When a team hasn’t had playoff success, they question sometimes the toughness or the grit of the team. One of the things that we have really focused on… Last year, we brought in Kyle Clifford. He certainly brings that element. This summer, it has been Simmonds, Bogosian… even Thornton, I would put in that class as well, and Jimmy Vesey was brought in as a free agent as well. They play hard and they have a physical side to them, in addition to their talent.
There is so much focus sometimes on bringing in one or two players and the impact they can make. The reality is that if the level of competitiveness and grit — or toughness, as we term it — is going to permeate through the locker room, it is going to be through the maturity of the group that is already there. Our core group, I think, really embracing the fact that this is a wonderful opportunity, if they are willing to sacrifice a little bit in each of their own individual realms — as all young teams with superstar players have to go through — then we will really reach our full potential.
When we talk about it internally and how we are going to bring it out of them, when we talk about toughness with our group, it is very simple the way we define it: If there is a 50/50 puck, do you desperately want to win that puck every single time? Are you willing to be the first one on the puck and go to the difficult areas of the ice with and without the puck and be successful? Are you willing to endure the physical duress that is going to be on you if we are going to go as far as we want to go and do it every single night — through the regular season and, more importantly, in the playoffs — and be able to score the way you need to score in the playoffs and defend the way you need to defend in the playoffs?
That gets built over time. This is Sheldon and I’s first offseason together at this level, and it is something we have done at every other level in the AHL and OHL: Setting the tone in the summer of what the expectations are for the players coming back in. What are the standards in terms of fitness and strength and all of those areas in order to know what is going to be fully expected of the group when they come back?
The reality that we have learned about what needs to change is really in our mindset. A term we have used for our team is that we find we wait. This year, in 2020, I thought what happened was — in Game 1 and Game 5, when we had the opportunity to kind of take hold of the series and go out and grab it, as our talent dictates we should be able to, it was the same thing: We were on our heels kind of waiting to see what would happen in the game rather than going out and attacking the opportunity that was there and forcing the other team to respond to us.
It is one thing we have talked to the players a lot about this offseason. One of the things that we have looked at deeply for why that is: Part of it is maturity, part of it is experience, but both of those things go into the mindset and what the mindset of the group is. We have to stop waiting. We are waiting for our potential just to happen. We have to start going out and exercising that and making it happen, forcing other teams to respond to us.
https://mapleleafshotstove.com/2020/11/29/kyle-dubas-on-morgan-rielly-leadership-and-11f-7d/
