Men's Ice Hockey NCAA Midwest Regional Press Conference
3/29/2019 7:05:00 PM | Men's Ice Hockey
Head coach Rand Pecknold Appeared in Friday's Press Conference Kicking Off NCAA Tournament
- LISTEN TO FRIDAY'S PRESS CONFERENCE
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Quinnipiac men's ice hockey head coach Rand Pecknold, senior captain Chase Priskie and junior defenseman Brogan Rafferty joined Friday's press conference following practice to answer questions prior to beginning play in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night against No. 14/14 Arizona State at the PPL Center.
Rand Pecknold | Head Coach Opening Statement
We're excited to be here. We want to thank the city of Allentown for hosting this. The rink has been fantastic. We have a number of guys that have either played in the AHL or NHL or are in the AHL now that rave about the facility and the whole atmosphere of Allentown. So, we're excited and it's been great so far. We're looking forward to dropping the puck and getting going with Arizona State tomorrow night.
Q. How beneficial were the last couple of weeks for this group?
RP: We didn't really want last week off and have to give credit to Brown they played well. But, it is what it is and we took advantage of it. We got healthier. Obviously, we're not getting [Brandon] Fortunato back. But, we had some guys who were nicked up a little bit, so that was good. It's a young team. We have 13 freshmen and we're immature at times. It probably was a good way to get re-energized and hit the reload and restart button. Anyways that's what I'm hoping. We'll see how we are the first period tomorrow night. Again, we tried to give them a few days off. We gave them Tuesday off after Brown and then Saturday and Sunday off. Cut them away from the rink a little bit, and then they came back and the two weeks of practice were outstanding and excellent.
Q. Can you run through how you put together a certain team, did it come easily or was it quite a challenging process recruiting wise?
RP: It's a big class. It's a challenge. Billy Riga and Joe Dumais handled all our recruiting and I helped a little bit. But, I thought they did a really good job of identifying talent and character. You need a little bit of both for us to win at Quinnipiac. I thought last year we struggled a little bit. We got a little bit away from our culture. I thought that we reestablished it this year and I give a lot of credit to Billy and Joe. They did an excellent job of identifying the right type of kid that fits our program. We've put a lot of effort into identifying what works for us and what doesn't. I thought we did a really good job with this class of bringing new kids that fit what we want and also have a lot of talent and can make plays and do all the things we want them to do.
Q. Could you tell right away, first week of practice, that this was a group would be able to make an impact right away?
RP: Yeah. The NCAA changed the rules this year, so you can do a little more in September that we've been able to do in the past, so I got a good feel for the players. I thought the staff did a really good job of coaching them all year long. I thought they did a great job of buying in. It's tough for freshman to make this jump in terms of learning how to defend and learning the details of the game. They all know how to play offense, it's what they've done their whole life. We have a lot of our freshman, including our freshman forwards, that really buy in to the defensive side of the game and six months ago didn't know what it meant. I give them credit. Coaching and kids getting better and developing it's a two-way street and they did a good job with that. You could tell right away they were pretty good some of the higher-end kids were pretty special. [Peter] DiLiberatore we could tell right away the first couple of days that there were going to be some growing pains with him, but he's going to be pretty special and be an elite player. We just threw him out there and let him make mistakes. Threw him on power play and penalty kill and we're kind of reaping the benefits of that now here in February and March.
Q. Your penalty kill numbers are pretty strong, are you surprised by how well you guys adapted to the penalty kill?
RP: Yeah, I was very surprised by that because that was a concern this year with that many freshman. I know the first couple of games, you don't want to put freshman out there in those kind of situations whether it's PK or five on six or you try and protect the lead late, but you couldn't get away with it. I just stopped worrying about it and just kept throwing freshman out there because we couldn't do it, and we're probably better for it now. The penalty kill has been much better than I thought this year and that's a big credit to Shorty [Andrew Shortridge] and Petro [Keith Petruzzelli]. They've been great. They're our best penalty killers and they've been really good in those situations. We've gotten better as the year's gone on.
Q. The power play struggle against Brown, is it just the function of Chase Priskie, or is there more to it than that that you needed to work on here in the last couple of weeks?
RP: Obviously, having Chase [Priskie] out, he's one of the top three players in college hockey, and we miss his leadership. Everybody talks about percentages and goals, but if you really look at looks, we had some great looks. We hit posts. Odeen [Tufto] hit about two or three posts on the power play. [Gavin] Nieto made some great saves. We had the looks. Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don't. Our big thing that we focused on going back to when Reid Cashman was here and he was really the one that initiated the power play where we don't talk about scoring goals we talk about getting great looks. If we get enough great looks, we'll be at 25 or 28 percent. We've stayed with that kind of mantra. We did get a lot of good looks. It just didn't go in for us.
Chase Priskie | Senior Defenseman
Q. A little bit more time off than you guys wanted, run me through what the team did to use the time to benefit the team.
CP: We were able to use the extra week to get back to our core habits and core identity. We used a lot of that time for battle drills and really work on our competitiveness. We've had two great weeks of practice and we hope that it translates into tomorrow's game.
Brogan Rafferty | Junior Defenseman
Q. They have a 20+ goal scorer (Johnny Walker), run me through the challenges that he is going to present for you guys.
BR: He is a great player and can put the puck in the net. I think, for us, we have played against great players all year, in some games, for instance, like defensively Adam Fox like high end players and there's guys on the other teams too. The main thing we have been focusing on is just taking his time and space away, making it harder for him to go anywhere on the ice and when he gets the puck let him know that you are on him tight and that he is going to have it hard for 60 minutes.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Quinnipiac men's ice hockey head coach Rand Pecknold, senior captain Chase Priskie and junior defenseman Brogan Rafferty joined Friday's press conference following practice to answer questions prior to beginning play in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night against No. 14/14 Arizona State at the PPL Center.
Rand Pecknold | Head Coach Opening Statement
We're excited to be here. We want to thank the city of Allentown for hosting this. The rink has been fantastic. We have a number of guys that have either played in the AHL or NHL or are in the AHL now that rave about the facility and the whole atmosphere of Allentown. So, we're excited and it's been great so far. We're looking forward to dropping the puck and getting going with Arizona State tomorrow night.
Q. How beneficial were the last couple of weeks for this group?
RP: We didn't really want last week off and have to give credit to Brown they played well. But, it is what it is and we took advantage of it. We got healthier. Obviously, we're not getting [Brandon] Fortunato back. But, we had some guys who were nicked up a little bit, so that was good. It's a young team. We have 13 freshmen and we're immature at times. It probably was a good way to get re-energized and hit the reload and restart button. Anyways that's what I'm hoping. We'll see how we are the first period tomorrow night. Again, we tried to give them a few days off. We gave them Tuesday off after Brown and then Saturday and Sunday off. Cut them away from the rink a little bit, and then they came back and the two weeks of practice were outstanding and excellent.
Q. Can you run through how you put together a certain team, did it come easily or was it quite a challenging process recruiting wise?
RP: It's a big class. It's a challenge. Billy Riga and Joe Dumais handled all our recruiting and I helped a little bit. But, I thought they did a really good job of identifying talent and character. You need a little bit of both for us to win at Quinnipiac. I thought last year we struggled a little bit. We got a little bit away from our culture. I thought that we reestablished it this year and I give a lot of credit to Billy and Joe. They did an excellent job of identifying the right type of kid that fits our program. We've put a lot of effort into identifying what works for us and what doesn't. I thought we did a really good job with this class of bringing new kids that fit what we want and also have a lot of talent and can make plays and do all the things we want them to do.
Q. Could you tell right away, first week of practice, that this was a group would be able to make an impact right away?
RP: Yeah. The NCAA changed the rules this year, so you can do a little more in September that we've been able to do in the past, so I got a good feel for the players. I thought the staff did a really good job of coaching them all year long. I thought they did a great job of buying in. It's tough for freshman to make this jump in terms of learning how to defend and learning the details of the game. They all know how to play offense, it's what they've done their whole life. We have a lot of our freshman, including our freshman forwards, that really buy in to the defensive side of the game and six months ago didn't know what it meant. I give them credit. Coaching and kids getting better and developing it's a two-way street and they did a good job with that. You could tell right away they were pretty good some of the higher-end kids were pretty special. [Peter] DiLiberatore we could tell right away the first couple of days that there were going to be some growing pains with him, but he's going to be pretty special and be an elite player. We just threw him out there and let him make mistakes. Threw him on power play and penalty kill and we're kind of reaping the benefits of that now here in February and March.
Q. Your penalty kill numbers are pretty strong, are you surprised by how well you guys adapted to the penalty kill?
RP: Yeah, I was very surprised by that because that was a concern this year with that many freshman. I know the first couple of games, you don't want to put freshman out there in those kind of situations whether it's PK or five on six or you try and protect the lead late, but you couldn't get away with it. I just stopped worrying about it and just kept throwing freshman out there because we couldn't do it, and we're probably better for it now. The penalty kill has been much better than I thought this year and that's a big credit to Shorty [Andrew Shortridge] and Petro [Keith Petruzzelli]. They've been great. They're our best penalty killers and they've been really good in those situations. We've gotten better as the year's gone on.
Q. The power play struggle against Brown, is it just the function of Chase Priskie, or is there more to it than that that you needed to work on here in the last couple of weeks?
RP: Obviously, having Chase [Priskie] out, he's one of the top three players in college hockey, and we miss his leadership. Everybody talks about percentages and goals, but if you really look at looks, we had some great looks. We hit posts. Odeen [Tufto] hit about two or three posts on the power play. [Gavin] Nieto made some great saves. We had the looks. Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don't. Our big thing that we focused on going back to when Reid Cashman was here and he was really the one that initiated the power play where we don't talk about scoring goals we talk about getting great looks. If we get enough great looks, we'll be at 25 or 28 percent. We've stayed with that kind of mantra. We did get a lot of good looks. It just didn't go in for us.
Chase Priskie | Senior Defenseman
Q. A little bit more time off than you guys wanted, run me through what the team did to use the time to benefit the team.
CP: We were able to use the extra week to get back to our core habits and core identity. We used a lot of that time for battle drills and really work on our competitiveness. We've had two great weeks of practice and we hope that it translates into tomorrow's game.
Brogan Rafferty | Junior Defenseman
Q. They have a 20+ goal scorer (Johnny Walker), run me through the challenges that he is going to present for you guys.
BR: He is a great player and can put the puck in the net. I think, for us, we have played against great players all year, in some games, for instance, like defensively Adam Fox like high end players and there's guys on the other teams too. The main thing we have been focusing on is just taking his time and space away, making it harder for him to go anywhere on the ice and when he gets the puck let him know that you are on him tight and that he is going to have it hard for 60 minutes.
Players Mentioned
Goaltender
/ Men's Ice Hockey
Defenseman
/ Men's Ice Hockey
Defenseman
/ Men's Ice Hockey
Goaltender
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