Player Discussion Ondrej Kase

[MrazeksVengeance]

As a sign of goodwill, I will share with you a translation of the Czech equivalent of Players' Tribune article about Kaše I have translated for Ducks in the past.


EDIT Ninety minutes later I have actually made some corrections for the first time since I have translated the article two years ago.
Should make it more pleasant to read.

***

Last Generation

I don't even remember which team that was. Náchod? Dvůr Králové? Definitely Eastern Bohemia. Since I was little I always played for older categories, but on one tournament of 4th graders, I played for my age category.

In that tournament, I was on a breakaway four times.

Which I converted into four goals.

I did the same thing four times.

Fake, switch to backhand and bye. Goaltender just stood still, he always completely froze. Us right-handed players have a general advantage of shooting backhand to the blocker side where they can't cover as much space. Martin Procházka, Radim Vrbata... and many other players with stick to the right side made a splash in a hockey world thanks to perfectly executed backhand deke.

My dad always gave me Martin and Radim as an example. I had been watching videos of their shootouts, picking up details. How are they so successful, even though everyone knows, what's coming.

In November 2016 just before the eighth series of a shootout between Anaheim and Islanders, when coach patted my back, that I'm going, I had all those thousands of attempts, when it was just me against the goaltender, in front of my eyes. Including that four-goal match. I didn't hesitate about what I was going to do. This was my deke. My trick. My certainty.

I was sitting next to guys with hundreds of NHL games played and I was playing my fourth game for Ducks. But at that moment it was fourth grade all over again.

Just me and goalie.

"Just don't lose the puck" was going through my mind, when I stepped on the ice. Then I just looked at the net and said to myself what I always did.

"Let's go"

When executing a backhand deke, the fake is the key. You have to be persuasive and bait the goalie, that you are gonna shoot the puck. If you do it just fifty percent, he'll see it. You need to have it in your head as if you are really going to shoot the puck. Then swerve the stick to the other side.

In the peewee league goalies bought everything you were selling. In juniors I kept hearing this won't work anymore, but it did.

Suddenly I was there. In an NHL game.

Let's go.

I believed in myself. I believed in myself a lot. When you are sure, you will score, when you know what you want to do and you feel it's gonna work out, it works out. Some (players) have great, quick hands, but they don't believe themselves. And they are not as successful. I did not doubt. I would do it.

Click to read more...

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

Me, puck and the net. The goaltender is just an obstacle, which I know how to overcome.

Let's go. Show it.

There is this fraction of a second when you are putting the puck from forehand to backhand and you see the goalie go the other way. There is only an empty net in front of you.

Elevate it.

It's beautiful when you are consumed by euphoria for a moment and it just overwhelms you. I was spinning my hand in a celly and screaming of joy. I skated to high five rest of the bench, knowing I did it. Islanders tied the game right after that and eventually won the shootout, but I made the best of the chance I was given. It was the first moment I could show what's in me and I did not fail.

In Anaheim, they saw, that I can play some hockey.

Dad would often hear he forced me and my brother to play hockey. He would jokingly claim that wasn't true. That he gave us a choice. We could play any sport.

If we played hockey at the same time.

Truth be told, we wanted to be like him. He was our role model. At first for me, later for my younger brother too. He never forced us to do anything. He played himself and even though I don't remember his matches, I know, that each and every time I was running around the stadium with the stick in hand watching dad play. When I was three I really wanted to go on the ice, so he got me some skates, thinking I will fall a few times and we'll go home.

But I was caught up immediately.

Just recently I realized how popular dad was. Those, that remember him in Kadaň (home city), say that those were the times when he used to play. They liked him because he came right after he finished military service in Pilsen, which is his home city and then he stayed. Later he played lower league in Germany, where is adored to this day. He played here for mere six years, yet he is the only player with a jersey up the rafters. Not long ago he went there for an exhibition game and just as he stepped on the ice, people went bonkers with joy, even though it'd been years since he left. I could see they held him in high esteem.

That's why it was only natural for me and my brother to follow in his footsteps.

Even when he played in Germany, he was commuting, otherwise, he was the center of Kadaň hockey. He wasn't responsible just for me and brother's growth, but he took care of little hockey players in general, he was arranging and organizing everything he could. Going to preschools with flyers, recruiting players. He was trying to persuade parents that hockey isn't an expensive sport (It is here. But mostly because of corrupt idiots.). Compared to tennis for example.

We played tennis too. They needed to create a league in our city, so they took everyone they could. We were skilled, so we got in. They took three other friends too. We didn't even have a coach, just an older guy who taught us basics. I don't hit my shots with style, but when we were little, we even won some tournaments. Thanks to hockey we could guess where the ball would hit, we had swift start, stamina, strength. Just later, when you could see, who is an actual tennis player, we stopped being able to keep up. To this day we still play some with our dad at least, who never lets us win, even though me and my brother were changing after three games.

He always gloated how unbeatable he is. You can't even imagine, how much it was driving me mad. That just made it so much better, when I finally beat him.

We also play badminton or any other sport for that matter. Thanks to dad, we know the basics of all the common stuff. He always taught us through the game itself. He never took us to the gym, never forced us to run. No, he taught us to play, to come up with different solutions. I didn't even know weights until I was in early juveniles. I didn't need it. Pushups and squats were the only things we exercised. To this day I have no pecs, the same goes for my arms. And I don't feel like it's some sort of weakness for my playstyle. Of course, hockey player needs to be toughened up, to have strength, but he doesn't need people at the pool to turn around when he passes by. If I wanted to be ripped, I would become a bodybuilder. Also for a really long time I was really tiny, well some of us grow slower than others. Even today I still gain four kilos in muscles.

Dad saw that and somehow he knew what really mattered in hockey.

Thanks to him sport defines my life. As a kid, I didn't know computers at all. Brother can use it, while I can't. My girlfriend laughs at me that I am not able to create an Excel table, but it just never was something I took an interest in. Not even video games until a few years ago we bought PlayStation, so we could play FIFA or NHL with my brother.

But nothing holds a candle to our childhood duels in the closed room of our block of flats (that's kind of post-communist thing today, google "panelák").

We made a goalpost out of our table and started doing shootouts against each other. We had a baseball hat as a catching glove, blocker from an old glove and another baseball hat with the brim backward. Both of us were on our knees for better sliding. We had tiny floorball sticks (floorball is like hockey played in the gym for ****ies, I play it myself) and soft foam ball of some kind we found outside. Softer the better, at least we didn't break the window when we hit it by accident. But soft ball kept being stuck in the carpet, so we were smashing it so hard we were making stains.

Our parents just checked from time to time to tell us to lower the volume. We had a great neighbor who never complained, even though we must have made a terrible noise. We were stomping and shouting. When she met us in the lift, she even asked when are we going to play again. On the other hand, we knew that once the clock hits 8 pm, all matches are over.

We were playing the best of five series, each series being five shootouts for me, five for my brother. We had a bracket on a paper on the wall. We always picked teams in the beginning and the loser had to pick one of the other teams in the next round. The winner kept his team. We also played Rock-Paper-Scissors in the beginning to see who would start as Pilsen. Pilsen was our favorite because of dad. May had God had mercy if the one with Pilsen lost for example with Sparta (team from the capital city- Prague, basically equivalent of Maple Leafs). This way we advanced in the bracket until one of was won the title.

My brother is only younger by one year and two months, we were evenly matched. I wouldn't say I had an edge.

Until we started fighting. It was always out of fun, we didn't have real disputes, we have always been tight. Whenever I hear how some brothers give each other beatdown, well that wasn't us. We relied on each other. We were opponents only during neighborhood matches, where we were the top two players picked as captains to chose players for their teams.

We were in a group of boys, who were all living only a few minutes of walking from each other. Mobile phones weren't really a thing at the beginning of the millennium, so we got around every house, rang a bell and asked who can play. We were persuading parents of others, that the other boys will make their homework in the evening, so they can let them play now. When we were little we just played in between the blocks, later we started to play at the stadium, where there was a playground with nets and goals.

I am twenty-two and I feel like, we are the last generation, who did this. Being outside and living for sport. Recently I was in Kadaň with my girlfriend for a walk. It was a beautiful Saturday and we met only four kids outside.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

Four.

Not one more.

Back in our day, there would be someone in every corner. With a stick, with a ball or on the monkey bars. I talk like an old man, but this really drives me mad. After all those kids are losing the best stuff. Sharing experience, moments, when they came home dirty and out of breath, but full of joy from horsing around.

We had it simple, me and my brother. After school, we met with our teammates before the dining room, where the coach was already waiting for us and then he led us just a hundred meters to the rink. After the practise, we had to sit for homework since our parents took school very seriously. They were giving us their best effort, but they also expected us to give our best. We had to set a good example for everyone else. Sometimes we did homework the day it was assigned, during breaks, so we could go outside as soon as we could.

To play.

That's where we received our stickhandling basics. When soft ball is scraping the carpet, or tennis ball scrapes concrete, you have to adjust. You have to take control of the puck, lead it gently. If you miss the goal, you have to run for it to pick it up in the grass behind, so you rather think twice, whether you aim carefully or just hit it.

Today I am going with kids to the rink in Kadaň and they can't dribble (stickhandle) the puck. We have to train it.

We had that every day. Naturally.

We were not even thinking we are training, we just went to play in the yard against each other. It also taught us to take care of one another, because, in Kadaň there are places with greater concentration of... umm... members of problematic group of people (To explain this line properly I would have to explain some historical background of the region he was born in, Czech history in general and Czech approach to controversies). We had two of those in our class. Once they beat up one of the hockey players, so they got the beating back from the rest of us. Some of the older boys had around forty of them waiting outside of the stadium, some of them with truncheons. Coaches and parents had to drive them away.

Even me, someone who had never been a fighting type, had to learn that one shouldn't be scared and handle these situations.

I know exactly how many times dad commended me until older juveniles.

Once.

I decided a match against Sparta in third grade, I really stuck out that day and he showed it to me. Otherwise, he was tough. No, he didn't shout, he rather searched how can we improve to be even better. Another boy scored a goal and his mom and dad congratulated him right at the locker room, how great he was, while me and my brother each scored pair, but dad reminded us that we blew two other chances.

Nice goal, but the deke was redundant in that situation... and here you should have passed.

We always analyzed concluded matches immediately afterward and we still do that to this day. Now even though I play several levels higher than dad ever did, he still sees me through the eyes of a coach. And he is a great coach. He recognizes incredible details in the game. Someone pays for personal coach, I got dad. Thanks to him I know, that he looks at all my matches afterward to see, what should have I played another, better way. Afterward, we call each other and talk about it.

Now that I am in NHL, we have a deal that I write first. Sometimes I am not in the mood, so I just let him know, that not now, that we'll talk later. Tomorrow for example. Dad understands that. When I am not doing well, he can also cheer me up or hype me up. Sometimes I am really happy for his opinion because I know that he is honest with me. When I don't know by my own heart how I actually played, he tells me how it looked.

Dad watches every game of mine like this.

While mom sometimes really needs to go to bed, because she wakes up early in the morning, dad endures seeing every single one of them. He woke up to see every single one, despite us playing most of them at 4 am of Czech time. I don't know how is he going to do it, now when the brother is in North America too. He'll start at 1 am with Philadelphia and he will continue with Anaheim until 7 am. I don't know, he's going to sleep during days I guess.

This just shows his attitude. Even when he didn't coach us, he gave us everything he could. As a child, you don't appreciate it (as you should - you don't say that part in Czech, it's in the context), but you feel it. Also because of this I always took hockey seriously and I never lost enthusiasm.

Throughout my childhood, I also felt that I am valuable, that I can do something, that makes others accept me. We were defeating even teams from big clubs. That makes the game that much more fun. In juveniles, when I went to Chomutov (a bigger city near Kadaň, like 80k), it was supposed to continue this way. I had most points in the preliminary matches, but we played the first six matches of the league itself miserably and the coach took the blame. New one came in and said he didn't care how well are we playing. That he plays the older ones. So I basically wasted a season when I was fourteen.

My peers like Pastrňák or Vrána were game-changers, while I was sitting on the bench. In a year, where I was supposed to take a big step towards an adult career, I totally stagnated. I didn't play at all. I have eighteen games played in stats of that season, but if I played for a significant amount of time in ten of them it's a lot (more than I would have guessed).

I was plodding every weekend across the republic just to freeze under a blanket. And it was really really freezing at some of the venues.

Next year even guys like Dominik Kubalík (played in Switzerland at the time of translation, currently a Chicago Blackhawks' unlikely savior) were stars of older juveniles, while I was beginning in younger juveniles. I was scoring in every match in peewee, oftentimes multiple goals, but at that moment I felt I am learning hockey all over again. I loved it, I always wanted to be that guys they talk about, to be the best, but it was as if I lost that drive. Whenever you fall down as much as I did, it puts you down. No one likes training without playing. Moreover, I felt that my peers I should compare myself to were pulling ahead. I didn't even get near the U16 national team, there was no reason to invite me.

But then dad helped me again.

No, it wasn't some sort of nepotism. He just arranged ice at Kadaň rink at 7 am. Every day before school I went there for almost an hour. And even though I didn't want to wake up every day, he persuaded me every time. Come on...

He was always on the ice with me. Not to drill skating. No, we just played. One one one to train fakes and dekes. Brother came along only on some days, he played for two categories, he had loads of hockey.

When I see some parents today, how they excuse themselves, that hockey is expensive, that they have no time for kids. No, when a parent wants his kid to do some sport, they sacrifice something. They don't sit on a couch watching a movie. They go and they lead by an example

Dad also traveled to Germany twice a week for matches and twice for practice. He also trained peewees. As soon as he finished, he got into a car and drove. The journey was only about an hour, but it doesn't change the fact that he didn't rest much.

But he was there for me. Every day. More importantly, every morning, even though he came home late in the evening.

He didn't come to me saying I should stop with hockey when it's not as much fun as it used to be. That I should do something different. He knew it was in me, I just had to overcome this. And that it would take some pain to prevent me from being stunted.

Soon enough it was coming back.

I don't even know when the greatest breakpoint came, but after Ivan Hlinka Memorial 2013, traditional summer tournament of U18 I had a great feeling about myself. There I came to realize that this just might work. Still, I wasn't that one they talked about, there were others growing for NHL, but I took this that I just might make Extraliga at least. Soon I started in Chomutov A-team and made U20 with players that were one year older.

But obviously things wouldn't work for me just like that.

 

[MrazeksVengeance]

Not long before the championship, we played a tournament in Russia, I was in line with Jake Vrána and David Kämpf. Former already has a Stanley Cup and latter plays NHL too. It worked between us. I felt that I could do well... And then I spent three weeks on the toilet with salmonella. It was from local food most likely. When I got sort of well and played a league match against Slavia (Prague team), I was so weak, I had food poisoning from chicken meat.

Two more weeks out of the window.

I haven't really eaten properly for a month and a half, I lost a terrible amount of weight and even though coaches nominated me, I was thinking about giving up. I didn't even want to go to U20. I hate to go somewhere just to be a makeweight and that's exactly how I felt.

Who do you think talked me into trying it anyway?

Dad, obviously.

He told me to go to the camp and show what I have got. And that if they didn't pick me I would know, I did everything I could. Everything then clicked together that our line was hands down the best one during our preparation in Pilsen. I found out I don't miss kilograms or strength. That I can perform in other ways.

My run during the twenties championship was quite solid, possibly with the exception of the last match, when I was completely out of gas. Illness had to show in some way. Even then I suddenly appeared on the NHL Draft rankings. They even invited me to combine tests, where they invite those who should be drafted in the first three rounds.

So they know about me, I realized.

Maybe I was still weakened after the illness. It probably didn't help, I didn't know much English. But I was still surprised by how the draft reports went. They told me I should be third-rounder or fourth-rounder. I hoped to be in the late second.

Okay, it was more like the third one. Even that'd be nice.

Even the fourth one would be great.

On the second day of the draft when they continue with the second round, my whole family was sitting at home in front of the TV.

Dominik Mašín... Vinnie Karabáček…

Bully, Czech guys are coming, that's great, I was telling myself. During the fifth round, I lost interest. Still not me. I was full of expectations and over time I started to lose hope and with every moment I began to be controlled more and more by despair.

I said I couldn't watch it any longer. I left to go to a friend's place.

Suddenly the agent called. Great, they picked you in the seventh round!

„Hmmmm.“

I was fifth to last.

The agent immediately recognized something's wrong. Later he even admitted, that when he heard me, he was afraid of what'd be with me. I sounded broken and it is true that I felt I really disappointed myself. Yeah, it's just a draft, but I played a year ahead at the twenties and I played there well even after being sick, I played regularly in an adult league and they pick me at the very end?

I am not that good I guess.

Once again I was brought down from great expectations. To add an insult to injury we fell down to the first league (which is actually second after Extraliga) with Chomutov and club didn't let me to NA, because I was under contract. They needed me to get back up.

Okay, so people from NHL will watch me here? A kid from seventh round in the first league?

And I at least hoped to play regularly, that they would build the team around since I am NHL material. The same way they later did in Brno with Martin Nečas (Hurricanes), who played with older guys in order for them to mentor him, while he boosts them with his youth. Instead, I played the third line, while I watched my peers deciding Extraliga matches. I was asking myself, what was wrong.

It went so far, that me and the agent had a meeting with the management. The coach claimed that I am too young, that I need time. That he doesn't trust young guys and he needs to play the older players.

I didn't want "time". I wanted to play.

We were negotiating with Extraliga clubs, they were interested, but it was eventually dropped. The season turned out in a way that twenties were good again and I had great play-off in Chomutov. I made it to the first line and in the barrage (relegation/promotion group between leagues) I was passing to Martin Rýgl on the decider goal in overtime against Slavia. I found him in front of a half-empty net.

At that moment, in play-off and barrage, I showed that I have got it. Me and David Kämpf really led the team.

Even then I didn't believe what my agent said until the last moment. Not until he showed me a paper with NHL contract in the heading in one Prague café.

Wow. So I'll see it after all!

Obviously, I have immediately skipped to the part that showed my pay and counted how many Czech crowns is that. I never played hockey for the sake of astronomical sums of money. But when I had that contract in front of me, I couldn't help it. I didn't care that on the farm I will be paid around seventy thousand dollars and half of it is going to be swallowed by taxes. I looked at the sum of money that would be transferred to my account once I make NHL.

As a nineteen-year-old boy from Kadaň block of flats I saw a number I couldn't even imagine until then.

Me getting signed by Anaheim was obviously a huge event for the whole family. That's probably clear from preceding sentences of this text. It also meant the first validation for my parents that they put me and my brother on the right path. They weren't like many others, who have claimed since forever that their son's gonna play in the NHL (I might be looking too much to it, but it is possibly shot at father of the Devils player Pavel Zacha). I have never heard a thing like that from them in my entire life. Even though we were good, they never bragged about us. They weren't showing off with us. Dad rather reminded us where should we improve.

Who cares you scored twice? Why didn't you score three?

Thanks to this attitude I made the NHL and not those who had their path laid ahead of them.

At the Ducks camp for young players, I fell down badly on the very second day and broke my thumb. I had to undergo surgery. They took care of me, I skated the whole summer, albeit stickless. I was ready for the main camp, but after single practice, I went to the farm.

I wasn't even surprised, I expected it subconsciously.

For the first time, I stayed outside of Kadaň, outside of the panorama of Prunéřov power plant which was just behind the hill and right from the start it was San Diego next to the Mexican border. I had the Pacific ocean just behind my place. Moreover, older players took me under their wings and I could stay with them. They took care of me. I was doing well in the preseason, I quickly felt I wouldn't be dead weight.

In the first match of the season, I was finding my footing, in the second one I was the first star. I had 1+1 and I had the game-winning shootout.

Obviously, it was a backhand deke, what else.

I was feeling awesome. I was feeling as if things finally clicked together. In the half of the third match, I threw the puck into the offensive zone, turned around to change...

And then I remember only passages.

I don't even know, how I got into the locker room. Opposing player wanter to play me and as I was in motion he elbowed me to the head. Clean knockout. They diagnosed me with a concussion and I couldn't do anything. I would have started playing immediately, but even several days later my head hurt a lot. Even the smallest exertion caused me to lose breath. I managed to rest for two weeks, but then I got the blues.

So what did I came here for? Walking on the beach?

I wasn't even enjoying the beautiful surroundings. I was angrily wandering back and forth, I couldn't turn on the TV or even read and every day I was falling asleep with a wish that I would wake up in the morning and feel better. But that was not happening. I was calling my parents and brother with growing intensity while telling them how miserable I am.

In one single moment, my situation turned around again. For a while, I felt like NHL isn't that far, but suddenly here I was with replaying my thoughts about being drafted in the seventh round, spending my first season locked at home and even when I would get better I'd be one hundred percent sent a level lower to ECHL and it will be over. And I might not make it out of there. This might be the end.

I can't do anything. I can't speak English. I have no one here.

I was feeling terrible.

Dad was comforting me even then. That I'd simply rest for this season and I would catch up what I had lost by training in the summer.
When I eventually got better, they gave me another chance in San Diego. They let me play, they wanted to use my potential. I scored again right in the second match while assisting on another one. I flew home with a feeling they like me in the club. It drove to work harder to show up as a leader in the second season. I had great summer training.

Then I got stopped by mumps. (PLEASE VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN.)

I was feeling strongest I have ever been and shortly after I was lying in my childhood room isolated from everyone else not to infect them. I didn't return to America until the middle of October.

But I caught up. Even without preseason matches, I started to play immediately and I jumped right into it. I was adding some after every training. Gym, bike. Always something. I was doing well on ice afterward. I had great teammates. It's wonderful when you play somewhere where they believe in you.

One evening, just when I was watching a movie at home, my phone rang. Our GM called.

Right now, at 9 pm, when Anaheim is playing?

Either something is very wrong, but there is not much to be... is it? Is it possible I'm going up?

With that thought in mind, I picked up the phone.

"Get ready, a car's on the way for you. Tomorrow you are with A-team. I don't know if you are playing right from the start, but you are coming with us" I heard from the headphone.

Wow.

I stuttered something passable for an answer, paused the movie and started running around (a literal translation would be flying) without knowing what I am actually doing. Pack stuff... but what stuff? For how long? What weather? I didn't know what to expect from the call-up. At least I had managed to call mum, who was at that time already at work in Czech, to which she goes early. Immediately after I called on dad's and brother's numbers. We all said to each other beautiful things.

The hotel I was driven to was empty and even though my head was going through a bunch of scenarios, I commanded myself to go to sleep. So that I am full of energy in the morning. At the morning training, there were only a few of us because it was back to back match. No one told me anything officially, but guys welcomed me like: "Heeeeey, first match today, right? You're gonna have fun."

And they were right. My premiere happened right on that day. And against Pittsburgh, the best team in the league. Exactly the type of team against which you want to start your NHL career. Fantasy. During the pre-game warm-up, I was peeking at the other side at Crosby and Malkin... Yes, also from the bench during the game.

Man, that's them! And I'm playing against them!

All the situations in the match felt like an incredible hockey, even more than on the farm. Damn, this would be fun to play. This is beautiful, was going through my head.

I didn't feel like I am out of my league. On the contrary, I was downright enjoying myself, because I was next to guys who were playing on the very best level.
Immediately after the match, I was sent to the farm, but I sensed I had a good showing. And I was right, a few days later I was called up and I stayed for a majority of the season, only at he end I was flying back and forth. But I was in such ecstasy, that I wasn't bothered even a little.

Everything around me was flying by and I was suddenly back in Kadaň with fifty-three NHL matches to my belt, not to mention I played in the playoffs in the first line with Ryan Getzlaf, a guy who won Stanley Cup and two Olympics.

It will work out...

Come, let's play. Let's skate a little.

That was dad's way. No rush. He didn't push to me run around the woods.

No, he rather hyped me up. He was able to give a spark to every activity so that I enjoyed it. So that I did it with joy, without even knowing I am training at the same time. His support got me and my brother where we are now.

Mum plays an important part in our story too. Even though she claimed in the beginning that we shouldn't count on her doing schnitzels all day just so she could freeze at the rink. However, since the first tournament she was taking care and interest if we had our snacks, she woke up an hour earlier to make a pile of toasts and then she was banging the drum in the stands while shouting her vocal cords off. If she could, she never missed any of our matches.

I am an NHL player. Brother has the league within his grasp too (made it as Blackhawk). For us it is a great reward, we're living a wonderful life. But the ones who can feel real satisfaction are our parents. They are the ones who made it possible for us.

The same two people, who used to watch me from the old stands in Kadaň are now sitting in a high-class arena in Anaheim, whenever they fly to see me.

I always know, where they sit. During the warm-up, I look their way, sometimes even on the way to the face-off. Our eyes meet. I used to do it as a little kid and I often saw how dad is shaking his head, because I did something wrong.

Now I see pride in his eyes.

 

[Aussie Bruin]

Awesome stuff, thanks for translating and posting. Another tribute to the greatness and sacrifice of 'hockey parents' and an attitude of appreciation and just being excited to play the game that reminds me of Pasta. Look forward to seeing what Kase can do in a Bruins jersey.

 

[Fenway]

 

[kjpm]

I think he's going to surprise a lot of people. He's a legitimate play driving top six winger who's been extremely snake bitten this year on a bad Ducks team. Just look at his shooting percentage over the past few years - 14%, 12% then 5% this year. He's been unlucky but he makes a ton of stuff happen. I think a lot of folks around here think he's an average 3rd liner similar to Heinen or Bjork based solely on his point totals this year. From watching him play and looking at his underlying numbers, I think you can make the argument that he's the third best winger they have after Marchand and Pastrnak. If he's healthy, he's going to produce.

 

[GoBs]

Is Kase playing Tuesday?

 

[Trap Jesus]

Is Kase playing Tuesday?

We'll know more when he's with the team tomorrow. He's been out with an injury/sickness since Feb 7. Possible concussion.

 

[TCB]

Is Kase playing Tuesday?

Kase: 'Very Excited to be Part of the Boston Bruins'

Kase has not played since Feb. 7 as he deals with flu-like symptoms, but was back skating with the Ducks before the trade and is expected to practice in full with the Bruins on Monday morning at Warrior Ice Arena.
"It's a better day today," said Kase. "I've been skating with the team. I don't know yet when I'll be playing, but it's pretty close."

 

[Bodit9]

I love that they traded for this guy. Think he will be a consistent 25G/50P guy right off the bat & will surprise a lot of people. Lots of skill, drive, & passion for the game. Obviously injuries a bit of a concern but I think they landed a gem.

 

[PlayMakers]

Good player, could be a Mojo type pickup for the B’s. Under the radar and much better than people think... but it’s hard to count on a guy who’s always injured.

Health will be everything.

 

[neelynugs]

he's an underrated player. if you haven't seen him a lot, you'd be surprised at how
solid he is overall. very good skater, slick skills, can shoot it, can play in just about
any type of game (off rush, off cycle, etc). as everyone said, the concussions are
clearly the asterisk. also interesting that the bruins say he had the flu, but the ducks
say he had an upper body injury. look forward to seeing him play soon.

 

[BruinsFanMike82]

 

[ODAAT]

has to be one of the strangest feelings in the NHL. I know most of these players these days likely know a player or two on another team but to literally have to pack up all your goodies, move to wherever with new teammates, new systems/teammates etc... no wonder it often takes time for a newbie to assimilate themselves.

Welcome to Boston kid

 

[bob27]

One of Sweeney's finest moves as a GM to get rid of Backes and somehow get Kase in return. Could be outstanding player if he can stay healthy.

 

[LouJersey]

Really underrated get by our GM IMO.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Good player, could be a Mojo type pickup for the B’s. Under the radar and much better than people think... but it’s hard to count on a guy who’s always injured.

Health will be everything.

A very similar pickup to Mojo in terms of on ice player and ability. The biggest differences are Kase being younger and coming with an extra year on his existing contract.

 

[AngryMilkcrates]

Kase gearing up for his first practice with the Bruins.

 

[Chevalier du Clavier]

 

[RedeyeRocketeer]

He's practicing on the Krejci-Debrusk line

 

[ODAAT]

screw that, he better be in, Ritchie Thursday vs the Stars too

 

[BMC]

He's practicing on the Krejci-Debrusk line

Good. I hope it works out.

 

[RedeyeRocketeer]

Good. I hope it works out.

Bar is set pretty low, so there's that!

 

[13Hockey]

If you take away Kase rookie year

years 2-4

he averages per 82 games
21 Goals
25 Assists
46 Points

that is top 6 production