"I know when I play against teams that skate the puck, when your gapped up with forwards and the 'D' comes flying up, it's hard. You can't get your gaps. It puts more pressure on your forwards to have to come back. It screws up with coverages. So, I think it's really important for our group and I think that's something you're seeing a lot more lately with our guys."
Another part of your impact is how it allows Gallant to slot the rest of the 'D' maybe more appropriately than when you were out. Have you seen Theodore and Miller, in particular, improve because of the minutes you're now taking?
"That is one part of it. Sometimes when you're playing the role that I play, that [defense partner Brayden McNabb] and I play together, it allows other guys to be a little bit more offensive. Yes, you have to worry about playing defense at all times, but when you're playing against other lines you can be more aggressive, push the pace a little bit more.
"What I love about how we play, our 'D', is I love how our minutes aren't incredibly high or incredibly low. I like the way our minutes are spread out. It puts [McNabb] and I in position to be successful against other team's top lines and it gives our other pairs more opportunities to be aggressive throughout the game because they know we're going to keep rolling them over."
What did you do during your suspension and when did you start to get antsy to play again?
"I got to do a lot of cool things. I made the most of it, like going to Vienna. It was my agent, Matt Keator's idea, and, at first, I was a little apprehensive about it. I wasn't sure, but once I got there it was awesome. You immerse yourself into a different culture. And it's cool because you're not going on vacation. There were the Austrian guys there who could help me out, tell me where to go, what to eat, that stuff. Having that local resource was nice. I was practicing [with the Vienna Capitals] and their practices are so much harder. Oh my goodness. It makes it 25 percent harder when the ice is that much bigger.
"I also got to go home and see my family. I got to go hunting. But when it was coming down to it, at the very end I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, which was the first time I could get excited about it in a couple months. You're sitting over the summer waiting on it, but you can't get excited about going to training camp because you're not sure what is going to happen. And once you're in camp you're like, 'Oh my goodness, I still have two and a half months before I can play again.' But once it got down to the last week, when I was practicing back home in Minnesota, I was back. I felt like I was back. Then when I got back with the team it felt like all was right in my world again."
How did you deal with the fact that the team was struggling without you?
"That was something I talked to our coach about, Ryan McGill. I said, 'I don't know what position to take here because I know I can help, but how do you help?' Do you just do it with your play? Do you do it verbally? Do you say to yourself, 'I haven't been here the last 20 games, so how can I tell guys what to do when I haven't been around?' That was a tough in limbo for the first week, but after we lost 7-2 to Calgary [Nov. 19], we gave up five goals in the first period, I remember talking to our 'D' after the game and saying, 'Whatever we're doing, it's not working. We've got to change.' You adapt or die, Billy Beane said.
