MEDIA: Jim Hiller | LA Kings Training Camp
We’ve been talking about the four or five players fighting for those final spots. The role they’re fighting for is not that of a scorer, but does it help in the battle for that spot if they are scoring in preseason games? Yeah, I mean I think everybody likes to chip in. I think the other thing it does is you just feel good about yourself. So whether you get one the next game or not, you just you just feel a little bit lighter, a little bit looser. The hands are a little bit more fluid. So it probably in the end helps your overall game even though you know that’s not the probably the final evaluation. I would agree. Is there an interesting dynamic there with those kinds of players where they’re playing kind of together a lot of them on the same line fighting on the same side but at the same time they’re also battling with each other for spots on the roster. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about it that way and that that I guess that is the truth. I think one thing about just a team in general is is there’s internal competition everywhere. So that’s a that’s a that’s a competition as you mentioned. Maybe it’s a competition for one, who makes a team, two, who gets into the opening night lineup, three does somebody make the penalty kill? But you do have the other guys who are competing with who gets on the first power play, who who gets first penalty kill, second penalty kill. So I think the competition is always there within a team. That’s that’s healthy that you’re pushing each other and trying to get the best out of one another. But this is a little bit more of a unique situation. I would agree. Yeah, Willie and Bruce Devich were assigned back to uh the London Knights this morning. We know that the development staff talks to prospects, but does the coaching staff in a training camp scenario, do you have words for them when they’re assigned? Do you tell them good job, good showing, you need to work on this, etc.? Yeah, I I think you know, we like to try to swing by and just say a little something as they’re as they’re moving along. Uh I missed Wolves today actually. I was able to talk to Henry just quickly. They showed well, you know what I mean? You talk about making a good first impression was Woolly’s second time through, but for Henry, what a great first impression. Um, it’s a long road, but the first one is the is the only one you get, and he sure did his job that way. Today’s skate was maybe a little interesting with the kind of the double split with the first group. Is that just kind of about management of workloads as you get to this point in camp, not wanting to overwork too bad? Yeah, that’s that’s right. Uh, we, you know, we’ve been on the ice a lot. See, Kuzi can’t get enough. He practiced and now he’s still out there for another hour or he played. Uh yeah, we we’ve been on the ice a lot and you know last you know typically anytime you play the next day is kind of a lighter practice anyway. So we just gave us an opportunity to split them up and just work on a little bit more uh individual stuff with smaller groups, but we’ll try to balance that the rest of the way. Man, we still got four games and we’re still a ways out. So we’ve got a pretty good sense, I think, by watching us that our guys are moving well. They’re in good shape, so we just want to burn the the tank down before the grind really starts. In the remaining preseason games, you’ve got one at home, but a few in neutral sight locations. Does the coaching staff concern themselves with the marketing aspect of like making sure that certain veterans get in front of the home fans or neutral fans or is that not on the radar? No, that’s not um you know, our focus and and and it kind of ties in with some of the questions, a similar question about acquiring players and moving and Jacqu Lamar gave me the best advice ever. Take the 23 players you have and coach them the best you can and try to win every game. And if you keep your focus that tight, you know, you you hope that you do a better job just doing that. Try to get your fingers into too many pies and talk about this, you know, it could become a distraction. So, I keep it pretty simple that way. We’re we’re trying to evaluate a lineup, you know, and put guys in spots where they may or may not succeed to see if they can play with us in the NHL. Um, now having said that, I think we’ve got good players up and down the lineup that, you know, no matter who we put in for veterans, you’re going to see some pretty good players. We’ve talked a lot about Adrien Kempe uh over your time here at over the years here. We all can have our definition of what his meaning is to this club, this franchise. What’s your definition of what Andre Patri means to uh I hadn’t thought about it that that deeply. It’s a good question. No, no, no. It’s it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a philosophical it’s a little bit deeper question. I hadn’t thought about it. Um I can I probably won’t go as deep as the franchise. I can tell you from a coach’s perspective. Sure. when you have somebody that’s that’s clearly that physically skilled uh that comes and works practice in games, you know, you don’t he’s not always scoring. He goes through his slumps like other people do, but you’re usually still going to notice him forchecking, penalty killing, does a lot of things in the game. And I really point to that time in uh the Four Nations tournament last year where I think really a lot of people got eyes on him in a different way for the first time. And um it’s not that he scored a bunch in that tournament either, but he jumps out at you by the way he plays the game. And so I can tell you that from a coach’s perspective that somebody you lean on that you know who’s going to be there. Um and then you know more often than not score one or two pretty big goals in in in the in the hockey game. He’s he’s a major player for Sweden. I mean he’s that’s where that’s how much he’s elevated. I think he’s I think he’s got a lot of respect throughout the league too. more so, not that he didn’t have it, but the way he performed in that in that u tournament. So, and we sure love him. I mean, hey, listen, we played play the wheels off him and and rely on him to score big goals, but I just like his overall game. He’s a he’s a he’s a hockey player true and true and a great teammate. I know you’re not the goalie guy necessarily. I know you said that, but uh you guys have kind of the approach you’ve had with the goalies is to let them play the whole game here. Some other teams you see them splitting it up. The goalies themselves said they like it that way. What have you kind of seen in uh that decision-m process from the goalie department? Well, that yeah, the goalie department, you know, Mike Buckley primarily. I just ask him half split two, what are we doing? And he just tells me um you know, he has an expertise at it and he thinks about it a lot more than I do. So, we trust that. Um I think I think he’d say the goalies have played pretty well in each and every game so far. So, whatever they’re doing is working, but that’s none of that’s directed at me. But yeah, I mean they’re I think probably everybody wants to play even the players, you know, you think uh like I had Kopi at 13 over 13 after two. I pulled him back in the third, but he was ready to go for more. You know, when you get in a game and you start playing, you know, all bets are off. You just want to play. And so I think that’s probably the mentality of the goalies.
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