St. Lawrence Keeping Energy High
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USCHO Rankings Week 2
The new weekly rankings are out: Click here. St. Lawrence is not on the list, but received 4 points. Clarkson got nothing after being swept by Michigan State.
SLU Weekend Preview
St. Lawrence arrived home late Sunday afternoon after splitting its season-opening weekend against UMass-Lowell and Army at the Icebreaker Tournament in Omaha, Neb.
I called Saints coach Joe Marsh that night and asked him for a few of his thoughts and any updates he had on the team outside of this season. We chatted for about 10 minutes, leaving it with I would see him at practice on Monday.
I did, and the interview started off hilariously:
Me: I know we talked on the phone yesterday, but I wanted to get a few more thoughts on what you saw over the weekend and what you're working on this week.
Coach Marsh: Thoughts? Have you looked at me? How many thoughts do you think I have?
Oh, coach Marsh.
The interview went fine from there, and he did have more thoughts than what he originally stated to me, mainly about his coaching philosophy when trying to improve the team.
“We saw a lot of good things. At the same time, we have to turn our attention to those negatives and do it in a way that doesn't somehow take away the good stuff we did,” he said. “As long as they're conscious of (their mistakes) and as long as we keep harping on it in a positive way, I think it's something you can overcome.”
He was addressing the sometimes careless way the Saints handled the puck.
“I think our biggest weakness is that we worked very hard to get the puck, and once we get it, we have to be a lot stingier with it,” he said. “We had some unforced turnovers and we panicked a bit at times. It's pretty important because it was in critical areas where it happened.”
Marsh said some of that is youth and some of it comes from it being the first two games of the season.
“I think that has a lot to do with it,” he said. “Just because they're inexperienced, they don't necessarily have that resourcefulness yet. We did see some pretty good things, though.”
Marsh cited George Hughes has having a particularly good weekend, and the play of Kyle Crandall, who notched his first-career goal, was promising.
He added that he especially thought the energy was good from everyone who saw the ice.
“A lot of times a line comes out there and they have a good shift, and then another line comes out there and they have a good shift, and off a sudden you feel like the energy's picked up a little bit,” Marsh said. “And maybe the third or fourth line after that benefits from it. They might chuck one in. It's sort of a cumulative effect. That's a very important concept, and I thought that was present, particularly more evident against Army, but it was there against Lowell, too.”
It must be there against RIT and Niagara this weekend, too.
“I think we're going to see teams that are a lot like us,” Marsh said. “They are going to work real hard. It should be a real tough series and one that we welcome. We want them to come in and bring their ‘A' game.”
Up first, it's RIT. The Tigers sit 0-1 overall, losing to Colgate, 3-2, to open the season. They return plenty of offense from last season, which ranked second in the nation in goals per game. Andrew Favot, Steven Matic, Brent Alexin and Sean Murphy all come back. They combined for 28 goals.
The Tigers did lose a major goal-scorer in Matt Crowell. He had 17 goals and 15 assists last season. Crowell is currently playing for the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL.
Marsh and the Saints aren't taking RIT, or Niagara on Saturday, lightly.
“Sure, I would like to win 6-0, but it doesn't happen very often,” Marsh said. “What I'm looking for is some good, competitive, close games, which I think these will be and I'd like to find ways to win those types of games and to learn from them.
“I don't see our guys reflect (the attitude) that maybe we don't have to always be full throttle because we can win on 80 percent. We can't win on 80 percent. We're not that type of team.”
The puck drops between RIT and St. Lawrence at 7 p.m. Saturday at Appelton Arena, Canton.
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Extra quotes
Marsh on how the best teams compete:
"I think it's a pretty good start. Sure we would have liked to play in the Saturday night game. You always want to play in that atmosphere. You have to win a lot of big ones to get there. Even in a small, beginning of the year Icebreaker Tournament, it does mirror what they're going to run into at playoff times. If you look at Boston University last year, yeah, they won the national championship, but they also won every single tournament format they played in last year. Every tournament they were in, they won. That's something where we're trying to get to, to take those opportunities to get to a championship game and create that type of atmosphere for ourselves."
