This interview was conducted Friday, Dec. 13
Let’s start with David Bonderman and what he meant to you. I think we understand what he meant to the franchise, but maybe what he meant to you?
I honestly knew nothing about him before the organization reached out about talking to me about the position. When that happened, you know, you call people you trust, and my brother-in-law worked at GE for a lot of years, and I called and said, ‘Dan, ever heard of a guy named David Bonderman?’ And he said, ‘I've never met him. We've traveled kind of in the same circles. His reputation is outstanding for what he does and just as a person.’
And so I came in, did the interview, got to spend some time with him then. I wish I got to know him more and have more time to get to know him. He's just a terrific man, full of humility and generosity. For someone with his stature, it was just incredible how he presented himself and treated others. He’ll be deeply missed by all his family and friends and our entire organization.
What should our fans know about ownership in general and what it means to a franchise?
I think solid ownership goes a long way toward building a solid franchise. And I think the good thing from our standpoint, is the secession plan was already in place. Samantha Holloway has been here working with us for multiple years. Sam invested in the team with her own money, so the transition on the hockey side with David's passing is going to be seamless,
It's a very sad time for our organization, but I think the fans should know that (David Bonderman) was a guy who cared passionately about this market and bringing an NHL team to this market. He'll certainly be missed, but from an organizational standpoint, he's left us in a good spot, and we'll continue to build and try to honor his legacy with a successful franchise.
Let's talk about the team now and the progression it's been on. Through your eyes, what do you see? As we tape this at a good time, but it's a progression, and where do you see the team is at right now?
Yeah, it's been a rocky up-and-down start to the season. I don't think it ever helps when you lose one of your top defensemen in Vince Dunn for six weeks. It certainly doesn't help when you lose your captain in (Jordan) Eberle for three months. But you know, the guys have been resilient. They've continued to work and battle through. It hasn't been easy.
We had that home game against Anaheim, and then we lost right after Thanksgiving in San Jose, and home against San Jose, and then we're heading on a tough road trip, and you're looking at it thinking,’ We have some work in front of us.’ But Dan and the staff and the players did a good job of resetting, and we had a very good road trip going 3-1-0 and we had a chance even to get a point in the fourth game in New Jersey. Now we've come home and got three or four points so far in the homestand. More importantly, I just like the way we're playing in the last two weeks. That's more our identity. We’re rolling everybody. We're working hard, we're battling hard, we're finding ways to win hockey games, and that's what we have to do every night.
Coaches lay out the plan and organize everything, but as you know, it's up to the players, right? So, what do you think happened starting with the win in Carolina? Creep into the team’s mindset a little bit for the fans. What do you think happened there to draw this out of them?
Yeah, the beauty of playing in the West is you get a lot of time on an airplane, so you get a lot of time to talk. Dan spent a lot of time talking with his coaches on the flight. We talked a little bit at the end, and, I said, ‘let's get to the hotel, check in, and let's sit and just have a beer and talk about things.’ Some of the things we talked about were revisiting what we're doing systems-wise. I thought we got a little bit sloppy in those games leading up to Thanksgiving and that road trip.
So, Dan and his staff had a meeting before practice the following day. They went back over system stuff. He said the dialog was really good with the players and understanding what we needed to do and how we needed to play. And we made some roster adjustments. Maybe that opened up some eyes.
But I thought the game in Carolina was one of our best games of the season. We came out right from the start and we were skating and hustling and playing the system well, and playing it hard, and you win a game like that, It gives you confidence. Then you go into Long Island; you win another one. The New Jersey game was tough because when you look at scheduling, (the Devils) had played Monday, we had flown across the country, played Tuesday, traveled up to New York, played Thursday, and now we're playing Jersey on Friday. So, three games in four days for us, and they hadn't played since Monday. And Monty would love to have that one back, where he has the wide-open net, and it slides past the post, but if we do that, we at least get the point of that. You always want to win a hockey game, but I'm happy with the effort we had that night and the way we played. And then in New York, it was a little bit of a circus in the morning with Joey (Daccord) being sick and signing the amateur tryout goaltender, our guys fell behind early, but found a way to compete and battle back and win a hockey game. So, I like the way we're playing, more importantly than anything else at this point.
Some hard decisions have been made this year with younger players and veteran players in and out of the lineup, just take us through that thought process. It's not something that somebody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘oh, we're going to take this player out,’ there's things that lead up to it. Those are big moments that have worked out this year.
Yeah. I mean, probably the biggest one is Shane Wright, right? Here's a kid that has a lot of eyes on him, a lot of pressure on him. I thought he came into training camp and was a different player. I just really liked the way he was skating and handling the puck and playing and confidence in his game. He started the season well for us, and then as things get going, and you get into November, things kind of sometimes get a little bit more of a grind, especially for younger guys, and we thought his game was sputtering a bit. So (what) we wanted to do was try and have a reset, right?
Look at the options you have. If you send him down to the minors, that probably doesn't help because it affects his confidence. So, we talked about doing a reset. We pulled him out and had him watch three games. In the first period of the first game, he sat between myself and (head of player development) Jeff Tambellini in the press box and watched. Jeff has worked with these guys as they come up through the system in player development. So Jeff was working with him on a shift-to-shift basis, and now and then, I would throw my two cents in. And at the end of the period, he thanked us for the opportunity, and I just made mention to him ‘hey, let's not make this a common thing. Let's get out there and do the things you can do, and you'll have success.’
We put him back in the game in Anaheim. It’s a little thing, but it was a building where he had success last year. He scored two goals in the game in Anaheim last year. Sure enough, he scores a goal, and I think that's helped boost him. And you see the talent that he has. When he's skating, when he wants the puck, and when he's shooting the puck, he can be a force. He's really starting to build some nice chemistry with Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eeli Tolvanen, and he's playing really well.
Having said that, he's still 20 years old and doesn't turn 21 till next month, so we have to handle him the right way, and I think you do that with all your players. You try and try and look at the big picture and do what's best for them. Maybe sometimes they don't see that in the moment. But to Shane's credit, he's been very understanding and very positive throughout this whole process over the past few years, and I think it's starting to pay dividends now.
It gets to a level of accountability, though, right? That's important; I guess that more or less goes to the veteran guys who have been taken out of the lineup, right? It's a message for them, but it's a message for every player, too.
No, hey, we're a team, and everybody is expected to pull their weight. And if the coaching staff, or discussions that I have with Dan, we don't feel that that's happening, you try and work with players. You try and show them things, whether it's video or things on the ice, that might help them. But there are times where you have to make the tough decisions and say, ‘you know what? We're sitting him out.’ And sometimes watching a game from up top and sitting out helps a guy sort of get back in the mode of ‘okay, I know what I need to do, and I'm going to go out there and work a little harder and get it done.’ We've had to do that a few times this year. It’s not something you like to do, but accountability is a big part of a successful hockey team and knowing that your teammates can count on you is important to having a winning team, and that's what we're trying to establish here.
Last time we did this, we talked about the why of the most prominent free agents that you signed in the summer, Montour and Stephenson. So now we get to what you've seen, and they’ve certainly now done. Montour has been unbelievable, and Chandler Stephenson, quietly, has put together, I think, everything you want.
Yeah, you lose a guy like, like, Dunn and now all of a sudden, Monty's playing 26 minutes a night. He's been great from day one - the way he skates, the way he joins the rush, the way he competes and drags other guys into it, he doesn't back down from anyone. That's been a great addition, not only on the ice but how he handles himself in the locker room and off the ice has been outstanding as well.
And we're finally seeing in the last handful of games what our D can look like with Dunn back in the lineup slotted in with ‘Lars’ (Adam Larsson), (Jamie) Oleksiak and Montour, and (Ryker) Evans and (Will) Borgen. We have no problem putting any of those three pairs on the ice against anybody. And it's interesting, we can match up different ways whether it's against a speed line or a bigger, heavier line, we can match up our D pairs in that regard. It gives us much more flexibility. Monty has been a huge addition to that front.
And then, Chandler just does everything well. We ask him to play five-on-five and produce offense. He's done that. We ask him to kill penalties. He's done that. We asked him to be on the power play. He's done that. For important faceoffs, he's the guy that goes over the boards for our coaching staff and our team in those situations, so really good additions that both those guys have been to our hockey team.
Last time, you told us that you were interested in seeing how Coachella Valley would perform with a younger lineup. So, how are they performing? And what can you tell us about that situation?
It's been a good year. They've had a little bit of a tough time here lately; they've lost three tough ones. They were battling neck and neck with San Jose for second in their division, and they lost 1-0, 2-1, and then last night in a shootout all against San Jose. So, I think they're still sitting in fourth, but the young kids – the AHL is a really good league - and you got Eduard Sale playing in it at 19, he still could be playing junior; you got Jani Nyman in there and (Jagger) Firkus in there, and (Niklas) Kokko in net. There are a lot of really young pieces that are in that lineup, but they're performing well, and they're holding their own. It gets tough this time of year, during the holidays, you see the young kids kind of dip a little bit, but then you get to January and February is usually where you see that big step that they take moving forward. I think Derek Laxdall and the staff have done a very good job down there with the entire team, not just our young guys, and they're trending in the right direction. Very positive on that front.
Speaking of Kokko, it's always intriguing to look at goalies at that level because of his age. How's he progressing?
He's been great; he won his first six games. I love the kid’s confidence. His first game he's in there, he's got a two-goal lead. The puck gets dumped in. The other team has pulled the goalie out. Kokko knocks the puck down, and instead of just leaving it for his defense, he's trying to score a goal, his first game in the AHL, and he's trying to score a goal, (laughing). It gets knocked down at the blue line and ends up in our net at 6-5, but he hangs on to win the game. But just the confidence…and he did it last year in the top league in Finland, getting all the way to the Finals and being his team’s backstop. So, we think he's got a real bright future for us, and we’re making sure that we're not rushing him, or giving him too much, too quick. He's getting a good workload there, and he's performing well. So that's been good to see.
World Juniors will be in North America (Ottawa), which is good. People can watch it at a reasonable time. Tell us about the Canadian camp and what's on the agenda here.
We have three guys in the camp. Carson Rehkopf played on the team last year. We're hoping he can make it again this year. The team has two exhibition games, and the first exhibition game was yesterday. They played him at center. He had a good performance with three goals in that game. And today, they've got him scheduled on the top line with (Calum) Ritchie as a center. So, we think that's a positive. You never know until they pick the team, but we're hoping he can make it again.
Berkly Catton, our first-round pick last year, is having a strong camp, playing along (Porter) Martone, who will be one of the top picks in this year's draft, and (Gavin) McKenna, the young phenom in the Western League. So that bodes well for him.
And then, our guy (Caden) Price on the back end is in camp. It was great that he got an invitation. I think going in, he was on the bubble. I think he's still on the bubble. We had our guys at the game yesterday and thought he played well, so there's a chance he makes the team, which would be great getting three guys on Team Canada, but we have to wait and see how that goes.
In addition to that, we're going to let Eduard Sale go from Coachella Valley back to the Czech team in the tournament. Our seventh-round pick last year (Jakub) Fibigr is invited to (Czechia’s) camp. I think he's on the bubble, but he's got a chance of making it. So, potentially two more guys there.
With Finland, we'll have Julius Miettinen (center) and goalie Kim Saarinen playing there. And then we would have had Visa Vedenpaa there, but he is dealing with an injury and his timeline to return is uncertain. He'll be fine moving forward, but otherwise, we think he would have been there. And then, (Zeb) Forsfjall will be with the Swedish team as well. So, a lot of pieces in the system and these guys, other than Sale, still aren't even at Coachella Valley yet, but to have that many people potentially in the World Juniors bodes well for the job our scouting staff has done.
*NOTE: after this interview, Price, Rehkopf, and Catton were all named to Team Canada
That's great. I heard an interview last week with Catton, and he said he's trying to round out his game at the junior level. Fans might hear that and say, what's he talking about? What’s involved there? And then, as he makes the progression to professional whether it be in the American League or in the National Hockey League, it's another step that way. You were a great defensive player in your day. For a younger guy, when he says that, what's going through his head? What's he trying to accomplish?
Well, it's interesting because I heard the same interview, and then I went to our player development guys, and I was like, ‘Hey, you guys got to be proud, the kid’s repeating (what you’re telling him),’ snd they said that's not us, that's his coach. His Junior coach wants him to work on that. So that just shows you what the kid is all about. He's listening to his coach. He's trying to do that.
In Junior, you put up offense - that's great. But when you get to the NHL, if your coach can't trust you in the defensive end, you're not going to get ice time. So, it's important that he sees that in his game and is listening to his coach and working on it. From our standpoint, the big thing we're trying to work on with him on is just getting faster. At his size, he thinks the game extremely well, his skill set is good, and he skates well, but we want to find that extra half a step in his game by getting his legs stronger. That's the stuff our staff is trying to work with him over the course of the season. And he's a terrific kid. He's bought in. He's doing everything that he's asked, and I think last time I checked, he was third in the Western League in scoring. We still think he's got a very bright future for our organization moving forward.
So, with the holidays, if you had one wish for your team, one thing you'd like to see: more of the same? Is there something else? Another step you'd like to see the team make as we approach the second half of the season?
You always wish for a team to be healthy because I think when we're healthy, we have a chance to beat anybody. So that's number one. And then two, I like to see the way we're playing now. I'd like to see that continue, and I like the fact that we're having some success because, as a player, you work really hard, and you like to get results. You want to feel good about your game and your team. And I think we're getting to that point. It's not going to be easy. Our schedule is tough here again for the next month, but then we sort of get a little reprieve in the schedule where it gets better for us. But keep doing more of what we're doing and finding a way to rack up points.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
