Gophers Weekly Press Conference Notes (2/13/13)

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The #2 ranked Gopher Hockey team held their weekly press conference at Mariucci Arena. Head Coach Don Lucia met with the media, as did Center Erik Haula and Defenseman Mark Alt. The team takes on Wisconsin this weekend in an away series that includes a Friday night matchup in Madison, and then a Sunday matinee at Soldier Field in Chicago as part of the Hockey City Classic. Gophers are coming off of a split last weekend in St. Cloud.

Head Coach Don Lucia:

Regarding the excitement of the outdoor game… "We stressed that we're going to worry about the Chicago game on Saturday. Our focus has been just trying to prepare like we normally do for the week, and I think the excitement will be there on Saturday when you get an opportunity to skate outside. We just want to make sure we have a good week of practice and get ready to play our game Friday in Madison. I did talk to Mel Pearson a few weeks back about how important it was to get out on the outdoor ice leading up to it. He said the reality of it is, as long as you can skate the day before, it gets you used to the atmosphere. The ice should be pretty good. It's not like playing on the old wooden boards with chicken wire when I was growing up. His comment was, they can shoot a couple of pucks through the uprights, get that over with, and get ready to play the game. What's unique about this game is that normally they're non-conference games, but this is a conference game, and it could be a very important game on Sunday. I've heard over 50,000 tickets have been sold. I think we have a good contingency of fans that plan to go down there"

Regarding Nate Schmidt… "He always has the green light. One of the things I like about Nate's offensive game is, he's not a guy that takes chances getting caught up the rink. He's the guy that does a lot of his damage as the second wave, making his play from the blue line or the top of the circle. You don't see him down by the goal line and getting caught out of position trying to create offense. He has a great understanding that how he's going to create great offense is joining the rush, not leading the rush"

Regarding the standings… "This is our opportunity to make up games. This is a weekend with Denver, North Dakota and St. Cloud off. This is our weekend to catch up. Those games in hand are great, but you still have to win the games in hand. We talked about our five game stretch of five straight on the road, and how critical it's going to be to have success on this five game stretch. Certainly not easy places to play, all three teams in Mankato and St. Cloud safely in the NCAA's right now, and Wisconsin's battling their way to get to back that point. Right now we're two and one and we feel good about what we've done on the road so far, hopefully we can close out this five game stretch on a positive note.

Regarding Wisconsin… "They're winning some of the close games now. When you think of Wisconsin, they're a very systematic team. They don't beat themselves. I think they've been in ten overtime games this year, or something like that. You know going in that you have to play patient, you can't try to make something that's not there, because they're a very good counterattack type team. Their goaltending has been good. They've had a lot of injuries this year. They seem to be getting their guys back. When you have your top end guys missing, it obviously affects their team. They've been on a great run right now, and our mindset has to be that we've gotta win a 2-1 or 3-2 game. Their top two lines are pretty good from an offensive standpoint. Mersch is the guy, obviously he's had a good year, and has scored a majority of their goals. We're going to have to try and do something on the power play, because we know five on five is going to be difficult to score"

Regarding Minnesota hosting an outdoor game… "I think it's obviously something we want to do, and we're looking at doing. I think it's going to happen sooner rather than later"

Erik Haula

Regarding the excitement of the outdoor game… "We're just trying to focus on Friday, and hopefully have a good Saturday in Chicago to get ready for Sunday. When we started the year, we knew that we were going to have the outdoor game. It was the game we looked forward to. But now that the standings are so close, and the week being as important as it is with the two games we have in hand, and the points we've gotta catch up with, we've gotta be able to put all our focus on Friday, and then go from there"

Regarding Minnesota hosting an outdoor game… "I think it's just a matter of time, and it's going to happen. This year it's in Chicago, maybe next year it's here"

Regarding moving back to Center… "It was really nice to get back to center. Wing is not something that I'm used to. It was good to see that other aspect of playing Wing, but obviously I'm really comfortable at Center, and that's where I think I can help our team the most"

Mark Alt

Regarding the excitement of the outdoor game… "We're really excited. It's going to be a fun weekend, and it's going to be important that we win on Friday night to start off the weekend the right way, but definitely looking forward to Sunday as well. There's been quite a bit of emphasis all week that our goal was to come out and make sure we get Friday night. That's what we've been told, that's been our focus, but still in the back of your mind your excited for the entire weekend. It's going to be a grind of a weekend. You gotta stay focused and play well both nights"
 




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