After the game...A few minutes with Dan Wildfong

With a 3-0 win on the books, Fonger talks about the Brahmas' performance

I spoke to Dan shortly after the shutout win over Odessa on Tuesday night. Here is our conversation.

Q: Tough night for the Jackalopes. What's your take on the Brahmas' play?

A: I don't think they were terrible. We didn't play our best either. It's one of those games where we kept a lot of shots to the outside and we had a lot of two-on-one and three-on-ones and Jaegs made some big saves at the end. At critical times of the game, he made some great saves. That's what you need. When we had our chances, like our breakaway, Pete goes in, scores a big goal to make it 3-0. That is a big goal, otherwise they keep coming. I think our big line stepped up - Deitsch, Shep and Benny. I thought they did a great job. And the defense doesn't get enough credit. They are doing an outstanding job. They're taking hits to make plays. Like Kinnunen jumping into the play and just the leadership we have on that back end is doing a great job. I think our PK did an outstanding job.

Q: Yeah, they've held off Odessa for the entire series. They've been unable to score on the power play to date. I think you've had three power play goals in the series...

A: I would like our power play to improve but our PK, we've got to continue to make adjustments because they've got some good weapons on that power play and we've got to continue to adjust to what they do to us because if if you sit back and relax and just continue to do the same thing, they're going to figure it out and they're going to burn you. We'll sit down and watch the tape tonight and figure out what we need to do and make a few more adjustments.

Q: Jeremy Symington had a tough task tonight, coming in to a playoff situation after being out for more than a month...

A: We don't really care who's in net. I thought Symington made some big saves too. We got a lucky bounce at the beginning and we made a nice play to get the second goal...I think we could've had two or three more goals. We obviously didn't get the shots we wanted. don't care who they have in net...it's a good team over there and we can't look back, we've got to keep making steps forward.

Q: The shutout was huge at this point in the series and Jaeger was flawless, once again...

A: I've got to credit the whole team on this. Jaegs, I'm sure will credit the whole team too. He really works at his game and when you work at your game and you have great defense like we do and good forwards, I think it makes it easier on the goalie but when we need those big saves, Jaegs is making them. He's making big saves at critical times. Other than that, most of the shots were from the outside so you've got to give credit to our defense. Then our forwards are busting back pretty hard, so you have to give credit to them. There's a lot of credit to give for a shut out. Jaegs will be the first to tell you, it's not just him. But he is doing a fantastic, fantastic job for us right now.

Q: What are your thoughts going into Thursday night's game?

A: We've got to get a few more shots, we've got to tweak our power play a little bit. Our high is not too high and our low is not too low and these guys are focused. Going into Thursday's game, we know it would be nice to get two out of here and that's what we're looking to do.

Photo Credit: Robert Keith