It's great to be playing with my brother at Michigan. We were together at prep school in New Hampshire, went to Chicago in the USHL for two years and now we're here at Michigan. Not a lot of people get to experience playing with your brother but it's good to have a piece of family with you when living away from home.
Luca is a very smart, underrated defenseman. I feel he's smaller in terms of weight (6-0, 183 pounds), and probably needs to put on a little bit more and get stronger, but he has a very good hockey brain. He's a great skater and he's offensive when he can be and has a really good stick, defensively.
I can't even explain how dialed in we are at Michigan. Our upperclassmen are phenomenal guys. Our sophomores are amazing, and we have such a big freshman class and there's so much knowledge to be gained. You can sense winning is a culture thing here and not at the expense of development. The way everything is structured, the way we approach every day is attacking it, getting better, preparing ourselves for the upcoming weekend. We expect to win every game so that's kind of the culture we're building here. I couldn't be happier to be a part of it. We obviously are very hungry to prove something this year and I think our upperclassmen will tell you the same thing in terms of how things ended for them last year.
Interim coach Brandon Naurato has been amazing. He's obviously learning just like all of us, but he's doing a phenomenal job in terms of how to implement the style he wants to play, create drills for us to execute and learn. He's a very smart, very intelligent man, and knows what he's talking about. He has a good control of our room and I'm really excited to see how he can morph our team into something special this year. He played here at Michigan (2005-09), so he knows what it's like. I don't think I've ever seen someone so dialed into video in my life. He's got hard drives on hard drives of video and every situation that whenever you ask him about it, he can pull up NHL clips, college clips, whatever you need.
Finally, as far as personal goals, I'm not really outcome-oriented right now. I'm just focused on the process of trying to be the best player I can be for our team and fill a certain role so that we can accomplish what we want to accomplish. That's the most important thing for me. Hopefully, at the end of the year, we're hoisting a trophy ... that's all that matters.
Thanks for reading this month and enjoy the NHL season!
Photos: Michigan Photography
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