TALKING POINTS: Hitchcock on lineup changes, Petrovic and more

Q:What are your thoughts on Alex Petrovic and what he can bring to this group and maybe help upgrade your depleted D core right now?
A:I don't know much about him. I've coached against him a couple times but he wasn't on my "look see" list on the teams I was responsible for. I know he's a local guy and has a lot of friends on the team. He's obviously well known in the area, played in Red Deer. I don't know much about him right now. He's a defending defenceman that makes a good first pass. For us, size matters in this conference and his competitiveness and aggressiveness is certainly going to add to the third pair.

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TALKING POINTS: Hitchcock on lineup changes, Petrovic and more
A: I said this yesterday. One of the things with our team is, this is a veteran conference and there's a lot of veteran teams. You've got to be strong down the middle of the ice. Now we play another team that's arguably one of the top two teams in the conference (Winnipeg) and they're strong as heck down the middle. We've opted to put our top three centres and have them drag some people along and improve their games on the walls.
Late in the game or period we can always pop one of those centres up on the left side with somebody but for us to continue to grow with the young guys we've got playing, we've got to drag more people along. Those are our three best players and we've got to pull people along.
Two of the last three games against experienced teams have taught us some great lessons. You've got to be deeper than a line and a half if you want to win in this division and conference.
Q: Getting another defenceman. Is that your or Peter's number one priority with the two defencemen that have been out as opposed to getting more scoring?
A: It's the hole right now caused by the guys that are out. It's trying to fill the hole. If you're going to continue to collect points you have to defend. That team last night was a real eye opener. That's a weighty team, four lines deep, size up front like crazy. You're going to have to have size. You can't skill your way out of a team like that.
That's the one thing we've been guilty of. You get that with young groups.In this conference you can't skill your way through games you've got to work your way through games. If you look at the first half, the scoring chances until 7-8 mins left in the second period, both teams were trading. They scored on theirs a lot and we only scored in the first period. That's not how we're built. We can't play like that. Bringing in a guy like Alex will help us. We're going to be a lot sturdier.
Q: Can I ask you too about Khaira playing on the wing with Connor now? Why JJ?
A: This is the wrong league to be learning on the fly. We're going to work with him every day playing centre but it's a new position. We're finding he's getting pressure from both side. As a winger you know it's coming from one side. We've liked his game so much on the wing because he's breaking ahead of the play, putting so much physical pressure on people.
We like him at left wing. We need him at centre but have opted to go this way to try to help us. We're willing to adjust but in saying that, we've got to get more players on the wall helping us in more situations. We're trying to give them all a chance to do that.
Q: How do you find a balance in a time like this where the team has dropped five straight in adding urgency but telling the players not to do too much at the same time?
A: A wise old guy named Gainey told me something. He said you have to make a decision in this league. You either have to coach or you have to just want to win. If you just want to win you won't last long. These are coaching moments. Teaching moments. I know this might come across to people in a funny way but I like a lot of the things we're doing. I don't like the fact that we're trying to skill our way back into games rather than work our way like we were earlier. That's maturity. We're trying to get this team to grow up quick.
This is a very mature conference. A lot different than the East. This is not effort based. It's my job to point out the difference between working and doing the proper tasks there and trying to play with too much skill to get back into games. When you play with skill that's too much risk and we're not built that way. When we get down a goal or down two goals we try to break it wide open and now we're down three or four goals.
These are nothing but teaching moments. I'm like everybody else, I'm very emotional after the game but when I showed up today a little earlier than normal, this is teaching time. That's what we did on the ice and that's what we'll continue to do.
Getting angry at people or emotionally disappointed, that's not my job. My job is to bring hope and coach. I learned a long time ago I need to figure out the difference if I wanted to last long.