“You have find ways to win it.” | Jeff Blashill Postgame 10.13.25

“You have find ways to win it.” | Jeff Blashill Postgame 10.13.25

We’ve talked about the tight games. Just nice to to grind one out on the for sure. You know, we we’ve been in this situation four times now where, you know, they’re onegoal games late. Um that’s that’s a good thing, but you have to find ways to win it. You can’t just uh be close in those games. You have to continue to find ways to win, which we did tonight. Um you know, there was moments of really good moments of uh you know, I thought the first and third were were good. I thought the second we got too passive and defended too much. um just finding that balance of pressure and being above versus being passive. You can still be really good defensively without sitting back. And I thought the first and third we did a better job of that. Ultimately, there wasn’t many chances either way in the game. Um which I think, you know, we’d love to create tons, but the recipe to win in this league on a consistent basis is to give up very few chances. And so we bent a little bit without breaking. Um and and that’s something we’re going to have to continue to do. Now we got to take that and find ways to create a little bit more without giving up anymore. seemed like the ice wasn’t great. Did you make any game plan adjustments based on that? Not really. I think I think, you know, the one thing we talk about when the ice isn’t great is you just you really have to manage it. Then you got to manage the puck. You know, like you’re not going to be able to make as many clean plays as as you want to. Um, you know, I’m not out there, so I can’t speak of the ice. I know some guys felt like it wasn’t as good as they they’d love it, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. That’s what happens in this league. You’re not going to have great ice every night. Uh, so you get when that happens, you got to make sure that you really manage the puck. How much does a healthy Jason Dickinson help? A lot, you know, and I thought that line was excellent. Um, I thought him and and Mai and Donado did a really good job. Um, you know, they weren’t matched hard hard every night or every shift, but they they had a lot of shifts against the against Utah’s really good offensive players. Uh, and I thought they kind of uh did the best thing you can do against good players and that’s make them defend and and play in in in the offensive zone. And um, so between Dickinson, Mai, and and Donado, I thought they had a really good night. And, you know, Jason’s just a he’s a good player, you know, and he knows uh uh that, you know, the types of winning hockey plays that you have to make. I mean, in your perspective, what is what does it mean to get your first win with this uh, organization? And then uh and we understand Nick said some words and the what did that mean you to hear from the team after the win as well. Yeah. No, it was nice, you know, and the biggest thing I would say is um I I really really really like this group. I like them as people. Um I like them as competitors. I like them as athletes and how they work and and what they want. They they’re a group that wants to to have better days than what they’ve had. Um and and they they’ve shown that with their work ethic and their ability to come back a day in and day out and honestly take a lot of coaching. Um and sometimes taking coaching isn’t easy because there’s you know there’s some negatives sometimes to that and they’ve they’ve just continue to come back and want to get better. They’re a group that wants to ultimately be great and and so I’ve really really enjoyed this group and you know it was really disappointing over the first three games that we had moments of good hockey and and put ourselves in position to win and didn’t. So to to to get the win is nice uh for me personally it’s uh you know it’s a good feeling. Um you want to get that first one out of the way and hopefully there’s many more to come with Lebanon not draw drawing back in. What did you think of his performance? Well I thought he was really good tonight actually. you know, um you know, he took a big hit to make a play on on uh on a goal. Um I thought he he did what what I think can make him special and that’s be really strong in his own end. Being able to skate himself out of a little bit of trouble and then make a little breakout passes like that’s an underrated skill. He’s a real thick strong uh man and and so when he when he can do that, I think that’s that’s really good. Uh he was he was decisive. Um so I thought he did a really good job coming back in. Is this the kind of game you have to play in order to win? Can you play any other way or anything? Well, I mean, I think ultimately, um, you know, we were talking in the room, there’s no there isn’t a really good team in this league that wins in the playoffs that is not great defensively. Every team that wins in the playoffs is great defensively. I’ve seen I’ve seen really, really good offensive teams that gave up a ton that had decent regular seasons and they always lose right away, you know. So, we want to build this to win long term. That doesn’t mean that we want to be defensive. It means you have to check well and usually if you check well, you get your offense from that. We didn’t create as much offense from that uh as we’d like to, but I think that’s a learned thing over time. Like one of the challenges as an offensive player is learning how to check and still produce offense. But if you want to win, you have to do that. If you have to cheat for your offense, you won’t win in the end. And that’s been proven year in and year out forever. So, we’re not going to allow our guys to cheat for their offense. They’re going to learn how to check for their offense. Did you have any specific mindset for going with 117 tonight? Will you do that a lot? Yeah, I I uh yes, the answer is yes and yes. Um we will do that a decent amount and and the reason for it is we have a lot of really really young D and um I’d give you kind of two things. One is uh when you have really really young D, you don’t really know what you’re going to get every night. So so that when there’s seven there, you know, it kind of increases the odds that certain guys are on if certain guys are off. Um, probably more specifically, um, it allows us to even the minutes out. I think Louis Krevy is an excellent penalty kill guy. So, you kind of Murf and and Krebs can kind of start those kills if one of them is not in the box. Um, you know, Rins and and Leonov have kind of got the the power play minutes. So, on that right side, it really evens those minutes out, which I think is a positive thing. Top power play unit. It feels like they’ve struggled these first four games to kind of enter the offensive zone. Is there any particular adjustments you’d like them to make or what are kind of your thoughts on You know, it’s been interesting on on that unit. Um, obvious, you know, obviously they scored last game. It was a nice goal, but I I don’t I don’t disagree with you uh in terms of their ability to enter it. It’s felt like there’s kind of been a different issue each night. And honestly, it’s probably been more like unforced turnovers. Um, you know, one night I think certain guy wasn’t great, one guy, another guy isn’t great. So, as I think as a group, they kind of got to dig in a little bit, you know, and and ultimately, you know, the other one group went out and score and we’ll have some competition because of

Head Coach Jeff Blashill postgame following Chicago Blackhawks win over Utah Mammoth

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