Mark Johnson Hard Quotations

The toughest thing about the Frozen Four is getting in, and now we've got in, and you might as well go up there and try to win it. This opportunity isn't guaranteed every year. Hopefully we'll be back there consistently over the years to come, but it takes a lot of hard work.

I hope it means a lot to the team. It's the first time in the history of our program that we've won a championship. It's a credit to our players and a credit to the players that have been here in the past. ... It's a nice piece of hardware to have, but the prize at the end of the journey is bigger than that.

In the first game, the puck went in real quick. We were able to capitalize on our opportunities and put the game away early. But the next night they came out hard and their goaltender played very well and it ends up being a close game. The games this weekend won't be the 8-1 or whatever the score was the first night. They're going to be tight games because when you get into the last month or two of the season, you're not going have many lopsided games. Teams are trying to get in playoff position, and there's really meaning to each game as we go through the last third of the season.