and did a good job getting into the zone. We took some silly penalties, we had some confusion there in the second period with the too many men on the ice penalties, and that kind of kept them going. There were times when we could have got that two-goal lead, which would have sent us off and running, but they just didn't allow us to do that. It was a frustrating game in a lot of ways, but we were fortunate enough to get the win.
On LSSU goalie Pat Inglis ...
He is a big goalie, and he plays square. The word I had heard is that he didn't have quick feet, but he doesn't use his feet - he is on his knees the whole time. He did a real nice job squaring up, and he was fortunate a few times when we hit some goal posts. Obviously they have a good replacement when Jeff Jakaitis leaves.
On Lake State's team ...
It is like Jim Roque said at the luncheon today: when they get good goaltending and score on the power play they win. Tonight, we had two power play goals and they had none and we won the game. If they got one power play goal, it might not have gotten to overtime. It was a struggle for us emotionally against them and I don't know why. But, we will have to play better tomorrow night in order to win.
On winning a few close games in a row ...
We don't score easy. When you don't score easy, you are going to be in a lot of tight hockey games. It looked like we had some great chances - Mueller's stick breaks on his shorthanded opportunity. To continue to grow as a team, we need to find a way to get one more goal a game somehow. Whether you can get it or not, that is another story. But, they have been good, quality wins and we didn't panic late. I like being battle-tested though, I like that quality of these games.
Lake Superior State Head Coach Jim Roque
Overall impressions...
I think we got what we deserved. I didn't think we deserved to win the game. I thought we took too many penalties in the second period. I think our power play didn't work real hard. I think we didn't competed hard enough for the whole 60 minutes on the road, to win a hockey game. Last week, against Notre Dame in overtime I thought we deserved to win that game, but we lost. Tonight I think we didn't pay enough of a price as a team to deserve to win.
On LSSU taking penalties in the second period ...
We took too many bad penalties and you burn out some of your better players killing penalties. We took five penalties in the second, so we were a man down for almost half the period.
On the play of goaltender Pat Inglis ...
He played good and he's been good all year for us. He's a big kid and he battles hard. Obviously as you can see I had no problem playing him in a situation like this.
Michigan State Left Wing Nick Sucharski
On tonight's game ...
As long as we get that win, that's the important thing out there today. And that power play is clicking, that's good. Especially me, Abs [Justin Abdelkader] and (Jim) McKenzie, we're playing real well together right now. It helps to play on McKenzie's line too. He can really shoot the puck, it helps.
On facing Lake Superior State's 6'4" goalie, Pat Inglis ...
I came from Juniors and I never faced someone over six foot. He's a real good goalie, we looked at his stats before the game. We actually thought (Jeff) Jakaitis was going to play. (Pat's) a real good goalie though, he came out and played the angles great. He had some great saves which kept them in it. We hit a couple posts, but even on that two-on-one with Mueller and Lerg, he made a great glove save on Mueller. And Mueller actually thought it was in, I think I saw his hands go up. But against goalies like that, you have to just shoot the puck, hope that they go in, and go to the net for the rebound.
On how the gameplan changed with a different goalie ...
It's almost better because we were ready for (Jeff) Jakaitis and Jakaitis is a great goalie and we got ready for a goalie of his caliber. You just have to get shots on net. When a goalie of the same caliber comes in, because he had the same numbers almost, you don't change your game plan, you just shoot the puck, get as many shots on net, drive the net hard, and see what you can do. We were expecting a battle and we got one. It's good that we came out with the two points.
Michigan State Center Bryan Lerg
On his overall feeling of game ...
It was average, I'd say. That wasn't our type of hockey in the first period. I think we got better in the last ten minutes of the first period and had a good second, but the third period we were slow. But we battled it and got away with the win.
On how they were able to come away with the win ...
It shows that we have a lot of depth on our team. If certain guys don't play their best throughout the night, other guys will step up. So it was just guys stepping up at the right time. [Goaltender] Jeff [Lerg] played really well too I thought.
On the team's attitude during the game ...
I think we have come together better as a team. We were down by one after the first and we didn't panic at all. We knew that we had 40 more minutes to go out there and score some goals, and we did that. If we relax and don't panic, we're in the game the whole time.
