Helping players acquired before NHL Trade Deadline fit in

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2022-23 regular season by former NHL coaches and assistants who will turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. Phil Housley and Mark Recchi will take turns providing insight.
In this edition, Housley, a Hall of Fame defenseman who coached the Buffalo Sabres and was an assistant with the Nashville Predators and Arizona Coyotes, discusses how coaches help a new player fit in after he's been acquired before the NHL Trade Deadline.

Among the teams that are getting geared up for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, there are some that have established themselves as teams that are going to try to make an impact or foresee a deep run. Those teams are trying to add players before the 2023 NHL Trade Deadline at 3 p.m. ET on March 3 to create depth and maybe spark the team toward the end of the regular season as they head into the playoffs.
When you look at Vladimir Tarasenko being traded by the St. Louis Blues to the New York Rangers on Feb. 9, and Ryan O'Reilly being traded by the Blues to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday, deals like that add tremendous excitement. It shows that your ownership group and upper management are committed to the team and want to give it the best possible chance to win the Stanley Cup.
As a player, that's all you want.
How that plays out remains to be seen, but that's part of what the coaches need to do to get everybody focused and going in the same direction.
There's a lot of different variables that go into adding a player into the lineup. Is it a role player? Is it an impact player, a highly skilled guys that is going to need some minutes to feel comfortable?
There's also a lot of things people don't see the behind the scenes, such as what kind of family the new player has. If the player has children, you've got to get new doctors and new schools if the kids are going to move into the new city.
And there are little things you might take for granted such as how to get to the charter plane. I'm sure the other players will help with that. The locker room has its own way to make the new player feel comfortable.
As far as the coaching staff, the head coach will probably want to talk with the new player about the team and make him feel comfortable and probably ask him some questions not only to try to get to know the person but try to create a relationship in a short amount of time.
With seasoned veterans such as Tarasenko and O'Reilly, you know what they've done.
You've probably watched a little bit of film on the player before he gets to the team, but a lot of people know those players and what they're capable of, so I think those things are easy.
The assistant coaches will sit down with the player and go over things systematically. You're going to run through some clips with him to make him feel comfortable. What are we doing on the forecheck? What do we do when we don't have the puck in the neutral zone or in the defensive zone?
It's important that the player understands what's being done in all three zones, but you don't want to give them too much information too soon because you want them to feel free to play.
It's just making the new player feel comfortable and putting him with the right people. That might take a couple games, but the teams that make these moves earlier before the trade deadline give the players more time to get accustomed their new surroundings and that can really help them get adjusted.
At the same time, adding a new player sometimes means that a player already on the team will need to shift into a different role. Those are all little adjustments that you'll have to sit down with the other players and explain, "We've got a new player that's going to add depth and that's going to add scoring, a guy that's going to take up a lot of minutes."
It's true that sometimes the chemistry doesn't work the way you thought it was going to work because of what they've been accustomed to on their previous team with the minutes that they played and the role that they had. But for the most part, I think players get it and understand that this is a guy that is proven in the League. Maybe this means I get slotted down a little bit lower in the lineup, but maybe I'll get more favorable matchups.
For example, you look at Phil Kessel with the Pittsburgh Penguins when he got moved down to the third line with Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin. That line scored some of the biggest goals during those deep runs the Penguins had when they won the Stanley Cup in 2016 and 2017.
So, as a coach, you need to sell that to the player about why we traded for this player. I think it's an easy sell because you look at the big picture as a player and you go, "We really could go make a big run. You never know where this is going to take us."
I think he will understand, and the players will rally around those guys. If they have a huge impact in the playoffs, they are going to complement each other.
Look at the deal before the deadline last season when Artturi Lehkonen was traded from the Montreal Canadiens to the Colorado Avalanche. You might have thought Lehkonen wasn't going to be such a big piece for the Avalanche, but everybody was slotted into the right spots, and he had a huge impact on their Stanley Cup run.
It's getting those pieces to the puzzle that fit and work. Sometimes it's not as easy as it looks, and the chemistry just doesn't click for some reason.
But that's part of the GM's and the coach's jobs to make sure they give them the best possible opportunity for success, so the pieces fit.