Each stick out of the box isn't always the same and you've got to make adjustments. I enjoy that. That's a part of hockey that I like. You take care of your sticks, they'll take care of you. That's the policy that I go by.

It's kind of a double-edged sword. In a way I didn't care, but it kind of hurts knowing the (numbers) you put up and not be respected that way.

This is a different part of the season - different mind-set, different everything. You're not worried about your points anymore. You're not worried about individual achievements. It's more of a team part of the season.

At the beginning of the year, I think we hit our stride pretty well. But getting down the stretch, teams are keying on certain players and that's something you need to adjust to. I think we struggled with that of late, but there's definitely another level we want to get to and I think we're capable of. That's going to have a big impact on how far we go, and we realize that.

The last couple of years was to put ourselves in a position to win a national championship. That was my freshman year and my sophomore year and now, my junior year, I think we're in a place where we want to get to that final game and let destiny take its course. That's what our team sees happening.

I think this is the first step of championships. We want to win this championship, and it's just going to build up. (We'll) use this as preparation to upcoming championships. We want to win this tournament, and that's our main focus. In previous years, that hasn't been as high of a focus as it is this year, and I think that's a very good thing for us.