Miami coach Chris Bergeron on Tuesday approached the dais at his weekly press conference appearing to have a point to make to his team.
The good news for the RedHawks out of last weekend’s series at No. 9 Omaha was that Miami (2-5-1) earned a road split against a top-10 team. Still, Bergeron wasn’t exactly over the moon with his team’s compete level at Baxter Arena.
Two goals 19 seconds apart from Matthew Barbolini and Derek Daschke late in the third period Friday lifted Miami to a 4-3 win despite the RedHawks being outshot 35-13. Saturday’s rematch, a 4-1 Omaha win, went more in line with prior form. UNO (8-2-0) was up 4-0 by the time Barbolini scored a power-play goal in the third period.
On Tuesday, Bergeron pointed to bounces that went UNO’s way as the biggest difference between Friday’s result and Saturday’s.
“Yeah, we scored more on Friday, but we got pushed around both games,” Bergeron said. “It’s just a fact. We had 13 shots on Friday. We found a way to win, (and) I believe that the bounces we got on Friday had been earned over the first six games because we weren’t getting many bounces.
“That’s not an excuse. We have to earn those bounces, we have to earn that win, which ultimately we did. Saturday, the first two goals they scored were bounces that they had earned over the weekend, and bounces that worked against us.”
Miami was 0-4-1 in its last five games before beating UNO on Friday. The RedHawks hadn’t been pushovers, though. They had two one-goal losses and a tie with Bowling Green during that stretch, and they scored six goals in that home-and-home series two weeks ago against the Falcons.
Beating UNO marked Miami’s first win since its season opener Oct. 2 at Ferris State, and it’s not like the RedHawks were undeserving of their upset win at Baxter. They blocked 20 shots to UNO’s seven, and Ludvig Persson made 12 of his 32 saves in the third period.
The postgame mood in Miami’s dressing room was buoyant, and Bergeron said his players deserved to feel that way.
“We cannot earn this winning mentality and these winning expectations without winning games,” Bergeron said. “That’s just the reality, and no one’s apologizing for maybe getting outplayed and winning, and the boys reacted accordingly. They were pumped up.
“We’ve been on the losing side in our first eight games more than we want, and it was nice to see them singing the fight song with smiling faces and those types of things.”
Miami faces another, perhaps tougher test this week when the RedHawks play their first two home games of the season against No. 7 North Dakota. UND (6-3) is fresh off a home sweep against arch-rival Denver, and Bergeron wants to see his team’s battle this weekend on par with the RedHawks’ visitors.
“They obviously have some world-class talent at this level,” Bergeron said. “That’s just the reality of it. They’ve got some top-end players, but they fight for the ice, they fight for pucks, they fight for net front like a team that doesn’t have that type of talent, which makes it very, very difficult.
“What we’re going to talk about it is competing, and that’s every individual holding themselves accountable to a certain compete level. That’s where it has to start, and then you talk about process, and then you talk about execution and so on, but if we don’t compete harder than we did last weekend, we give ourselves no chance, and we believe that we can compete much harder, and we will.”
