I'm here now, though, with the Bucks (12-4-4, 28 points) set to host the Missouri Mavericks (8-11-1, 17 points) in about 10 minutes, so here are my leftover (and used) quotes from yesterday:
Coach Ruskowski
Coach Ruskowski
On the progress of the power play: “There are times I think we’re going back to square one, and then the next time they have the puck and the opportunity to set it up, they move the puck well. What the other team gives us, we have to take. We have to have our heads up, make good passes and keep the puck off the wall… if we can do that, maybe we’ll set up the power play a little better. We have to get traffic in front to the net for us to be successful.”
On preparing for every team they face: "Don’t underestimate your opponents. That’s something I stress a lot. I really do think they have a good team. They have a young team, and they have veterans there who know how to play, know how to win. They’re not fooling me because I know they’re a good team. I emphasized to my players that they’re a good team. They’ve put it all together, and they’re buying into the system; they will be a very strong team, I know that for a fact. You don’t win championship in any league without knowing what you’re doing, and Scott Hillman has won back-to-back championships with Knoxville, so he knows exactly what he’s doing."
On the Mavericks: "I think that we have to take away their ability to move the puck, their feistiness to drive to the net, their quickness in the corners and the power of the veterans like Jeff Christian,” Ruskowski said. “He’s a power forward, and we’re not in front of him, we’re not going to stop him. We have to get in front of him to stop that big, strong stride of his, and he has a great shot, so we’ll try to keep the puck away from him as much as possible."
On defensive mistakes: "I hope it’s just a one-time thing that we do that. I think after looking at the video, they realized they have to get the puck out then bring the puck up as quickly as possible. I’m hoping they learned from their mistakes, and they won’t do that again so we can go on and take the next step to what we have to do to be more successful.”
On power-play point men: “I’m kind of just still testing the waters almost as to who’s going to be successful where or when. I’m actually thinking about putting Benny and Hamilton together and switching them off sides so they can take the one-timer. Hamilton’s got a pretty good shot, and he’s just got to get that down pat, that one-timer. If he can get that down, he might play the power play. It’s not set in stone; we’ll see how they do, and if they work well, we’ll keep them together. If not, we’ll switch them back.”
On forward line changes: "(They'll change) a little bit. (Lance) Monych is coming off the IR, and (Mike) Sgroi will be put on the waiver list, so I have to get that paperwork in, so they’ll be changed up a little bit. Not a lot, but a little bit."
On the Sgroi experiment: "It just didn’t develop the way I wanted it to develop. He probably had different thoughts of me, and I had different thoughts of him, and it never developed. I told him what I wanted, and he said he was pretty close to doing that, but it just never developed. Things happen, and you just have to accept it.”
On his goalie plans: "I really don’t (know). I’ll probably play JP tomorrow and find out after the game how he feels and if he wants to play the game on Saturday. We’ll decide that after the game."
On whether tonight's bus ride will affect tomorrow's play: I hope not. We’ve done pretty well on those types of bus rides before, and I’m hoping that we get enough rest on the bus and enough rest the next day to get us going that night. We won’t skate; we’ll just have a walk-through and make sure the guys get up and starting getting focused on what they have to do."
On Neil Trimm: He started skating, and actually the first time, his injury started hurting him a bit. He’s getting progressively better and better, but it’s going to take him a week or two to get back into skating shape and to make sure his injury’s strong enough."
Igor Agarunov
On the power play: "On the power play, the most important thing is having a good breakout getting the puck in the zone and making the great passes to get guys moving and trying to get it out to the point with guys to the net and shots to the net."
On opponents: We can’t (overlook them). We just have to go out and play our game, Buck hockey – meat and potatoes, that’s how we play. They’re a good team, we just have to go out there and play our game and not worry about the other teams."
On preparing for every team they face: "Don’t underestimate your opponents. That’s something I stress a lot. I really do think they have a good team. They have a young team, and they have veterans there who know how to play, know how to win. They’re not fooling me because I know they’re a good team. I emphasized to my players that they’re a good team. They’ve put it all together, and they’re buying into the system; they will be a very strong team, I know that for a fact. You don’t win championship in any league without knowing what you’re doing, and Scott Hillman has won back-to-back championships with Knoxville, so he knows exactly what he’s doing."
On the Mavericks: "I think that we have to take away their ability to move the puck, their feistiness to drive to the net, their quickness in the corners and the power of the veterans like Jeff Christian,” Ruskowski said. “He’s a power forward, and we’re not in front of him, we’re not going to stop him. We have to get in front of him to stop that big, strong stride of his, and he has a great shot, so we’ll try to keep the puck away from him as much as possible."
On defensive mistakes: "I hope it’s just a one-time thing that we do that. I think after looking at the video, they realized they have to get the puck out then bring the puck up as quickly as possible. I’m hoping they learned from their mistakes, and they won’t do that again so we can go on and take the next step to what we have to do to be more successful.”
On power-play point men: “I’m kind of just still testing the waters almost as to who’s going to be successful where or when. I’m actually thinking about putting Benny and Hamilton together and switching them off sides so they can take the one-timer. Hamilton’s got a pretty good shot, and he’s just got to get that down pat, that one-timer. If he can get that down, he might play the power play. It’s not set in stone; we’ll see how they do, and if they work well, we’ll keep them together. If not, we’ll switch them back.”
On forward line changes: "(They'll change) a little bit. (Lance) Monych is coming off the IR, and (Mike) Sgroi will be put on the waiver list, so I have to get that paperwork in, so they’ll be changed up a little bit. Not a lot, but a little bit."
On the Sgroi experiment: "It just didn’t develop the way I wanted it to develop. He probably had different thoughts of me, and I had different thoughts of him, and it never developed. I told him what I wanted, and he said he was pretty close to doing that, but it just never developed. Things happen, and you just have to accept it.”
On his goalie plans: "I really don’t (know). I’ll probably play JP tomorrow and find out after the game how he feels and if he wants to play the game on Saturday. We’ll decide that after the game."
On whether tonight's bus ride will affect tomorrow's play: I hope not. We’ve done pretty well on those types of bus rides before, and I’m hoping that we get enough rest on the bus and enough rest the next day to get us going that night. We won’t skate; we’ll just have a walk-through and make sure the guys get up and starting getting focused on what they have to do."
On Neil Trimm: He started skating, and actually the first time, his injury started hurting him a bit. He’s getting progressively better and better, but it’s going to take him a week or two to get back into skating shape and to make sure his injury’s strong enough."
Igor Agarunov
On the power play: "On the power play, the most important thing is having a good breakout getting the puck in the zone and making the great passes to get guys moving and trying to get it out to the point with guys to the net and shots to the net."
On opponents: We can’t (overlook them). We just have to go out and play our game, Buck hockey – meat and potatoes, that’s how we play. They’re a good team, we just have to go out there and play our game and not worry about the other teams."
Jeremy Swanson
On the power play: "I think we just kept it simple. We didn’t try to do too much. Most of the goals were just having guys in front banging in rebounds, and that’s the easiest way to score goals on the power play. When the power play’s going bad is when guys are trying to force things and make things too complicated. As long as we keep that going, I think it’s going to be a good thing for the rest of the season."
On power-play confidence: You always have periods where you have a little bit of confidence and things are clicking, then one time you’ll have a frustrating power play and you’ll just try to force things too much. We just have to try to stay loose on the bench with guys coming off, making sure that we’re not getting frustrated, just keeping it simple. We had a lot of good talk on the last game on the power play with guys letting each other know they were open, so that goes a long way, too."
On opponents: "It doesn’t really matter who we play, as long as we’re playing our game. We showed against Odessa that if we play a strong team game, we can beat anybody, so as long as we have the frame of mind to play our hockey and not worry about who we’re playing, we should come out on top pretty much every time, whether it’s home or away."
On the defense: "As a d-man, you always want to get it to the forwards as quickly as you can, and it helps when the forwards are coming back for us and helping us out instead of making us try to feather a pass through a couple guys. It all works as a team; if the guys are coming back for us to get them the puck and we’re getting the puck, that’s the way it works. Everyone has to be on the same page, everyone has to be helping everyone else out, and I think as long as we’re doing that, we’re going to continue to have success in these games."
I have a few more quotes about the matchup with the Allen Americans, but I'll save those for tomorrow.
The power play was obviously a big focus of my preview for the weekend, as Tuesday night's 4-3 shootout win over the Corpus Christi IceRays depended on it entirely.
The team's penalty kill has been a strength for quite some time now, so special teams are really key to this team's success, as is often the case.
Time to go start the game blog, so you can read Bryan Benway's preview and the Pointstreak pre-game notes for more on the Bucks' first-ever meeting with the Mavericks in their first attempt at franchise win No. 300.
Apparently before I arrived, Justin Styffe got into a bit of a scrap with some Mavericks during warmups. The refs have asked for footage, so there might be some disciplinary action to follow. I'll try to find out more on that during the game.
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