A Monday Practice Monster Post

As you can guess, today's practice was a bit of a tough one.

Coach Ruskowski has made it pretty clear he doesn't like what he's seen from his team lately, and I don't think a single one of the players could have any doubts left about that after today.

There were a lot of defensive coverage drills, a few scoring drills and a few breaks for skating sprints as punishment... and then a whole lot more skating once the drills were done.

If you read my story from Saturday night's 2-0 loss to the Texas Brahmas, you have a bit of an idea where Ruskowski's issues with this team lie. In case you didn't, here are his quotes:

"I’m not happy at all. I think we have some lazy hockey players. They don’t have the heart and desire, and I can’t handle that. If I have to teach everything all over again, I’ll do that; I’ll keep the guys with the heart and desire, and everyone else can go home. How a player can do things that stupid, it just boggles my mind. Here we are trying to get the fans in here and get support, and we make that kind of effort. I’m embarrassed of our team, how they’re playing and what they’re doing, and I apologize to our fans."

"I’m just embarrassed by my team. We’re not moving the puck, we’re not beating anyone one-on-one, we’re not challenging anybody, we get beaten defensively… anything you can imagine, we’re not doing right. It’s just amateur stuff that they should be doing before they even get to this point. It absolutely disgusts me."

Today's practice was a surefire way to weed out the lazy ones, but all of the guys responded pretty well, or at least tried to do so, and were pretty vocal in encouraging each other to stay with it out there.

As those of you who were in the arena over the weekend know, the air conditioning system isn't working, so the guys got their hardest workout of the season (at least that I've seen) in the warmest conditions possible. That problem should be fixed before the games this weekend, by the way.

At the end of all the skating this morning, most of the guys plopped themselves onto the bench and took a few minutes to catch their breath, and, for the first time I can recall, no one stayed out to fool around or play juiceboy once Ruskowski left.

Before letting them go, Ruskowski told everyone on the ice that the way they felt was the way they should feel at the end of a well-played game, and here's what he said to me when I followed up on that:

"It's a must. We don't have superstars who are going to come in here and score two goals whenever they can to win a game or tie a game for us. We don't have that. We have a meat-and-potatoes type of team. Everybody has to participate. Everyone has to grab the rope and pull, and if they don't, we're not going to win the tug of war. So everybody has to participate, and that's exactly what I meant. Vince Lombardi said it best when he said a great athlete will lay on the field of battle victorious. You'll just lay there because you've got nothing left to give. Now you know that you're going to be victorious because you give it all you've got. That's what we have to do every game - lay it all on the line and be exhausted after every shift we play."

Ruskowski initially told them they were going to watch tape immediately following their showers, but then decided to hold off on that until tomorrow.

After the guys got off the ice, I spoke to team captain Adam Rivet and player/assistant coach Jeff Bes, two players who are obviously familiar with Ruskowski and what he wants and are also in leadership roles with this team.

Here's what Rivet had to say about the weekend, today's practice and the importance of communication:

"It was a tough weekend to lose both games. We played two good teams, and I think the message is to just play 60 minutes hard in the game. We can't have any letups against teams like that. If you want to be champions, you have to play 60 minutes of a game. The second period last game, we were really all over the place. Third period, we were working hard and getting opportunities, but we weren't playing smart. I just think (there was) some frustration and just letting the guys know that playing like that isn't acceptable.

"One of them was a shootout loss, and the other one, one of the goals they scored was on a 5-on-3, so really we kept them to one goal for the most part in the game. We just didn't score. We had our opportunities, and we just didn't put the puck in the net. You go through times in the season when things are going pretty well, but things aren't falling for you. When you're not focused on the task, on the job you have to do, those opportunities slip away. Like I said, particularly in the second period of last game, we weren't focused on what we had to do, and it ended up catching up to us in the end.

"You just have to work hard, like we did today in practice. Terry was obviously pretty intense, wants to get a message across, but the guys battled hard all practice. You do that, and everything else will fall into place. When you're late in the game, or late in practice, when you're doing the drills right you're putting yourself in position because you're not tired, it goes hand in hand. Hard work wins championships, and I think that's what the message was.

"Especially today, we're just trying to keep the guys' morale up. Obviously, a hard practice like that, guys get a little discouraged, and they're tired and sometimes it's nice to hear a voice from the other side of the ice that's just encouraging the guys to go a little harder. I think that's what the guys were trying to do today, just keep encouraging and knowing we're going to get through, I don't know if you'd even call it a tough patch because we still got nine of our last 12 points; just making sure that we steer the ship back on course and don't get too far off from where we want to be."

Here's what Bes had to say about the intensity of practice today:

"First of all, he was teaching work ethic. First and foremost, work ethic. When we work hard, you have that base to your conditioning that you're prepared to play in the third period and in overtime and to win the games. That's something we've talked about before, when we have a lead to protect the lead and playing on our toes not on our heels, so to speak, meaning we're attacking and not trying just to defend. Obviously, conditioning is a big part of work ethic, and today we certainly worked on our conditioning, and that's something we're going to be working on throughout the week, and we'll be a better team from it."

Another thing I asked Bes about was the heart and desire of the team, which Ruskowski has said he doesn't see enough of at times. Bes is in a unique situation being a teammate to the other players but also someone who has a bit of a say in personnel changes, etc..., and here's his opinion on that:

"I think there's a lot of passion in the dressing room. I think we're at a point right now where we're working hard, but we're not working smart. Guys are trying to do a little bit extra instead of just doing their own job, and we're trying to help out our teammates. When we help out and leave our position, it seems the puck always seems to go back to our position, so we just need to concentrate on doing our own job, work as a team and communicate. We really need to communicate on the ice, talk a lot more, to help each other out and let each other know what's going on, and we'll do much better. We were doing at it at the start of the year, and we have to get back to that. We just have to get back to basics and get back to working hard."

Bes also sees the team's power play and penalty kill as a bit of an issue at this point, and one thing he said about the power play will probably ring true with those of you who have watched the team's recent games.

"We have to work on our special teams, obviously" he said. "They're what wins you championships, especially in the playoffs. We have to work on it now, to win games now, to be honest with you. The power play has been struggling; we're trying to be pretty, and we're forcing passes. We have to get the puck back to the point, shoot, create some openings, and then we can make those plays. We have to stop taking so many penalties. Some guys who don't penalty kill get out of the rhythm of the game, and the guys who do penalty kill are working extra hard all the time and getting tired. We've always said we'll kill off the good penalties - the hard body checks or taking a penalty to save a goal - but we have to eliminate some of the lazy penalties and go forward and be ready for this weekend, that's for sure."

Not sure if any of you noticed the open-ice check he took on Saturday that seemed to hobble him up a bit, but Bes said he's fine and that was just one of the "bumps and bruises" that are a part of the game.

Back to the power play, though, here's what Ruskowski had to say about it:

"There's no question (it needs work). Then, when you find out that you're not going well, the guys squeeze the stick a little tighter, and they're trying to make iffy passes instead of for-sure passes. They see a stick right in front of the guy who's expecting the pass, they'll try to make that pass anyway. That's not working; they just get it and ice it down. Right now, it's like hot potato; nobody wants to take charge. We need a guy out there who will take charge of the power play and do what we have to do. We'll practice that this week to make sure they're more aware of what's happening and what we can do."

This is a bit belated, but I didn't get a chance to talk to Ruskowski after the 4-3 shootout loss to the Odessa Jackalopes on Friday because the game went late, so here's what he said about that game today:

"Defensive lapses, not playing your position, not being on your guy hard enough and strong enough; we have a tendency to get beaten in the corners with our defense and our forwards, and that generates chances for the other team. We're not strong enough in the corners. Odessa moves the puck so very well. They're smart with the puck, they have good players who know how to pass and know where to be at any particular time, and they executed very well. If you give them too many chances on the power play, they're going to kill you. We killed off the first four, but after that, they just move the puck around so well and make so many good passes. They're a skilled hockey team."

At this point, Ruskowski seems convinced that his team might not be capable of anything similar to the show the Jackalopes put on in the third period Friday, and he's concerned about the Bucks' capability to score.

"You practice all you want, and you have to practice hard, obviously, and today we practiced hard for an hour and a half, but you just have to have that line that can come in there and do the job. And when one line doesn't, the other line does it, or when one line falls off, the other two pick it up. Right now, we don't have three lines that can do it, and that's something that concerns me that I have to rectify real quick."

That leads to another note worth sharing about today - the fact that a different group was wearing the red jerseys at practice today. Those jerseys denote the top line of forwards and are usually worn by Bes, Darryl Smith and their linemate at the time (today Maxime Lincourt), but Igor Agarunov and Evan Schwabe were the red liners today.

When I asked Coach Ruskowski whether that was a statement in response to the lack of production by the top line in recent games or just a way to change things up, he said it wasn't necessarily one or the other.

"I think it's probably both," he said. "I think it's a statement that I'm not happy with what I see and that they're productivity's gone way down, and the other thing is that it's a way to break them up and see if we can find some other nucleus that can work together and have two lines and three lines that can be able to score. I changed them up, the reason why is just trying to get more scoring and send a message that I wasn't happy."

Saturday's loss not only snapped the Bucks' unbeaten streak, as it also gave Jean-Philippe Levasseur his first regulation loss as a member of the team, but Ruskowski is still more than pleased with what he's seeing from his top netminder.

"I love the way he's playing," Ruskowski said. "He's a great hockey player, he's a great goalie, he's got a great mentality. I like the way he conducts himself as a professional. He's just a classy guy, and I just like the way he conducts himself. He's a constant professional, works hard in practice, never complains and does what he has to do. That's kind of a coach's dream."

Though, as Rivet noted in an earlier quote, the Bucks have gotten nine of their last 12 possible points, Ruskowski believes some problems have been evident on the ice even in wins and are giving other teams more confidence coming into a building they used to fear.

"The other teams that come in here, they don't have that scared feeling anymore. They don't have that doubt that they're not going to come out of here with two points. They feel if they work hard and execute, they're going to beat us, and that's a feeling I don't want them to have. We've given them that, and now we have to try to take that away from them. The way we've played the past week or so, we're not showing that we're going to do that."

Whether or not the current group of guys is capable of getting the team back to where Ruskowski wants it to be remains to be seen, but he is giving them one more chance to prove themselves this week.

"This is a chance for them to prove it, and obviously, if they can't, we'll have to go outside this realm and see what we can find. But this is hopefully a wake-up call for them, for me to tell them I'm not happy with it, and this is what they have to do, and if they don't do it, there are players out there who will."

I also talked to Ruskowski, and Bes, a bit more about the team's need to win at home if they want to bring back the crowds they had in the past, but I think I've gone on long enough for one day at this point, so we'll save that for tomorrow. If you made it all the way to the end of this post, high five!