Post-Game | Ryan Huska – 06.12.25

Post-Game | Ryan Huska – 06.12.25

So, uh, coach, what’ you make of that one? Um, I I thought we did a lot of things well on the checking side of the game tonight, like our our sticks and our ability to be in in shot lanes, I think, was uh an important thing for us tonight, and I thought we had a a good effort from our goalender, and it was a good win overall. The scoring 16 seconds in sort of make it easier to lock the game plan. Well, I don’t know if we wanted to lock it down at 16 seconds into the game, but the one thing that Utah does well is they um they slow the neutral zone down a lot and if teams dump pucks in on them, they’re very good at breaking it out. So, I thought we had a hard time generating any zone time tonight to allow us to play a little bit more on the offensive zone, but um at the end of the day, we stuck with it on the checking side and found a way to win. Dustin has obviously been exceptional these two games. I was looking at his home stats like he’s got above like higher than 930 say percentage at the saddle this year. Have you noticed something like him doing things well at home? He was that way last year too. If you remember his numbers at home were really good. So I don’t I don’t think there’s really anything to it. I mean when we were on the road um before the Tampa game his game was really trending in the right direction as well. So, I think he’s just, you know, he worked on his game a little bit when he had some time off there and then he was the last two starts and in particular tonight he was excellent. Bigger picture 621 in your last nine. What do you like about what you’re seeing right now? Um, you know, there was the stretch where we weren’t getting the results, but I thought some of the play was similar to what we’re seeing now. So, unfortunately, we didn’t get the um the score or the stat that mattered at the end of the night wasn’t in our favor, but I think we’re doing a better job of I don’t know, sticking with the game plan. Um when we were, you know, in a tough stretch in October, I thought we beat ourselves a fair bit. We did a lot of things really well, but there’s always one or two things that cost us. Now, we’re not seeing that quite as often. So, I think the guys have kind of recommitted to the 60-minute thing. When you describe that in October, like was there confidence that it was going to get fixed because you guys were doing things right and there were mistakes that you could erase from the game? Yeah, fixable for sure. And a lot of it is puck play. But when you’re in a stretch like we were in in October, guys are are they’re not doing it because, you know, they don’t care about the result. They’re doing it because they want to try to help the team win. And I felt like at times we got ourselves into that. whether it was taking a penalty at a time because they were a little too aggressive somewhere or they’re trying to do a little bit too much with the puck that ends up in a turnover that ends up in the back of the net. Um, now I feel like it’s just playing and and trusting the process more than anything. What have you seen from Jaguar Sharon Govich the last couple of games here? He’s been way harder on the puck and because he’s been harder on the puck, he’s had it a lot more often. So now, um, to me, he’s back to being more of a threat coming through the neutral zone and even where he scored his goal tonight, he was right in front of the net. Mhm. When this team scores first, what kind of energy shift do you notice on the bench? Um, yeah, I think you you do notice it. I mean, that’s a key thing when a team’s coming in on a backto back. It was important for us to try to get off to a good start. Now, I’m like I said earlier, 16 seconds in. You don’t see that very often, but um I think it gets the crowd into the game too for a 5:00 game where normally it isn’t quite there yet like it would on a 8:00 Saturday night start. Um but anyways, like I said, I I just felt they after that goal went in, we did enough on the checking side to allow us to win the game. And we’ve seen some consistency in these lines as well. Are you liking what you’re seeing from the combinations? I have. Yeah. Over the last little bit, there seems to be I’ve talked a lot about Naz and Fairy. there’s been some connection between the two of them and and since Jieor has been out there, there’s something with that line. I do like the Frost line. Um they’re a line that I think has made some plays and they’ve been more dangerous than maybe what they’re seeing on the scoreboard. And um the backland line over the last handful of games I feel like is starting to really come around as well. And tonight, even though they played limited minutes, um they were our fourth line or the beacher line was the one line that was establishing a bit of a forch check. And a lot of that had to do with Adam’s size and his great stick, but they were really good for us tonight as well. And it seemed like I believe it’s been about a month since uh Yanka Nets off came up and it seems since then you’ve had a really well- definfined top four defense. It seems like the roles everybody has are really carved out now. What have you seen from him that’s allowed everything to sort of settle out in your defensive pairings? He he’s not trying to be something that he isn’t. That’s maybe the the one thing that I would say about him. He understands his game and he understands what we need out of him. It’s not to be generating offense or up in the rush. He needs to be a guy that’s hard to play against on the defending side. And in doing that, he’s allowing McKenzie to be freed up a little bit more. So, um I I think he’s been one of the best stories for us over the last month and a bit. Um he’s been excellent and it’s been pretty consistent with it. So, I go back to giving a lot of credit to the guys with the Wranglers over the last couple years for making sure he was ready to play when the opportunity came for him. Uh you mentioned like with it being an earlier game time just the crowd maybe not quite as into it. Obviously that Longberg fight helps a lot with that. Just what does that do for your bench as well? Um anytime there’s a situation like that um the bench gets pretty excited for sure. Like Ryan is the ultimate team player when it comes to stuff like that. So we sensed uh we got to shift a little momentum here um because we weren’t generating much of anything. So he did what he did what he does best for sure. [Music]

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