THE DON SAYS
Gophers coach Don Lucia answered questions on a wide variety of topics on Wednesday at the team's weekly media day. Turnout was much better this time. A half dozen or so media members showed up rather than just two like the week before amidst the Randy Moss trade hoopla.
On sweep over UMass: "We've got a lot to work on. It was the opening games, we got a lot of guys involved. What we were able to do last weekend was get some separation goals which we had trouble with the past couple of years. If we were up 3-2 or 2-1, all of a sudden we would sit on 2-1 and the other team would get 2 and then 3 and we would fall behind. We were able to get those timely goals last weekend and hopefully that will continue this year."
(The Gophers led 2-0 in the first game against Massachusetts, 3-0 in the second. The final scores were 5-3 and 5-4.)
On the key to Jay Barriball's game (4 goals in two games): "Jay is the kind of player that he knows the areas of the rink to go to. He is not going to be the guy necessarily that is taking a beating in front. He is going to find those soft areas where you can get the puck or the puck is going to go to. And he has got a quick release. He has always been a goal scorer. We saw that last weekend. He has the ability to one-time a puck. And Jay is not afraid to shoot. Some of the other guys on our team could take a lesson from that."
On Nebraska-Omaha: "Even though they are moving from the CCHA, they have a history. Their coaches have been involved in the WCHA. That helps. That is going to help their program. They are all very good coaches and very experienced coaches. They have a great staff to walk into our league with."
Key to beating UNO: "They are a big, strong physical team. The key for us is to make sure we have real good puck management, that we take care of the puck and not feed their transition. That is going to go a long way toward helping us. We know how they are going to play, they are going to go north-south, they are going to come at you."
On importance of a good start this season: "We have some home games early. We want to try to have some success to begin the league with those. But we know the most important thing is to keep improving as a team as this year goes forward. And get our young guys to understand and be able to compete in the WCHA. [Our schedule] is better than last year when we didn't have any nonconference games and went right into it [the WCHA]."
