Huntley Weighs in on the Wings Win Over Buffalo

As usual, Kevin M. Neibauer had the opportunity to catch up with Wings Head Coach, Dave Huntley.

A thrilling overtime victory over the Division rival, Buffalo Bandits, a huge game for Jake Bergey. The re-emergence of Geoff Snider.

KMN-Coach, the game looked like an easy one...but the third quarter things got away a little bit?

DH-"I think we hurt them a little bit physically, we ran real well, and we closed up a lot of the gaps, the thing you have to remember is that Buffalo is a real good team, they have been in the running for the last three or four Championships. Darris (Kilgour) and I used to coach together, and those guys were on the ropes, you could see that they were wobbling, but, like a true champion, they took their hits and they answered and came right back with some things. Our guys reacted a little different than last week's game, I don't think we finished last week's game too well, this week we finished well, Buffalo took a great shot at us, and we answered right back."




KMN- After having played arguably two of the best teams in the league back to back, how much maturity is this team showing?

DH-"We played a bunch of young kids, Jimmy Borell plased just his second game, Brett Moyer, the Ridley kid, played his first game, Thomson is just in his third game, Jamie Rooney...we played a real young line-up.

But, I thought tonight was about our veterans, I thought Rob Blasdell was absolutely fantastic. I think people look at "goals against", I don't think that tells the whole story."



KMN-Tonight was the first time this season that I have seen three shots in a row on him, you had a couple of defensive breakdowns.

DH-"We were not real good in our end picking up the ball, if you look at the goals that they scored, a lot were scored because we didn't pick a loose ball up, if we get those balls, that gets us goals up the other end. We have to do better than that. For whatever reason, we weren't real good at picking the ball up and they took advantage of that.

Fortunately, Blazer bailed us out on a lot of them, he was sensational.

Jake Bergey, all I can say is I'm glad I talked him out of retiring. That may have been the best thing I did so far as a coach."



KMN-Geoff Snider, to me, was the best player on the floor tonight, I don't think he lost more than four face-offs all night. Your thoughts?

DH-"What was terrific with Snides tonight was he just started right at the beginning, he wins the face-off and scored five seconds in. What i'm most proud of him is that he was pressing, it was starting to get away from a little bit, he took a couple penalties that were really not good penalties, and he bounced back, recovered from that and was terrific tonight.

We saw the Geoff Snider that everyone has come to appreciate."



KMN- Overtime, you win the draw and immediately call time-out. What was the thinking there?

DH-"It just the way I do it. I really believe the first shot wins, they got four guys back, we have a full thirty second shot clock. I have tremendous confidence in the guys we have on the floor. Athan made a great pick and roll, Jake got the ball, made a great finish and that was that."


KMN-3-0, all home games, all division games, did you catch a break coming out at 3-0? 2-1 would have been a huge thing, but 3-0 is even bigger.

DH-"I would have been happy with 1-2 if we played well. If we lost both these games to Rochester and Buffalo by a goal and played well, I would have been happy.

2-1 would have been fantastic, 3-0 is just gravy, but we have to take advantage of that.''


KMN- Road trip then Minnesota...a lot can happen in the next month.

DH-"Minneota is a young team like us and they play with a lot of energy. We have Colorado next week which I'm really looking forward to that, kind of reuniting with an old team that I was involved with. I look the team that we are bringing in Colorado.

Again, Colorado is a different kind of team than we played."


KMN-It seemed like your defense just swarmed John Tavares and Mark Steenhuis, neither one was real big factor.

DH-"Our defense played better than 14 goals against. It's just that when we put the ball on the ground, we didn't pick it up. If we get more loose balls, it would have been unbelievable. But again, to Buffalo's credit, they answered the bell and they tightened their defense up."


KMN-What is your feel for this team?

DH-"I would much rather win these games by seven or eight, than win them by one. But, I know that down the road, we are going to have to win one goal games."


KMN-How well do you and Lindsay Sanderson get along?

DH-"We get along great, many, many moons ago we played against each other. Over the years you lose touch with people. When I got hired to do this, it could have been a difficult situation, but he's been supportive, and we share similar values and similar passion. We're both having a lot of fun with this....."


Thanks Dave Huntley and the Wings.


Since the team is off for a few weeks then a road game, I have lined up several items that hopefully, will keep everyone's interest.

I have an Athan Iannucci and a Jason Crosbie interview. We are currently working on a Luke Wiles Question and Answer session.

Finally, on the Lax boards, there seems to be a lot of discussion about jersies. I don't know why, but old friend, Mike Fox is lined up to discuss the hows and whys of jersies.

Kevin M. Neibauer


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