They give you a lot of hope and a lot of confidence. From a coach's perspective, when you put them out there, you are very confident that they can get the job done. I'm very fortunate to have them.

I like our chances against Des Moines, I really do. I think we match up well. We're not playing an opponent that had their way with us. We were pretty darn even with them.

We played even with a great team in the second and third periods. But Omaha is a team that plays with a great desire to win for a full 60 minutes. We didn't do that.

We're in the hunt, there's no question. We have a very big game against Waterloo on Thursday, and we still have two with Cedar Rapids and two with Des Moines. The thing is, we are in striking distance.

We were very good defensively. We made really good decisions with the puck to make them not have too many odd-man rushes, and Neville made some key saves, so I would say it was a team shutout. We protected the net really well.

We had balanced scoring. All four lines were very effective. It was a great team win for us.