For all the attention that the kids are going to be getting, and rightly so, how important have your veterans been through these two games? The core guys.
Both games, it’s been massive. And I know there's been a lot of attention on the young guys, but you look at what the veterans have done as well in terms of production, on the defensive side, the situational usage – they've been out there for all of that. I mean, you look at the special teams here tonight playing a major factor there in the game. It was a lot of guys that were involved in that – Sid, Geno – in terms of their production there on the power play. I think that whole unit there with Raks and Karl and Letang, those were big moments in the game. Then also the penalty kill, you’ve got some guys, older players there in terms of guys that are out there that are killing. The whole D corps played a role in those situations, Dewey and Lizzo there getting pretty big minutes, Jarry, Raks... so, you go through that list. Those are guys there. You have the Big Three, but you also have a lot of other veteran players, too, guys that have been in the league that are making big contributions right now.
Tristan Jarry, a lot of scrutiny on him as always, faced a pretty strong barrage there late in the game. What was your assessment of his full 60 minutes?
I'll start by just going off of that first comment that there was a lot of scrutiny. I heard about that. But this is a new year. This is a clean slate for a lot of guys. So I mean, I thought he played great. You look at the end of the game, that's a tight game. You look at some of the saves that he made during the third period... I said it this morning, he was trending up. He earned this opportunity to go in. So, it's a new year, and we're aware of things, I said that for everybody, too. That maybe there was scrutiny before, like, it's a new season, it's a fresh start. He trended up during training camp. We felt he earned the right to get a game early. He didn't start the first one. Silovs gets a shutout. And we wanted to stick with it, because he earned that based on the camp that he had and the way he finished camp. And there's some massive moments there in the third period that he came up with big saves and helped make sure that this team secured those two points.
That’s five points in two games for Geno now, obviously playing at a pretty high level to start the season. What do you see in his game that you like, and what has it been like getting to know him and coaching him the first few months of your time here?
It's been awesome. He’s been great. You see a player like him for so long from afar, and then you coach against him, for me it was a number of years. Then to get a chance to work with him every day like, I feel like he's been really working on both sides of the puck. The offensive production has been great. I think he's feeling good there with the puck right now, around the net, making plays. I think both games there, he's been involved in just a lot of chances. But this hasn’t just been in games, but even in practice, the way he's working off of the puck. I think it's been really good. So, he’s a guy that’s earned some trust to be in a lot of different situations, him and his line.
Is Brazeau scoring a surprise, per se, because that's not exactly his rep, but he's making some pretty nice plays out there.
Based on the first game, we were hoping to get two tonight, so [laughs]. No, not at all. I mean, I know that if you go back last year, towards the end of the season there after the change, he wasn't scoring at the same rate. But we see a guy who’s got really good hands, really good around the net. Then you also saw tonight, he can also score off the rush. He’s got good instincts that way. A player that size, when they can get to the inside... whether it's him at the net front, the last game you saw it off a faceoff... then tonight, you saw it there on a really good play off the rush, but he’s getting to the inside. To be that size with those types of hands, when you can get into those areas, that's tough to handle. He's playing well. I thought he was another guy too, though, this is not a big surprise for us. Like, you saw it day to day there in training camp, his practices were good. I thought he was working. He was putting himself in good areas. So, this has been a continuation now of the work you put in there during training camp.
Filip Hallander went from a scratch last game to playing with Sid by the end of this one. Just what did you see from him out there tonight?
He looked like he was going there. So, I thought that 5-on-5, I felt like we could generate a little bit more. So, we looked to make a switch. I thought the third period, it was a little bit better there in terms of some of the stuff we were looking to generate at the 5-on-5 standpoint. So, that’s what we went with.
How do you assess Brunicke’s defensive work over the last two games?
I think it's been good. He’s continuing to learn. And I think that's an early part of all of this. Even going back to training camp, it's like, you can't expect a player of his age, or Kindel’s age, to come in here. They’re so far from being a finished product, and that's what makes them exciting. They need to be in some situations to learn from. We need to be sitting down and working with them off the ice, in terms of reviewing things and teaching them. Some of those details that you can look at, you can work on, but until you're really in this type of environment, it can be harder to truly understand, and now they're living in it. I think it's going to continue to grow. There’s a really good base there. A really good starting point. He has been, and he's going to continue to have a lot of work and conversations there with Mike Stothers, who works with our defenseman and does a great job. And I think that part of the game is just going to continue to evolve.
