7.
Behind the scenes, Holtz and Green talk a lot, the interim head coach shared. They've had several good conversations, according to Green.
They talk and look at video together, he said, so I asked Green if he could share an example of what type of play he has recently gone over with with Holtz as part of the learning process and why that specific clip was important. If Green remembers correctly, it was a clip from the loss to the Rangers last Monday night.
“I showed him a clip the other day that was just a simple clip the other day of getting open in his own zone to get a pass from his defenseman because his defenseman needed him, and he didn't go there fast enough and now we didn’t get the puck up. Those are split-second decisions that add up over the course of the game of you getting the puck out or not and all of a sudden when you get a puck out and you sprint to get open and want the puck, now your team can play fast and leave the zone. If you don’t do that, then you play in your zone.
“Those are just little habits a player needs to learn, quite frankly and we had that talk, I showed him one clip and I’ve seen him now trying to do that,” Green continued. “He’s not always perfect at it but that’s the fine line between winning and losing. Good players, smart players that you win with, they have those attributes in their game, that no one would ever talk about, or even notice during the game.”
8.
While Green said he doesn’t pay any attention to the outside of what people are saying about the team, I did ask him if he thought that the absence of Dougie Hamilton for the past few months has been talked about enough in terms of the big hole it left in the team's lineup.
And this is not a knock on the players who have stepped in, because they have done an excellent job with their limited experience, but losing a player like Dougie has a major impact that is still felt.
An area that maybe we don’t address enough is how the trickle-down effect of Dougie's absence affects the forwards on the roster. Green explains:
“He knows pressure situations,” was Green’s first point, “Everyone knows about his shot, but you know, it does affect a big chunk of our team whenever you lose a top guy on the back end, it’s going to leave a mark. It’s left a mark on our forwards, being able to have a guy like that that can get pucks delivered into the net. Everyone wants forwards to score, get to the net. There’s a real art to getting the puck into the net, getting the puck on your stick and off your stick and Dougie is one of the best in the league at that.
“That’s one area that I’ve seen, you watch young defensemen when they get into the league, they have a hard time getting pucks to the net,” Green continued. “It’s just that they’re not used to the speed of the players coming out and the willingness of opponents to block a shot is extremely high in the NHL and those are all just the things that you learn as you’re longer in the league. That part of the game we’ve missed, his ability to create offense just by joining the play, I think we’ve missed a lot this year.”
9.
It's been a couple of maintenance days in a row for Jack Hughes. Yes, Jack has dealt with his injuries this season, but taking maintenance days, when you play as many minutes and hard minutes, as Jack does every night, what is it that they say? Rest is a weapon.
Staying off the ice allows him to conserve a different type of energy that you don't necessarily get in the same way when he's working out in the gym and when a player takes a maintenance day, it doesn't mean they're at home putting their feet up either. They're around, in meetings, possibly getting their regular treatment, they're just not on the ice.
It's not uncommon. Ondrej Palat has had stretches where he's taken a few maintenance days, he's an older player who from time to time also benefits from staying off the ice. It's all about managing the regular grind of a season, especially as we approach the final run of the regular season.
Travis Green brought up a good point about it when he talked about Timo Meier having taken a maintenance day a couple of weeks ago. He said you also have to remember that not only are these maintenance days about giving the body a break during a long regular season, but the season is also at the point where games start to feel more like playoff games with teams playing either desperate to stay in contention, fight for seeding or gearing up, elevating their game to head into the post-season on a good feeling in their game. The intensity rises and those breaks for your body are extra valuable.
10.
By the way, Meier has reached 21 goals this season, cracking the 20-goal mark for the sixth time in his career. That makes him just one of three Swiss-born players to reach 20+ goals six times in league history. He’s tied with Kevin Fiala, who sits at 23 goals this season with the LA Kings, and one season behind Winnipeg’s Nino Niederreiter, who has seven seasons of 20-plus goals and is currently sitting on 18 goals this season.
I don’t imagine it will be too long until you can add Nico will join those fellow countrymen on the list:
He’s up to four, including this season where he’s at 22 goals and counting.