October 26, 2021
Q&A With ... New Hampshire Coach Mike Souza
by Thomas J. Murphy/CHN Reporter
New Hampshire opened with two wins, but has since lost three in a row, including a shutout at the hands of Providence last weekend. CHN spoke to New Hampshire coach Mike Souza the weekend prior, while the team was in Arizona.
CHN: What is new and improved with the New Hampshire Wildcats this year?
Souza: I really like what we have seen in terms of our depth. There is a lot of competition up and down the lineup in our forward group. We are a veteran team with eleven seniors. They are a real competitive group – Will MacKinnon, Eric MacAdams and guys like that. They drive the competitive nature of our team. We have good team speed. We have some creative offensive players like Jackson Pierson – a Second Team All-Hockey East player last year – and Kalle Eriksson, one of the leading scoring defensemen in all of college hockey last year. We are a team that can make some plays. We want to be hard to play against and a second effort team.
CHN: What areas of the team’s game has you concerned?
Souza: That is a loaded question. I am a pretty positive guy. I thought (the first weekend) we were really detailed in our game. For example, our F3 was making good contact on our forecheck. Our reloads were good. We are a detailed-oriented group with some skill players. I don’t know that we have enough skill to win on skill alone so the details matter.
CHN: Over the next month or two, what sort of things will you be looking at to determine if your team is playing well?
Souza: I go back to our emphasis on details. Are we managing the puck? We want to be a team that is hard to play against. I know that is a cliché but what I mean by that is are there second efforts on the puck battles? Bruce Cassidy, the head coach for the Boston Bruins, always says that the NHL is a second effort league. In the college game, you need second effort players. Be consistent. No bad penalties. Our special teams have to be strong.
CHN: Are you an analytics guy? Are there any numbers or ratios that you are watching to determine if a player or your team is playing well?
Souza: I have gone back and forth as to the depths of analytics. We use our own metrics – scoring chances, turnovers and so on. But I don’t hang my hat on things like "our Corsi number was really low tonight." What I like about analytics is that it shows patterns and then we on the coaching staff have to adjust to those patterns, both positively and negatively. The one analytic that matters to me is the wins.
CHN: You play on one of the largest sheets in college hockey at the Whittemore Center. I was reading an interview you gave a couple years ago where you made the comment that everyone thinks that the game is faster on a big Olympic-sized sheet. But you said the opposite is actually true – that the game slows down. Can you explain what you meant by that?
Souza: You and I grew up around the old Boston Garden. There was nonstop action at the old Garden because the rink was so small. The game happens faster in a smaller rink. Decisions have to be made quicker. Dot to dot in the Whittemore Center is the same as here but there are seven extra feet outside of the dots. There is more time and space on a bigger rink. The game is actually slower. But fast players who can think fast can be more effective with that time and space. In recruiting, people always tell me that this guy or that guy would be great on your sheet. They want us to build a team with only guys who can fly around the ice. You always need guys who can skate but smart players excel at UNH they know how to use that extra time and space. This week, we practiced outside the Whittemore Center. We practiced in Dover to get our guys ready for the intensity you will have in a small rink. Guys are on you quicker. On the power play, there is not as much time and space. In our D zone, things close quicker.
CHN: What advantages do you have playing in the Whittemore Center?
Souza: There are a number of them. One is that it is an awesome and fun place to play. My assistant, Jeff Giuliano (who played at Boston College) can tell you how tough a place it was for an opponent to win. Teams don’t often paly on an Olympic-sized rink. There are only a few of us left. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you are playing at the Whittemore or the old Boston Garden — it is the team that manages the puck, that executes on the power play and that kills penalties that usually wins.
CHN: Let me ask you about how you became head coach because UNH did something that I can never understand why more teams don’t do — they promoted from within. It makes your transition as head coach so much easier. Why don’t more teams do that? I can see where you have a broken program and they need to clean house but often that is not the case.
Souza: I can’t speak for other programs. I know it was important to our athletic director. I was in a great situation at Connecticut working under Mike Cavanaugh who I have the utmost respect for and who worked under Jerry York. I was learning a lot about building a program. I then got to do the same thing under Dick Umile but at a different point in his career that gave me a different perspective. I was able to do that in an environment that I was very comfortable in. I met my wife at UNH. I want to give these young men the same experience that I had when I played at UNH.
CHN: But the recruiting cycle is so long that it takes years for you to put your mark on the program. But when you took over, you already had recruited many of these players and you knew them all as you became head coach. That must be a huge advantage.
Souza: Yes but recruiting is a fluid business. It is always evolving, especially now with the transfer portal.
CHN: Let’s talk about the portal. Generally speaking, from 30,000 feet up looking down on the college hockey world, what do you think of the transfer portal and how does this all end?
Souza: I don’t like the third-party involvement. It is not supposed to be there. I don’t know how it will play out. I really don’t. Then you throw COVID into the mix and kids getting an extra year? I am a relationship guy and our whole staff pride ourselves on having relationships with our players. It is paramount to making sure kids have a good experience.
CHN: Your program did not get hit as hard as others with losing players to the portal. You only lost three guys.
Souza: And we brought two players in. Harrison Blaisdell from North Dakota and David Fessenden from Alabama-Huntsville. It goes both ways. It is an interesting time.
CHN: I watched a lot of your games last year and the two guys who just leapt off the page were Angus Crookshank and Kohei Sato. Both of them are now gone. How will you replace them?
Souza: Angus was a fan favorite who did very well in the AHL at the end of the year. But then in his first exhibition game this season, he tears his ACL. He was great and will be tough to replace. But that is the beauty of college hockey — there is an opportunity for someone else to grab that ice time such as Tyler Ward or Eric MacAdams and step up and fill those shoes.
CHN: “Name, Image and Likeness” – we hear a lot about it in college football and basketball but nowhere else in college sports. Will this have much of an impact with college hockey?
Souza: I don’t know what the long-term effect will be but it has not impacted our team. Our department did a great job in educating everyone about it and it has not been a distraction at all.
CHN: Last year saw the implementation of the overtime rules. Everyone has an opinion on that. What is yours?
Souza: The closer our game aligns with the NHL, the better. But I am not in favor of getting a loss for three-on-three.
CHN: How do you see Hockey East shaking out this year?
Souza: You are not going to get me to make a prediction for Hockey East. On any given night, any team can beat any other team. (UMass Lowell’s) Norm Bazin said it best — the opposing players in our league push the opposing coaches and vice versa.