Kevin Sneddon Quotations

We let them come into our building and walk over us for the next two minutes.

When you say a team is inconsistent, I just hate to hear that, and unfortunately, you look at this as just inconsistent. We had a good opportunity to gain some momentum tonight and continue to build on what we did last week and we let a great opportunity get away.

We ran into a brick wall. We did a lot of things right. We just couldn't find a way to beat him.

Fortunately, we got some big goals at the right time. We got the bounces tonight a little bit. Obviously, we made a big mistake late but the guys responded. It's big for us right now. We needed to grab that win in overtime and get some confidence back.

He now plays in all situations for us: special teams, matched up against the top lines, late game situations. His strength and conditioning has come a long way, and I think with another important summer, he can become one of the top defensemen in Hockey East.

He's been in our top four rotation for quite some time now, so he knows the coaching staff has a lot of confidence in him. Mark has lived up to, and exceeded our expectations.

We made two huge mistakes tonight, a bad line change on their first goal and a guy wide open in front of the net with five minutes to go. Joe made two huge saves (on the game-winner); we had a chance to clear it but with no sense of urgency, and they bang it in.

I actually feel bad for our guys in some ways. We talked about it between the second and third periods. We're just pressing so hard trying to score. It's a tough feeling as a coach; you want to try and help them through it but there's not a lot you can do. That's something as a team you've got to sort out.

Jaime is one of the toughest competitors in college hockey, yet off the ice he is one of hockey?s finest citizens. He has had a major impact on the growth of community service participation during his time at the University of Vermont. This is a tremendous honor for Jaime, his family and the university.

Just really disappointed in the third goal; it really took the wind out of our sails. That was just a really soft goal.

I think their defense gets overlooked. They have so many dynamic forwards, some of the best in the country from an offensive standpoint, but Jerry York does such a great job coaching the team defense. They're tough to score goals on and it's equally tough to keep that high-octane offense down.

It hit Joe the right way on his stick and bounced the wrong way for us unfortunately. We'll be back. A lot of those guys in the room certainly remember what happened last year against Dartmouth; lost the first game and came back and won two.

Our guys know they're excellent. I watched their game against Harvard on CSTV and I thought they really outplayed ... (Harvard) and looked to be the better team in all facets.

Our kids all year really battled and I congratulated them, especially the seniors, for doing just a great job under all that pressure.

I still love this team and feel we have all the makings to be a top team by the end and a dangerous one in the playoffs.

I think he'd also be the first one to say we played really solid team defense for 120 minutes this weekend.

Merrimack played their hearts out and certainly deserved to win, but it's frustrating when we have so many opportunities two weeks in a row and we just can't find the back of the net enough.

We just, bottom line, as a team didn't get it done.

We were looking for ways to spark things. Travis did a nice job of getting the win but we feel it's important for Joe, who's played so well of late, to get back in there.

We played to win from start to finish. Some things didn't go our way and I think the guys persevered tonight. It was nice to hear in the final seconds the guys up on the bench believing we could still win.

We are what we are, a team that has a couple of lines that can score. The other two better be able to shut down the lines they're going up against, as should the top lines.

We played well from the start of the second period to the end of the game; we were able to gain some confidence and finish some plays off. As the game went on we got more confident. We wanted to make sure once it got to 3-1 that we didn't change our strategy. We wanted to keep going at them.

We want the two points (tonight). As a coach, you want to realize you're playing your best hockey this time of the year and I thought we played fantastic hockey against BU in a playoff-type setting.

We left him wide open; we left him wide open in the slot. That's three times in the last three games we've had that kind of breakdown. It's just not the way we play.

We've got to establish play (tonight). We have to have a little more composure with the puck. Whether it's bad luck on a bouncing puck or our inability to control it, we have to be better.

We wanted to approach this as a playoff-style game and you can't let teams walk all over you for a couple of minutes in a 60-minute game. I hope our guys are going to be angry by it and come back strong (today).

Cory Schneider is a very good goaltender and we seemed to have some kind of bad puck luck. It seemed to bounce against us. He was very, very good, particularly in the 5-on-3 and some other opportunities we had (in the third).

Everything we did well last week, we didn't do well tonight.

(Providence) played with a great sense of urgency from the start, and we were kind of dipping our toes in the water to see what the temperature was. But we woke up at that point and played really, really well from the time they scored to the end of the game.

Again tonight things just didn't go our way. We had some unfortunate calls that didn't go our way and put ourselves in a hole.

They're very patient. They don't press too much in terms of going after offense when it's not there but they have enough skill to score goals.

There were two different referees and they called two different games.

It wasn't that he just made saves. He made some huge saves. I wanted to check in between periods that there wasn't Plexiglas behind him there.

It's a confidence thing. You look at it; wide-open nets, you squeeze the stick so tight you put it wide. You keep pressing and all of a sudden you make mistakes defensively, too.

It's a great opportunity to get into a competitive tournament situation before jumping into league play. We really want to use these games to hone our systems and skills.

It's a little change for us. They have the targets on their backs. They're No. 2 in the country and No. 1 in Hockey East.

It's probably one of the stronger tournament fields. In setting up a tourney, I asked for three teams to come to the tournament where anyone can win it. Dartmouth's playing extremely well and Bemidji and Clarkson are both excellent teams.

Then it's the same thing I said to our team I'm sure Jerry (York) said to their team: Just throw it at the net in overtime; you never know when it's going to take a bounce. Obviously, it was a little bit of a fluke there.

The biggest thing is we want ... to play our style. A couple of road trips in Hockey East -- the BU game, the UNH weekend -- we didn't play to the best of our ability. A lot of that, I think, is we give teams too much respect because they're part of the infamous top four.

I want to see us go in with a fearless attitude and play our style. If we do that, we give ourselves a great opportunity to knock them off.

Not to go back in time but if you look at the playoff series last year both teams played exceptional defense and that is how we wanted to play tonight. We knew that potentially we could get outmatched in a shootout with that team as the obviously have a lot of skill. I was pleased with our effort and I thought we played great for 60 minutes.

Their defensemen are dangerous and get involved in the offense. There's skill in the forward lines and Tyler Sims is one of the top goalies in Hockey East. They're playing really well.

I knew from the first phone call with Jaime that he was going to be the person I could put a lot of faith into, and responsibility.

In the game we had here, they played an extremely aggressive game. They were still trying to find their identity. They've had some big wins, none bigger than Boston College last week.

I know he's somewhat humbled and embarrassed by the recognition he's received for the Humanitarian Award. He's not in it for the accolades but because he cares.

You could tell as a sophomore he was going to be a captain at some point. Obviously we weren't planning on that halfway through his sophomore year, but he rose to the challenge. He is the glue to the situation.

The guys know he always puts them before himself. He's one of the best defensemen in the country, and he's always worried about the other guys.

A good team like Maine doesn't get down. They chipped away one at a time.