Down on the Farm: Checking in with Iowa head coach Tim Army

The Iowa Wild are off to a great start this season, which means it's a good time to check in with Iowa head coach Tim Army in the latest edition of Down on the Farm, presented by Just Bare.
The "Baby Wild" are currently 7-3-1 and sit in second place in the American Hockey League's Central Division, just behind the Chicago Wolves.
Iowa will be back in action this weekend when it hosts the Tucson Roadrunners on Friday and Sunday at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. Matt Boldy is expected to make his season debut after missing the past month because of a lower-body injury.

Friday night's game is $2 beer night, while Sunday is the team's annual Toys for Tots campaign, in partnership with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. All those who donate will receive a ticket to a future Iowa Wild home game.
If you're interested in heading south for a weekend of hockey, you can
purchase tickets by clicking here
.
Dan Myers: Just summarize the start to the season and what you've liked from a team perspective here at the beginning of the year.
Tim Army: "I really like the pace the team has played with, and the execution. We've played 11games and we could have won all 11, and that doesn't mean that we didn't make some mistakes in those games, but we've played well enough and we've been in every game."
DM: In terms of your club as a whole, lots of high-end talent on the roster and you've said this is your deepest group of forwards since you've been there. Like the big club, it looks like you have an exciting team that gets contributions from everywhere.
TA: "We've got a lot of good players and they've all contributed, and I think that reflects the depth of our scoring, the depth of our offense. We've gotten good production from the back end and up front. We've got a lot of guys that can generate and produce offense, so I think that's a good reflection of our team."
DM: Right out of the gates, tell me about Marco Rossi and how he's fared in his first month or so of pro hockey here in North America.
TA: "He's played very well. He's subtle. I think the thing that you see in his game is, he'll do some things where you'll go, 'wow,' there's no doubt about that. But for the most part, I think it's the subtlety that makes him such a good player. He just does things really well and he processes really well. He makes plays where he's in the right spot and he makes the right read, and it won't always bring you out of your seat, but it makes everybody better around him. It's his subtlety - and I know that's an odd way to say it - but it's his subtlety that has jumped out at me. And there's moments where he knifed through the neutral zone the other night against Milwaukee, where he went through about three guys in a tight area, but it was just smooth. It was a quick little play where he went right underneath the stick and he was at the other side, then a quick shift and out the other way. Sometimes things happen and you can hear the reaction of the fans. He did that and nobody really reacted because it was just so smooth and so quick that all of the sudden, he was just through. He was caught in a tight area, then he was just through it and the ice opened up, but he just did it so smoothly and quickly that it didn't really register what he had just done. That's what I mean when I say he's subtle."
DM: You got a bit of a peek at Nick Swaney last year, but he's come out of the chute firing this year with seven goals in 11 games. What have you liked about him?
TA: "The reason why Swaney is producing is because he plays in the guts of the game, that's why he produces. If you don't want to get to the guts of the ice, you won't produce, and that's at every level but specifically once you turn pro. If you want to play on the perimeter, you're not going to produce, it's just not going to happen. Some of the reports I got out of Swanes [coming out of the University of Minnesota Duluth] was that there were some questions about his skating. And I had never really seen him but for a couple of the excerpts from those championship years at Duluth. But he gets around really well. When he first got here last year, we were really surprised at how well he gets around the rink, with his mobility as well as his ability to pull away. He's very smart, he does things consistently and he listens and learns, tries to do things right. Has a great shot and a nose for the net and he'll shoot it. He's got a shooter's mentality. But the biggest thing for me is, being smaller in stature, he plays inside the hard areas and that's why he produces."
DM: Connor Dewar and Adam Beckman got a taste of the NHL earlier this season. How have you seen them respond since getting back to Iowa?
TA: "With Becky, he came into prospect camp and had a great camp and had a great training camp, making a great impression on everyone in the organization, particularly Dean [Evason] and the coaches. You look at the growth in his game over the past 10 months [going back to last year] and it has been marked, in so many areas. It's been tremendous. He's dynamic offensively, and like Swanes, he's a shooter. When it's there, he's shooting first and asking questions later. A lot of guys, they're looking for the pretty play, but not those guys. They just want to get the puck to the net. His overall game, his 200-foot game and his play away from the puck has improved tremendously, and that's why he had a good camp and why he's continued to play well. It was good for him to see [what the NHL] was like, how competitive it is, how good the teams and the players are. He's come back and it has been such a positive, he's full of energy.
"With Connor, he just continues to play outstanding hockey. He's an outstanding hockey player, and his growth here in three years, from being a healthy scratch his first three games here in 2019 to now, really establishing himself as a center and drawing the toughest assignments on a nightly basis with the opposing team. He's drawing the toughest assignments and he's producing, and he can produce 5-on-5. His game away from the puck is impeccable. He kills penalties, he plays power play, he plays in all situations. He continues to evolve into a very well-rounded center-iceman who makes other people better around him."
DM: It was announced on Wednesday that Matt Boldy is healthy again and could debut this weekend for you. With how well your group is playing right now, you have to be excited to jot down line combinations right now:
TA: "I'll stress this, because I don't want to be taken the wrong way: where I think Marco's genius is his subtlety and his ability to make everyone better and to find open people, Bolds beings you out of your seat. He does things that way. He came on the ice last week for the first time and we were doing something we call the Breakfast Club (extra skills work before practice). He came out and we're working some offensive zone stuff, and the first time he gets the puck, he grabbed it, pulled it, never dribbled it and bar-down, and everybody was hooting and hollering. He's got that sort of element to his game. And that doesn't make him better than Marco, and I don't mean it like that. His game just sort of brings you out of your seat. But both are equally brilliant hockey players."
DM: Fans up here have also been wondering about Alex Khovanov, who hasn't played this year but is viewed as a potential NHLer one day. I know you haven't been around him too much yet, but where is he at right now?
TA: "It's his conditioning base, ultimately, and rediscovering his game. We've got guys ahead of him right now, there's no sugar-coating that. We've got a lot of guys that are ahead of him, and he's got some work to do to catch those guys, number one. That's the reality of it. We talked about Marco, and Swanes, Boldy, [Mason] Shaw ... we haven't talked about [Mitchell] Chaffee, [Damien] Giroux, we haven't talked about [Will] Bitten and all of them are ahead of Khovanov on the depth chart here right now, and that's the reality of it. But he's been great here, he's just not ready to play yet. It's going to be a process, but does he have the ability to do it? Absolutely. He's got the skill set. He's got a great mind for the game, great stick, can score, sees the ice, so there's no question about his ability. You just need to watch him to see it. But he's gotta get himself to a conditioning level so he can get into the lineup here and that can give him the opportunity to have success and play at the pace we are throughout the league. So that's what we're working on, getting his legs back and getting his conditioning base back so he can compete. It's going to take time and we're not going to rush it, it's going to take time. It's a work in progress ... but in the time he's been with us, he's been great. Great kid, he's putting in the work on the ice, he's doing the extra work, he's been working hard in the gym. His focus has been really good, and I think he's happy again. But we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, he's gotta continue to work on that conditioning base."