Remind me when this was. I'm not recalling this.
“I am hoping to have that breakout year,” Hagg said after one of the training sessions at the camp. “You want to have that breakout year every year. Hopefully, this year it’s finally going to happen.”
Hagg thought it was going to occur last year with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, his second with the Flyers American Hockey League affiliate. Instead, he suffered an injury in the second game of the season, missed a month and didn’t find a groove until the final two months of the year.
After scoring three goals and adding 17 assists in 69 games in 2014-15 with the Phantoms, Hagg finished with five goals and six assists in 65 games.
“I was real happy with the start of the year last. I had a real good [training] camp,” said Hagg, who is considered a puck-carrying defenseman that is solid in his own end. “After that I had a tough year. I couldn’t put it all together. The last two months I finished up good, I thought.”
Hagg expects to pick up in the fall where he left off in the spring.
“He had a tough time last year,” said Kjell Samuelsson, who was one of the coaches at the development camp. “But I think he really came along after Christmas and he did pretty well. I think he is on the right track.”
http://touch.metro.us//sports/flyer...-for-a-break-out-year/zsJpgr---HF0On1aennbo2/
Here is a very long blog on Hagg....ever gives him letter grades by month. Interesting read. With AMac being called up, he saw his icetime increase, and he played better.
http://highlandparkhockey.blogspot.ca/2016/05/the-great-debate-where-does-robert-hagg.html
credit to TonyAndrock for a great article!
Phantoms' Head Coach Scott Gordon:
Basically for four or five months, his idea of transition was getting the puck and going for the home run play at the far blue line, waiting for options to materialize that never materialized. The pressure was coming to him and he was retreating back into the zone and my conversation with him throughout the year – this isn’t Europe. When you play in a bigger rink you have the opportunity if you don’t like it, to take it back. Because the rink is bigger, the forwards have more room to move around. The seams are bigger, the spacing is different and there’s more things you can make happen not just from a possession standpoint but how the pressure comes from the opposition. European hockey is a lot more patience on the fore-check. So what I said to him is that you’re playing like you are over in Europe that you have all that time and space. Then what’s happening when you don’t get your option you have cornered yourself so you can’t make a play. And then you’re making a last ditch effort, icing the puck and then you’re stuck in your zone which in turn means you can’t play in the offensive zone. You’re playing tired because you needed a change.
The whole thing snowballed from what he was doing with the puck. Combine that with shots getting blocked and coming right back at him. He’s now playing more in the offensive zone because of his decisions with the puck to make the easier 10-foot pass than to try to go for the 120-foot pass. As a result, there is less turnovers and he’s getting up into the play. You pass from the goal line to the far blue line you can’t be a part of the attack. Put that all together and that’s where he is today.
. This place is already tough to begin with.
