MHOC Coach Mike Cavanaugh on Selection Sunday

So I gotta play the state championship le over again.

Huh yeah, yep.

If I imagine, it makes it easier to prepare for familiar opponent like you can play every year.

Uh yeah, no question, We're familiar with their team. So from that standpoint, Yeah, it's not like we're, you know, looking at a team we haven't seen all year long, so uh and we've played them year in, year out. So yeah, from that standpoint, it's nice to have some familiarity with the opponent.

It's a little I don't know if ironic's the right word, but the NCAA tournament's all about you play different teams, teams you haven't seen before, and then it's Quinnipiac in there instead of just some.

Out West team that maybe you don't see as often.

If you had told me in the beginning of the year you're going to make the NCAA tournament, you have to play Quinnipiac in the first round, I would have said done.

It's like it doesn't matter who we play.

Like, we're in the tournament, right and Quinnipiac's in the tournament, So you know, you have to prepare at any point you're gonna have to you're playing great teams that when you have sixteen teams, they're all really good and anybody can beat anybody.

And you've seen it over the years, and.

You know, I've coached some really good teams in that tournament and we've lost games as a top seed to an opponent who on paper might not be as good, but in a one game, you know, win or take all, anything can happen.

How about half the field being from New.

England, Yeah, I mean that's well, just our league was so strong this year, you know, of the basically all six teams were in the tournament before the Hockeyas tournament even started. So that's how strong the league was this year. I've never seen it before.

Does the weekend in Boston help prepare you for the NCAA's just the atmosphere.

No question that that game Friday night against Maine was that was a frozen four type atmosphere. That game, you know, seventeen thousand people, It was loud and there was so much energy in that building.

That's exactly what a frozen four is like.

Did your younger guys send did you send any nerves for your younger guys in that game Friday night? Or does Maine get all the credit for playing really well.

I think Maine played really well.

I have to give them a lot of credit. I thought they've played well and they deserve to win. But it was a game that I think we can learn from as well.

You knew you were going to be in the field, But what's the feeling when you finally see your name come up for the first time in the twelve years that you've been here, but even just for the first time ever.

For the school.

Yeah, that's a good question because you're so excited. I don't know if relieve there's a type of the word I want, but it's something that we've been striving for for a while, and we were pretty close that COVID year, you know, and then a couple of years we were sixteen,

Be a battle.

So that feeling of excitement immediately shifts and goes to we have.

Some work to do here.

So but overall, I'm really happy, especially for Hudson and John who came back for a fifty year and you know, no matter what happens, they'll go down as two of the great Huskies for sure.

Speaking of Buddy, you expect them to play.

You think? I hope? So, yeah, I hope. So we'll see as the week goes.

But he's doing everything in his power to try to play on Friday night.

If the scenario were different where you would had to win to get in, could he have played last weekend?

I don't know.

Maybe maybe the players are just built that way.

Yeah, maybe it might have been different.

Is there ever a moment that you think back to since you've been here that kind of reminds you of how far you've come since those early days?

Yeah, it was funny this today. I was just looking at.

Different teams that have won the National Tournament, like Providence, you know, when they got in, and I think they were they were definitely a four seed because they played Miami, who was number one at the time, and Yale.

But as I was.

Looking at the Providence I was going through their schedule that year and I looked when they played US and it was ten to one, and I remember that game distinctly at Providence and we lost ten to one. And to think now, like how far we've come as a pro yeah, kind of, you know, it was it was this morning that kind of I don't know if triggered is the right word, but it made me realize how far we've come as.

A program because you didn't have scholarships your first year here that Atlantic Hockey aer right, it was once you got into Hockey East.

Those game they we weren't fully funded until Derek Pratt and that class was we're seniors and we lost to bu one game in overtime. Those the best of three, one game in overtime, and I think the second one was two to one, and we played great yeah games, but that was the first year we were fully funded where we had eighteen scholarships in the league.

Yeah.

B Carpenter killed you guys, Sink.

You have talked about you being an important leader for this team because he's been to the NCAA tournament. How does that now manifest itself now that you guys are in it.

Well, I think I think you know, he can definitely talk about his experiences, you know, and I've been him a lot too, so I kind of understand how it works.

Now.

The one interesting thing where I haven't been involved is the regionals where you have a day off in between. Now, we never used to have the day off in between, and that'll be something different. I mean the Frozen four was always a day off in between, so be able to manage it. But it's certainly something different than in year's past with the regionals.

But other than that, I just know that.

Like every game, you know, I tried to tell the team, every game is going to be like Friday night versus Maine, Like that's the type of intensity you have to prepare for when you're playing in a national tournament game.

Yeah, did you notice the level of play go open nottch.

I mean even the Providence game, like to me, out of the regular season, like every weekend was a grind, you know, you know we talked about that, but then it goes up a notch for every round.

Yeah, I mean when.

You know the thing about this tournament is, you know, the hardest thing I think to do in hockey is take another team sticks away. And these games someone sticks are going away, and you know when that's on the line, that the intensity just.

You know, ratchets up to a level that you have to be ready for. And I think.

Fortunately for us, you know, we've played Providence be all the games we played in the Hockey East Tournament were really intense battles, and I think that's can only help your team as you go into.

A national tournament.

Quinnipix been there plenty of times, especially recently. Do you think it could be a almost benefit for you guys that you haven't been there and maybe you don't know what you don't know?

I don't know. I think.

I think really what it comes down to is who executes and who plays the best on game night. I don't think you know all the experience in the world. Like the year Providence won it, I don't think they had been there in a long time.

I'm not sure they got there in fourteen.

I'd have to look at that, but I think that was their first time there in a long time in fifteen. And is that the Garden, Yeah, they might have been in the year before. I'm not sure, but you know, Yale had never gone for a long time, and you know they performed really well. So I just think it's it really comes down to It's not so much experience. It's not what's happened in the past. That's like our game with Quinnipiac back in January is gonna have zero.

Influence on the game we play Friday night. It's not gonna have any It's not gonna have any factor in the game.

It's just gonna be which team plays the best and executes that'll be successful.

Had you heard from some of your alums alum.

Oh a lot of them, Yeah, a lot of them.

There were a lot of them were in Boston for the games, and I heard from Maxiltunov and Russia and card Turnbull wherever he is in Europe, reached out, like Spencer Naz who's in Europe. So there's a lot of guys that you know, follow the program intently and still bleed blue.

You kind of mentioned it earlier, but the COVID year, the twenty twenty one, you guys were practicing after you lost to Providence, hoping that you could get in. Just what do you remember from that preparation and then the disappointment of not being in the field.

Yeah, I was disappointing that day. It was over in the freights. I remember watching it. I really thought we had a chance to be in it because it was a crazy year. But our strength of schedule I think was we played I think that year we played BC four or five times.

Four times.

Yeah, like the teams that you mess won it. So two of the top teams in our league we played eight times or nine times, I can't remember what it was. And I thought that that was going to factor into it because that year wasn't so much on the numbers as it was. There was some subjective I think to it. So it was disappointing we didn't get in that year. But I think Hudson and John were a freshman that year.

Speaking of Honey, I think it was after the guest U mess that summer you had lunch with them, I guess out in Vancouver. Yeah, and the want to do it again, the hunger to do it again, and you.

Are yeah, it is well, it tells you a lot about him as a kid.

Yeah, you know. And I don't know if I can say it enough, but.

Loyalty were just talking about it earlier in today's college athletics loyalties a hard thing to find, and the fact that those two stayed loyal when it wasn't the most opportune time to stay loyal. It's one thing. If your team's going to frozen fours year in and year out, you know, am I going to transfer from that program?

Probably not.

But when your team had a season like we did last year, where we felt we underachieved and everybody's flying the coop, you know, it's very easy to leave. But that loyalty, you know, I'll never forget it and I'll always remember it, and I just I think it's really special when you have players like that that believe.

In a place so much and then they see them get rewarded like they have.

I think a last game that I did the first half was the first Merrimac game that was a tough weekend, and then the comeback and rally and beat BC the next weekend. Yeah, you had, you saw the pieces there, but could you could sort of a big turning point for this team when they beat BC, got some confidence after a tough weekend the weekend before, and then you know, you get to the Christmas break and it's like you're

If you want to see it January first, it's right there.

But I remember Christmas, I mean, getting getting ramped up again thinking for hockey. For you guys going to Wisconsin, it's like you look at the skuns like okay, everything in front of you, and then you just ripped it off.

In January, well, at Merrimack weekend, we came off you know, a weekend against Vermont where we lost one in overtime and uh won one in overtime.

Yeah, and then uh.

That you know, we played without and then Jake Richard got hurt in that game at home, so he we didn't have him for the Merrimack series.

And yeah, we didn't.

We didn't play well that weekend, you know. Right that being said, I think it did somewhat motivate us to.

Was.

I don't know if i'd say it was a turning point, but we had a great week of practice before BC and then we played BC here and while the game was five to four, it really wasn't that type of game. I thought that we might have been one of our best games of the year. It was a game we should have deserved to win against BC. It wasn't a fluke win where a goaltender had to make a million saves.

Even higher, and that's what Callum started playing.

And musically got hurt in that VC game in Callum came back and we played great that weekend at Lowell and beat him the first night and then lost one nothing just you know, Halas played dynamite that night and it came back and played a great game against BC and lose it in overtime, where a game we could have won that game too. So I think that was the point where the team realized we have a really good team. And when we came back from break, I

Kind of to that point when you stepped on the ice the first time with this team back in September, You've always talked about getting to the New National Tournament as a goal. Did you think this was actually a legitimate goal for the season, that it was realistic?

Yes, I did. I did.

The only question mark I had, well, I shouldn't say the only question mark, but we had two goaltenders coming in that I wasn't very familiar with. I liked them both, but you're not familiar with them. It wasn't like we had Jacob Fowler coming back, or you know, we had two new goaltenders coming in.

So that was an area where.

You know, I didn't know, I didn't really have a strong feeling one way or the other where we were going to be there. We certainly had a lot of new defensemen coming in. You know, John and Thomas Sinio were the only ones coming back that had played substantial.

Amount of minutes for us SO that was an area.

But I really liked the kids coming back, and I knew we were going to be pretty good upfront because I saw the step Joey Muldowney took last year at the end of the year. I saw the step Ryan Taddle had taken at the end of last year. Percival and Frasier and he Slip were just ultimate warriors, and I knew that that kid line was going to be a talented group. So I felt like we were going to be pretty good upfront. I just didn't know I was. I knew our goaltenders were good, I didn't know they

I knew he was going to be a good player.

I didn't know he was going to have as much impact on our team Viking.

We got really late. You know, he's turned into a.

Excellent defenseman for us SO and then Nick Carabin I felt like he was going to be a solid piece. I didn't realize how good he was going to be for us. So and from that standpoint, you know, you have expectations and you have you hope that these guys are going to pan out, but when you haven't coached him, you know, I wasn't as sure about them as I was about Tattle and Muldowney and Rashard. I knew they were going to be great players for us.

How could you jump speed wise? Did you take from last year this year? I mean you see it on the end.

A big jump, A big jump, yes, yeah, pretty much. All the guys we brought in are really high end skaters. So that that's probably the biggest difference between our ten from last year to this year is I think we're much.

Quicker up front.

You can see in the vord check for sure.

Yeah.

I liked it in the BU game where A they won the puck battles.

On the half boards.

But I like it when your defenseman picked their spots to go and keep it in but take those battles on the half.

Yeah.

I think all good teams, I mean, Maine does that really well, Quinnipiac will do that.

Uh, you know, I think a lot of teams that are successful in college apply a lot of pressure to you.

Yeah, and it's when you're you have to win those wall battles, when you're coming out of your defensive zone exits.

We know we're gonna have to win some wall battles.

You know that puck's got to get out that five foot battle between the blue lines at both ends. You got to keep them in you like you just alluded to, and then you got to get them out when you're in your own zone.

Yeah.

I thought, mean did a good job of that. I guess what, like about ten.

Minutes into the second you had you got to throw a good start in the second and then they took a lot of space away, especially in their D zone.

They didn't really give you a lot of good looks. Yeah, but you guys kept grinding. That's what we love about these guys. I say, see your foot soldiers getting some payoff.

For Yeah, it was good, all right, you got it, guys of them. Thank you