Here's the recap of the Coach's Report from this morning.

On the Injury front:
-Greyeyes will hopefully be back to practice next week and with a shot to be playing in the games the NEXT weekend(that would be Providence@Alfond)

-Shaneberger took a hit in OT against Lowell and strained his MCL as well.  He'll be out 3-4 weeks (by my count that puts him coming back around the last weekend of the regular season against BU)

-Murphy will play in Shanebergers spot (Don't know if that means on his line, but more likely they will be juggled again)

GOALIES:
-Pretty mum on whats going to happen (no surprise there).  Said he's made up his mind but will let the team know Thursday after practice.  He spent some time talking about how much Doyle has helped the team and is one of the best in the nation(15th)
and he has been very consistent and will bounce back and play well, which has been a trademark of his and that's why he's good.  He also mentioned that Frank has played some very very good games (cornell, BC tie)

-He's confident in both guys

-Fans shouldn't over react to one bad game

-JAKE'S COMMENT: he never said that he will rotate them, which he explicitly has said the last few weeks so that makes me feel like he may go with Howard in both, but pure speculation on my part.

-He commented on the fans and that its great that they have a passion for the team, debate things such as who should be playing in goal and whatnot , that its a great attribute to Maine Hockey, but at the same time the goalies sometimes get a bad
wrap and again stated that when a goalie screws up everyone knows it whereas when a forward or defensemen screws up maybe only the team knows it.

-Both goalies feed off the pressure of big games and rebounding after a goal, and both have shown they can handle the pressure, which is one thing that makes them great.

UNH WEEKEND:
-Happy to be playing at the Verizon center.  Likes the bigger crowd, different rink aspect that it gives

-UNH has a decided home ice advantage with the ice sheet being the biggest factor (fans secondary), whereas ours is the fans in the balcony and right on the glass and whatnot.

-When Dale Duff suggested "would you be happy with a split, considering you already won at home?", Whitehead's response was that the answer is no.  "We want to do something very special this season and we want to steal as many points on the road
that we can."  A split is NOT what they are looking for.  Of course if they win on Saturday then we'll just see what happens sunday.

-Also the importance of these games on a national picture were brought up as not only is Maine competing for Hockey East position with UNH but when it comes NCAA time these contests are important as well. Of course this fact also probably helps as
motivation in practice as if they really need it.

So that was pretty much it. No mention of special teams at all, and that is where some major improvement was needed from the last few weeks it seems.  Bring on the kitties -Jake