The Insider Interview - Playoff Edition

Tyler Skworchinski

The Brahmas forward talks about the upcoming playoff series against Rio and the quest for the President's Cup

Tyler Skworchinski has had another great season with the Texas Brahmas. He played in all 64 regular season games and notched 38 points (16 G, 22, A) and 36 penalty minutes. He had eight powerplay goals, 10 powerplay assists, one short-handed goal, one short-handed assist, one game-winning goal and he finished the season with a +8 rating. He even filled in as a defenseman when needed.

Now, with the post-season set to begin, Tyler has learned that the Brahmas will meet the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees on Saturday night at the NYTEX Sports Centre. I spoke to Tyler about the upcoming series and the playoffs in general. Here is our conversation.

Q: The Brahmas have faced Chris Brooks’ team four times this year and have split the wins. What do you think about the Killer Bees and what they’ve accomplished this season?

A: From last year to this year, they’ve made a big improvement. They’ve played tough against us and they’ve played us pretty well all year. We just went down there and they took one from us there. I think they’re a good, young, fast team. They work really hard. I think you earn everything you get...we know we’re in for a battle and we’re going to have to play our game and to play with intensity for the whole game in order to be successful.

Q: The final game against Rio down in their barn didn’t go the way everyone would have liked. But do you think it was a valuable look at their systems and what was and wasn’t working against them?

A: Yeah, obviously it was a good preview. They played Corpus the night before, so we got a good view of either team that we’re going to face…the last game, there wasn’t too much on the line for us. We just wanted to keep things simple and kind of prepare for next weekend, this upcoming weekend, and I think we did that fairly well and all things considered, that was a pretty good preparation game for us.

Q: How excited are you to have another opportunity to make another run to the finals and the chance to win the President’s Cup?

A: That’s what we play for…I know all the guys, myself included, we’re excited to play this weekend…not to take anything away from the games we’ve played but we’ve had this spot set for a little while and we’re anxious to get things going. I think a lot of guys are thinking of last year, and trying to improve upon the results from last year and have that opportunity to win the cup. I think that’s why a lot of guys came back. They knew we were going to have a good chance with the team we have back and I’m very excited to get things going here.

Q: Looking at this upcoming series versus the same time last year; Bossier-Shreveport was in the same boat and an upstart Brahmas team came in and beat them after taking the play-in series against Mississippi. Do you have any concern about an upstart team like the Bees coming in and doing the same thing?

A: Absolutely. We’re in the same situation like you said last year. We came in, we were the underdog and we came out with the sweep. We’re not going to take anything lightly. We worked hard to get the extra week rest and to get the number one seed and we’re not just going to sit on the regular season Southern Conference title. That’s all great but ultimately, at the end of the day, it comes down to winning that championship. You won’t see us take things lightly this weekend. We know they’re a good team and they’ve beat us a couple of times this year. We know, whoever we play, we’re going to have to play our game and take it to another team and not let any opportunities slip and not have any chance of not being prepared for a game.

Q: As an individual, is there anything you are taking from your experience last year, especially the experience of the conference championship series with Colorado, with you into the post-season this year?

A: Yeah, above everything, you can’t afford to give games away at this point of the season. The last two games at Colorado, we let one or two slip early in the series and it came back to bite us in the end. We lost our last game to them in their home rink. I think we have to win 12 games. We have to be prepared each and every game to play the best game of the season up to that point and just build upon that. Don’t take any game lightly; maintain that intensity and you’ve got to be competitive. You can’t take shifts off and you’ve got to earn everything at this point. Just go out there and earn everything you get.

Photo Credit: Robert Keith