Even Nico Hischier has a hard time believing he’s about to enter his ninth NHL season. Time seems to go by in the blink of an eye.
"It's pretty crazy," Hischier said on the eve of his ninth training camp. "It goes fast every year, we're sitting here again, ready for a new season. I try to be grateful for that. I don't take that for granted. If I hear that, you kind of want it. I just want to be grateful for that. Yeah, that's something I'm trying to focus on. I just, yeah, try to try to do my best."
In all his years, one thing about Hischier has stayed exactly the same, while another has grown stronger.
What hasn’t changed? His gratitude for being able to play in this league.
What has? His burning desire to win is now fiercer than ever.
“It’s definitely more there (now) than it used to be,” Hischier shared.
Not that it wasn’t fiercely burning before, now, as the years go on, it just seems super-charged.
"I've been always a guy that just wants to win," Hischier said. "I always put a win first and then myself. I've been always like that. But obviously, it's different than the first couple of years where you kind of come into the league and everything is new, and you're just obviously happy to be part of that, and of course, you want to win. But now I'm Year Nine. Obviously, everybody wants to win every year. That's my big goal. I wanted to come to the NHL one day and hopefully win the Stanley Cup."
Reaching that point is never easy. It takes the full weight of an 82-game schedule and the unforgiving playoffs. With eight seasons already behind him, Hischier continues to demand more. Both of himself and of everyone around him. It's the only way, he says, they'll attain their ultimate goal.
We want to be competitive, we want to be that team," Hischier said. "My expectation is we want to be a team that whenever, like guys play us, they know it'll be a hard night. Yeah, and I think that's where I'm seeing this team.”
Asked to describe exactly what that looks like, Hischier added: "It looks like we play with our strength, which is speed, quickness and hurt them by chasing the pucks, beating them over the whole ice. , young pups beyond them, over the over the whole eyes. And I mean, last year, obviously, we did it pretty good at the start. But, it's a long season. It's hard, especially for the way we play. It's hard to be consistent in that area, to have your legs every nightYeah. But I think we also got to learn how to win games if our quickness, our speed, is not quite there, isn’t where it should be, that’s the next step for us.”
It's about acknowledging what your A-Game can do to beat other teams, but being ready, at any moment, to switch to your Plan B. It's a lesson Hischier hopes will resonate.
"It's definitely something we should talk about, and we need to," he said. "We will. And I think that's just the next step for us to take."
"I think the way we are, the way we play, skating a lot, being on pucks, that's exhausting, an exhausting game style, but if we're top of that, we are annoying to play against and hard to defend," he said. "We play a lot of games, so you can be tired, that's totally normal, but understanding that, and then finding a way still to win games, understanding, ‘Okay, we don't really have the legs. We maybe step back a little bit, find that B-game where you know, ‘Okay, we'll not outskate and we’ll the pucks in good spots we can get them. Don't lose too much energy and still play a very good game that can win us some games.”
