MEDIA: Jacob Moverare and Jim Hiller | LA Kings Preseason vs Utah Mammoth
Well, you played in pretty much every preseason game. Uh, how much are you viewing this as kind of an opportunity for yourself to just showcase what you can do and hopefully be on that opening night roster? Yeah, for sure. I think like every every time I get to play and I I try to do my best and showcase that I I can do good when I’m out there. So, it’s been fun to getting a lot of opportunities. You’ve had a lot of NHL games. As far as I know, you’ve never been on the NHL roster for the first game. How much would that mean to you to be able to make this team out of camp for the first time? No, it it would mean a lot because obviously I’ve I’ve been close a couple times and it’s been hard heartbroken honestly. Like sometimes you feel like you maybe should make the team and you don’t. So it would mean a lot to actually make the team from the first day. What do you feel like has maybe been a strength of yours throughout camp uh that you’ve kind of focused on to achieve that goal? No, I think yes, my my defensive stick uh has been a a large focus for me and try to work like being being annoying to play against and like being on the right side of the puck all the time. So, I’ve been trying to work a lot on that. How cool is it to play in a building like this where they don’t get to see NHL hockey all the time, but it was a really energetic crowd. It felt like a pretty fun place to play. Yeah. No, for sure. And uh in warm-ups like uh office ice both us and UT were kind of like playing sewer on like the concrete where where all the crowd uh go in from the tickets office. So that was kind of cool and you saw it just came more and more people. So it got you got a lot of energy from that and like this is going to be a really fun game today. I just wanted to ask you about uh Clarky. He seems like he’s coming to camp a little bit of a different player. What strides have you seen in his game that he seemed to just take this big step forward? Yeah. No. Uh, first time I saw him like before camp started when he came back from Ottawa. I I I told him right away that you look a lot faster than last year. And I think like just like his his stride, I think he looks much faster out there. And uh I think that’s going to be huge for him out there because obviously he can make a lot of plays a lot of people can’t. So if he when he can move his feet as he can right now, I think he’s going to be really good this year. Uh Jim, just wanted to ask you um anything you could share possibly on Kyle Burroughs who obviously left the game a little bit early. Yeah, he got banged up. We got a look at him. The results were negative, but you just never know on this type of thing. So, we precaution and then you’ll have to get a closer look tomorrow. Today’s game, I know you mentioned the last two. You’d like to see kind of like a full group in these last two. So, today may be the last chance for some guys to impress. Was this a big game for a lot of those kind of guys to show you and the group here what they can do? Yeah, I thought it was. And uh you know that was an NHL defense over there in Utah tonight. That’s a good defense. And um so the level of competition goes up for you. And you know can you push through who can get forch and who can get protect in the pocket. It was hard and um you know I didn’t think we had that much and that’s a that’s a challenge that you got to assert yourself and and catch the coach’s attention, the manager’s attention. I didn’t think we had too many guys that did that tonight. I know it’s ultimately Kenny’s call on those kinds of moves. How much input do you have when it comes to maybe the back end of the roster and giving your input on maybe who stood out to you in certain situations? Well, it’s something we talk about, but I I would tell you that every time we’ve discussed it, whether I go first or he goes first, we’ve been we’ve been in complete alignment. So, um yeah, and I I don’t I don’t think there’s a lot of, you know, we talk to the other coaches, he talks to the other management people. I think it’s I think it’s kind of sorted itself out pretty well. Um and I don’t I don’t know that there’s too many real debates um you know at this point. We’ll talk again after this game, but this was a tough game to separate yourself. Is this an interesting game for a guy like Alex Turkot where you have him slotted probably as a 4C, but he gets the opportunity to play with an Andre Kuzmano to showcase, hey, I can also play with skill guys as much as I can kind of play in the checking role, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, Turk played that role for many games last year, so uh we wanted to give, you know, him and Koozie. That’s that’s never going to be Sammy’s role. So, him and Koozie, you know, a chance to to do something together. Uh I tried to lean on those guys in the last five or six minutes. Tried to give those guys big faceoffs, Turk and uh and Sammy, because those are guys will be, you know, in different situations potentially and having to win those faceoffs. So, we were able to get some of that done because we spent a lot of time on our own end there in the third period. I don’t know if you can recall what your impressions were of Jeff Malot last year during camp, but where is he now? How far has he come in your eyes from camp last year to where he’s at right now? Yeah, was it’s been a million miles. I would say this, we played I think our first game was in Utah. Uh Mi played, there was a fight, there was a face off and right away he dropped his gloves on that in that second fight. So unprovoked. So that catches your attention. So, you know, we thought he did a pretty good job. we had other guys ahead of him. Um, and then just talking to the minor league guys, hey, Malott’s having a good season. Malott’s having a good season. Had the opportunity to call him up. And to me, he’s he showed us he can play in the NHL. Now he’s really starting to assert himself as a, you know, a regular everyday player. Um, he’s probably been, you know, if not the one of the standouts of the camp. Go ahead. What’ you see in Phoenix tonight? you know, just obviously those two quick goals, but really bounced back from that. Well, he stopped the breakaway. Uh, you know, I thought he was probably the difference in the game in the end. He made big saves early, even though he didn’t have as much work. Uh, and then at the end, you know, they were all over us. So, I thought it was a great homecoming. I hope he had a lot of people here tonight. I don’t know how many he had. Uh, but when he gets back in the summer sometime, maybe somebody will buy him a beer in the in the establishment after a performance like that. How special a moment do you think this was for him? Oh, I think it’s great because, you know, you don’t always see NHL hockey in in Boise. He’s an NHL player. He’s had a great career. He gets to put on the pads in front of friends and family. That’s that’s a special moment for him. Was that by design? Yeah, we put some thought into that one. Yeah, we couldn’t, you know, we couldn’t even screw that one up. We had We had 10 of us to try to figure that one out. We We got it right. He’s trying to make the roster obviously, and it seems like it’s probably a long shot, but just how’s he what kind of camp in the game tonight, and is he making any kind of progress there? Yeah, well, I mean, that was his start. uh great. We he he’s played enough. I’ve been around him enough. We have full confidence in him. Um it looks like he won’t be starting with us because of the depth that we have. Uh but the point here is when you play games like this, it’s an easy call up. You get to go in and play and everybody’s comfortable with him because we know what he can do. So, you know, that’s that’s games like this are just to reinforce that. For you guys, it’s just another game in the middle of a very important training camp. You mentioned that Boyisey doesn’t get a place like Boyisey doesn’t get NHL very often. Special moment for the town and you kind of feel that a little bit. Oh, we did. I mean, what a great crowd. First of all, the first impression is walking into the building and uh and seeing what a beautiful building. What a great energetic crowd. It was full, but it was lots of energy. Um you could tell that they were hockey crowd. There’s been good hockey played here for a lot of years. They understood the game and u you know hopefully they like the effort of both teams and we we certainly appreciated their support. Coach, when you guys built the two go two goal lead, it seemed like a couple of shifts later things changed. What happened differently in the game that kind of tilted in their favor? Well, I would I would say and can’t be the only part. One part Burr going out hurt us. We had to go down to 5D and you know, Burr is playing a pretty big role for us right now. That hurt us and you know they we got on our heels, they started coming, they pressed us and we we turned the puck over and give them all kinds of chances. So, there’s usually a recipe um for failure, but Copper was good. You know, we get a couple chances, one goes in. Great shot though, by the way. And uh sometimes you sneak one out you don’t deserve. Three goals for Wardo now in the preseason. What have you liked about his camp? He’s just been pretty good all over the ice. Um three goals, some late power play goals. He’s made some passes as well. Gets into a really good fight. Like he’s just getting himself noticed. doing lots of stuff out the puck, block shots. Um, there’s a guy I would I would also f throw in there with Mi maybe as somebody who’s really raised his stock in the camp, got a chance to play at the end of the season, did a good job, had a good summer, and sometimes just a little bit gives you that confidence that, hey, I can play. He’s come back with that attitude this year that, hey, you know what? I got my taste. I’m an NHL player. I’m going to make a push.
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1 comment
MO MO!!!