Mike Schafer Year Quotations

I know that our guy got off to a real slow start. Through the course of the year, his numbers got much better. He wasn't going to match (last year's) numbers ... the numbers he put up last year were pretty amazing.

Dan had a lot of injuries last season, and we hope he remains healthy this year because he could be one of the better defensemen in the league, ... Evan has improved defensively, and it is a brand new year for the guys on our defense.

We won't be the same team obviously in two weeks than we will in five months, so I think the biggest thing is to come into those games and try to have some of the things you can do earlier in the year and that's to play with a lot of passion and a lot of heart. Those are kind of the overused terms in sports, but I think that there's a certain will that we're going to have to have to win games early on in the year.

We've lost two very durable and consistent hockey players that both have a great work ethic, ... Downs was very versatile and went up against the opponent's top line every night, and Cook did a great job providing offense, but we return six guys that played last year in some way shape or form.

Obviously, it is very comforting to know that David McKee returns, ... Having David back gives us a real solid base to build our team around. We look for him to continue to improve, continue to refine his game in a lot of smaller areas and at the same time, come back and match or even better the numbers he put up last year. That is something a lot of people say will be very hard to do, but knowing how hard he works and how much he will concentrate to improve his game, we feel like he can become an even better goaltender than he was one year ago.