The blog server appears to be working today, so I’ll give this whole posting thing a go. Don Fulton tracked down coach Mark Morris, whose Manchester Monarchs are in dire straits, down 3-0 to Providence and facing elimination tonight. Don also has an interview with Jeff Zatkoff ready to go. Here’s what Morris had to say about the Monarchs’ situation:

On being down 3-0 in the series.

“We’ve gotten great goaltending from both Bernier and Quick, and I don’t think we have to hang our heads at all. We had those two goals disallowed (in Game 3), that in our opinion, were both good goals, and we didn’t have a whole lot of things go our way. I really believe that we are really on the verge of winning any one of those games. These are the types of battles that are going to make these guys better hockey players.”

On the absence of Brian Boyle:

“That was a huge blow. Brian is such a physical presence, guy who played half the season as a defenseman and still lead the league in rookie scoring. I can’t say enough for what he has meant to our hockey club. There aren’t too many 6-7, 250-pound people that can replace him. He’s been a huge presence in front of the net on the power play, and a good face-off man. He knows how to distribute the puck and he is a hard guy to hold. My guess is that his recovery time is going to be too lengthy unless we are able to turn this thing around.”