August 17, 2023 • 51 mins
In this Special Edition of the Tucson Roadrunners Insider Podcast, we take you back to A Night with Steve Potvin in its entirety as the Roadrunners Head Coach gives an outlook on the upcoming season, takes us into the classroom for some Hockey 101 and answers your fan questions from Wednesday night's event at Rudy's Texas B-B-Q.
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Tune in for Hockey State for thefun. This is the Tucson Roadrunners Insider
Podcast with Adrian Dennis. Soup,salad and breadsticks. Let's go and exclusive
and entertaining look at all things Roadrunnersstarts now. Everybody, Welcome to a
bonus edition of your Two Sun RoadrunnersInsider Podcast. Wednesday night, we had
(00:26):
a great night a night with StevePopman at Rudy's Texas Barbie Q. You
didn't have a chance to make itout, got stuck in that monsoon up
an Oro Valley. Just couldn't makeit. If you were there and you
want to relive it, We've gotit all for you right here in a
special edition of our two Soun roadRunners Insider Podcast. Coming up earlier this
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week, Jimmy and I talking withMichael kessel Ring in a curtain call edition
of the podcast for Jimmy. Greatchat with Michael, Jimmy and I wrapping
up a great era in the Insiderpodcast. Go back and check that out
if you haven't already. Coming upnext week, Kim Coda, Roblus and
I will be joined by forward NathanSmith. That will drop on Monday on
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your iHeart Radio app. But anight with Roadrunners head coach Steve Potvin.
We talked about the upcoming season,our core group, some big acquisitions,
our team identity, and then wewent into the classroom for some hockey one
oh one. Steve got out thewhiteboard and we wrapped things up with your
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questions. It was a great nightat Rudy's Texas Barbecue. Let's go back
there for a night with Steve Potvin. All right, Steve, we've got
an hour. All right, ifyou have a question you haven't submitted,
coles back there. He's got someforms and some pens, So don't feel
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don't feel bad, don't feel shy. We'd love to answer as many questions
as as we can. Well,Steve, how are you. I'm doing
great. I'm happy to be here. This is great to see a lot
of familiar faces. Honestly, it'sbeen maybe I'm skipping ahead here, you
know how I like to talk,so I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit.
But it's it's great to see everybody, and honestly, it's been a
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long time. It's been such along summer, and just can't wait to
get back at it and get backin front of you guys. Yeah,
this is not an event or youneed to hold your applause to the end.
You want to clap, you clap. If you want to meet meep,
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you meet meep. All Right.I like that. I like that,
Steve Busy. Offseason, yep,Coyotes have added a lot. There's
a lot of organizational depth right now. That's gonna benefit them, it's gonna
benefit our develop that process in Tucson, and it's going to benefit the road
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Runners on the ice. Yeah yousaid it, what a what a fun
time to be a Coyote. Imean, they did it right. They
took time to rebuild and and youknow, really they didn't miss a step,
and honestly, it's it's a greattime to be part of the organization.
And I think we're a little enviousof what happened down the road in
the Desert, and I think wewant a little taste of that, the
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success that Vegas had. So Ithink we're heading in the right direction and
it's it's really exciting. And we'vegot a cores. We have several players
entering their fourth season with us thatwe've been able to see come in first
year pro second year. Last yearwe made the playoffs this year. The
guys are are hungry for more.Yeah, you know what, it's it's
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amazing when you look back at howmany guys that were part of our team
that had been in the organization forover four or five years, and you
know, they really hadn't gotten thatshot. And then you know, something
clicked with them. They made thedecision that they were going to take the
next step, and they took theirtheir development process very seriously in that fourth
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and fifth year and they just pickedit up one notch and then ironically we've
never seen them again. And soyou know, there's I think there's a
lot of really good players that havebeen with our organization for four or five
years that are really knocking on thedoor. And I know that the type
of character that these guys have,they're knocking on the door, and I
know that they'll take that next littleinch and take it very seriously. And
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I suspect that a lot of themare a few of them will end up
in the NHL this season or nextseason beyond this year. You know,
last year was a big deal.We made the playoffs, and yes,
to be shy, this is notWe're at Rudy's Texas Barbecue. So everybody
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go crazy meaningful games and we hadto fight to do it. Ivan was
in the NHL that month and ahalf that we were making that run.
The teams that we were trying tohold off had their goalie, weren't dealing
with recalls. That was a bigtest for us and UH and everybody came
together and we found a way.Yeah. You know, the best stories
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in life always come with some prettylofty challenges. And what I liked about
it was that it didn't matter whatthe challenge was. Our guys always seemed
to just respond. And you know, we talk a lot about in the
room the difference between stress and pressure. You know, stress a lot of
times comes from the uncontrollables things thatyou kind of try to hold yourself to,
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like, hey, we got towin a game tonight. We we
got to try to score a biggoal, or you know, this is
a big game. Of course,those are all big games, and a
lot of times when you when youput yourself in those kind of stressful situations,
you don't really come out of thembecause it builds ngs. I but
I what I really liked about ourguys is that they they were able to
apply pressure on themselves and they enjoyedthat those pressure situations where all they wanted
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to do was play and compete foreach other, and you know, they
took care of the things that theycould control. And so instead of saying,
hey, we needed to win thenext game, or we needed a
big goal, or you know it, really the mindset and the conversations in
the chat in the locker room wasalways about what can I give to the
other guy, how much can Ihow much, how much can I improve?
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What can I do to control myoutcome? And so it always came
down to practicing good habits and reallyjust you know, we talk a lot
about the brotherhood, but caring aboutthe brotherhood and that's how we came out
of it. And at the otherend of it, the developmental part,
the call ups. We talked toMichael Kesselring this week. How many times
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did we see him go out foran eleven am practice and get pulled out
the ice five minutes into it becausehe was going up to play for the
Coyotes that night. These guys withus in our organization, with as young
as we are and the opportunity thatour guys have, anybody could get called
up at any given time given theneed, and and that's exciting. It's
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Michael Kessler Ring's first NHL training campwhere he's got a chance to make the
NHL team. And for all ofour guys that have been with us,
that's that's what it is. Yousaid, drag him, Drag him off
the ice at eleven o'clock. That'sa hard thing to do, whether he's
getting called up or not. Thisis a kid that loves to be at
the rink and loves to put inhis practice time. So seeing him get
called up and get the opportunity isreally rewarding for our staff. And obviously,
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you know, this is a kidthat we picked up from from the
Edmonton Oilers organization and to see himget that opportunity and what it meant to
him really just elevated his next coupleof steps, and I think it elevated
the rest of his season. AndI know now he's he's really convinced on
what it needs, what he needsto do to become a full time NHL
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player. But you know, Ithink the best part about our our our
development is just the player's attitude andcommitment to it. You know, we've
really selected and traded for some somereally good people that are are hockey players
that want to be at the arena, And you know that that's not always
the case, and it's not aneasy thing to to really get the right
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character and the right type of leadersto be part of the organization. So
hats off to our management group,our scouts and the guys that made it
happen for us. It's a lotof research, it's a lot of work,
right, So you go make atrade, you know what you're getting.
Is this guy gonna fit in ourlocker room with us as a group?
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Is he? Is he going tohelp us as we keep going?
Yeah, there's no doubt. Youknow, I think there's unfortunately in our
in our game, there's definitely alot of testosterone, a lot of egos,
a lot of a type personalities thatall believe that they should be in
the NHL. And you know,at some point in time during their minor
hockey careers or in junior a lotof these guys were all the elite players
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and they were given the special attentionand you know it's it's hard for them
to come to a team and nowthey're amongst the same type of people the
same type of you know, eliteathletes, if you want to call them
that, they're they're they're all basicallyat the same level, fighting for that
same inch, and so when youput them in a locker room, you
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don't know what you're going to getand what type of character kind of unfolds.
And so that's I think one ofthe biggest challenges we have in the
American Hockey League is is trying tobuild a team. When you have that
type of personality, that type ofyou know, commitment to wanting to get
to the next level, it's hardto build a team. And so it
takes a you know, like yousaid, a lot of hours researching,
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digging into seeing what type of characterthey have. And you know, a
lot of the scouts, they digin, they ask questions to their former
teachers, and you know, theyget they get the answers they're looking for.
And so it is a hard job. And you know, there's we're
all we're all connected in this thing. One person we don't need to do
any more research on. Is Ivan, our longest tenured Roadrunner, signed to
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a contract last month. Nobody,Nobody takes it more to heart. Nobody
wants to succeed more. And Idon't think any anybody's more of a true
roadrunner than Ivan. Yeah, nodoubt. He's an elite mind He has
an elite mindset, and he's aplayer that really believes in himself and believes
that he can be in the NHLright now. And so it's hard when
there's only two goalies and there's onlytwo positions. So a lot of times
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you have to be patient, andit's it's a hard thing when you believe
that you can. But you know, we all know that there's no there's
no time limit for learning. You'realways learning, you're always trying to improve.
And you know, I think Ivanis one of those guys that that
unders Dans and he's going to takethe next steps to continue to improve.
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You know, it's a it's ayear round thing. Right out of a
pause. Yeah, I've it's comingback. You know, you guys started
this season right after the draft,our Prospect and Development camp fourth of July
week up and up in the valleywith UH, with our staff on the
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ice and UH and a lot ofyoung Coyotes, some road runners that we've
seen, some road runners that we'regoing to see, yeah, that's uh.
You know, it's hard sometimes asa coach because you kind of get
to a position where you can't waitfor the season to start and get to
you know your players and get theseason started. But then you look at
the up and coming players that areare right in front of you, and
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it's hard not to get excited.And you know, it's a great,
great time to build relationships with themand really get to know a little bit
of their characters, see what getsthem going, get what gets them motivated,
how they go by their process ona day to day on a day
to day basis, and you knowwhat, you really get to see how
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far the game has come and howmuch it continues to improve year after year
after year. What these young guysare able to do now compared to what
they were able to do two orthree years ago. It's amazing. And
it's not even really what they're howthey're performing on the ice, how they
conduct themselves, how they prepare thequestions they ask. They have real elite
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mindsets, and it's it's really amazingto watch these young guys come through.
You know, after a game,their shifts are ready for him, right,
they have a tablet. They canwatch their shifts like they don't have
to come visit you at the frontof a bus or come see you after
a game. They get their shiftson the tablet and they can watch it
right then. Yeah. You know, the I think when you look at
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the guys that make it to theNHL the quickest are usually the ones that
are the self starters. So theones that are, you know, they
don't have to start up the dialoguewith us. They're already researching and finding
ways to improve right away on thetablet. And you know, it's amazing
when you sit down with them andthey're like, ah, yeah, they're
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already ahead of it. So thesekids are are well coached, they're well
trained, and you know, thebest ones are always the self starters,
and it's great to see that we'rebringing a lot of those types of players
in are you're working on any projectsthis offseason, maybe maybe at our arena
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with some stuff that's going to helpour guys. I'm glad you brought that
up. It's been I look backat my notes and it's been six years
coming. We've been trying to getan off ice shooting gallery started and and
honestly, it's it's exciting because youknow when you look at you know,
we just talked about how the kidsare so prepared and they're so well trained,
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so well coached, they've already foundthat next ten percent ahead of where
they should have been, already been, and so now the trick is trying
to find another level and you justhave to be able to put the extra
time in. And so having anoff I shooting galley is going to present
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that opportunity for our players. AndI think I counted this is I don't
want to take full credit for this, but Kali Kalishana, he counts the
amount of shots that he takes dailyand he has it charted and he knows
at the end of the year thathe's going to get to a certain number
and how many minutes he's going tospend doing it. And so I counted
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in twenty minutes, I was ableto take one hundred and fifty quality shots
and two hundred not so quality shots. But needless to say, it ended
up being an extra ten thousand shotsfor the year for our for our prospects.
So you know, if they wehave sixty practices at home, if
we spend twenty minutes a day onehundred and fifty pucks a morning, then
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it equates to nine thousand shots.So hopefully that'll help them with their process
and hopefully it'll help us score afew more goals. Is that Steve over
there? Steve's right there. Steveis our contractor, is going to be
building it. Honestly, without him, wouldn't be happening. He uh yeah,
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And of course Bob and Sean areour manager and president. They are
also very helpful and supportive of theof the cause. So uh yeah,
we're we're happy to get it startedand hopefully it really helps our guys grow
and gets them to another step.Do you want to tell the folks about
why Koya chanis kind of daily routine, The amount of time that he spends
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on the ice after practice, theamount of time that he spends at the
rink. This guy, this guyis the most calculated person. If you
asked him what your morning starts,what it looks like, and he would
actually tell you, Well, Iget up in the morning, and I
take the blankets off, I putmy slippers on, I go and brush
my teeth, I go to thebathroom, I spread the peanut butter on
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probably five or six smooth even swaps, and then you know, I make
my toast that goes from there fromfrom there on. But yeah, he
is one of the most detailed athletes. And I know we've talked about this
on some of the podcasts, soI apologize if I'm repeating myself, but
he's literally a guy that is inno hurry to get to the NHL.
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He really believes that he's in aperfect position right now to continue his development
and he's not in the race againsttime to get to the NHL. He
wants to enter the NHL as aready player, somebody that is ready to
compete on a on a night tonight basis, but really not just compete,
but help the team. A lotof times prospects go up and they
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play a limited amount of number ofminutes and they're not really quite ready.
He doesn't, he doesn't really believein that. He wants to spend his
time to develop and he wants tomake sure that he's a ready player when
he gets up to the NHL,and he wants to help his team contribute.
What do you see big picture forfor the Red Runners this year?
A lot of depth, got alot of guys going to be in there
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at their fourth year with us,and excited to excited to watch him,
excited to add some of the newguys and some of our young prospects.
Yeah, no doubt. You knowwhat when you when you look at you
know, we're hopefully gonna lose MichaelCarconi. He hopefully he's graduated at this
point. We're very proud of him. Uh you know, and you look
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at that the end of the yearthat you know he's going to be up
with the big club, it's goingto leave a big hole. And then,
uh, you just you watch thejob that the management team is done,
and you see that the players thatthey've brought us, these are all
character guys that are going to reallyhelp our our team day in, day
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out. And honestly, our visionthis year is to build leaders, and
you can't do that without leaders inthe room. So I'm excited to have
Kirkland. Hopefully we have some ofthese other guys come in. I don't
want to get too far ahead becauseI'm hoping that they get a really good,
strong look at the NHL. Butif they do end up with the
Tucson road Runners, I know thatwill be in a locker room filled with
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good character and guys that are areready to lead and assist. And we
were close. We were close lastyear. We woke up on a Sunday
morning with flights to Calgary because wewere we needed to win and we were
gonna beat Cachella Valley. We're gonnamove on. They got that early lead.
They went on to Game seven ofthe Calder Cup Finals. So we've
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been saying throughout the summer to everybody, Calgary, Colorado, Milwaukee, not
Hers, She Hers, she Hers. She played Cotchella Valley better than us,
But we played Cotchella Valley better thananybody in the Western Conference. That's
right, that's right. Well,we we only had three games. Hershey
had seven games to do it,so we don't know that for sure.
Yeah, Hers, she would havebeen done. Cotchella Valley was up to.
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Oh you know what, it's it'samazing when you when you when you
look at teams like the Colorado Avalanchethat spent nine seasons really trying to capture
the Cup and the process it tookfor them to go through to establish a
team that was ready to win.Uh, you know, you have to
be able to stack, skill,stack, structure, stack, save,
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stack everything in your process in orderto get to that point. And you
know, I don't think you canget to that point without going through a
lot of those challenges. And youknow, last year it was we I
think accomplished a lot, but Ithink it also opened up our eyes to
how much more we have to do. And I think putting the shooting gallery
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together, putting a little extra timeat work, maybe a little bit more
time on video, a little bitmore shoulder to shoulder meetings with our prospects,
with our players, trying to developleaders not just players. I think
those are all things that that we'repaying a little bit more attention to.
And you know, when you gothrough that process and we are, we
were close. You know, Ithink we had a team that could have
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beaten Colchella. And that's no disrespectto them, but you know, you
you really are excited about putting thoseextra minutes into the players. And I
think, you know, when whenyou look at our process as well as
I think it's going, there's alwaysways we can improve it. And so
looking back at last season and howclose we were, it's it's exciting to
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see what where the guys can gonext year. All right, you want
to do some hockey one on one, Yeah, I can answer some some
hockey one on one questions. Yougot your white board over there, we'll
we'll draw some some stuff up.Brad's gonna help us with that. Brad
will have a question to you firstbefore we get to the whiteboard stuff.
But all right, let's let's startwith before we go to the whiteboard.
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First thing you should know about comingto a hockey game as a fan for
the first time ever, first timeon the season. What should you watch?
Well, I don't know. Ithink you just got to be careful
because it's going to be addictive.Once it gets into your bloodstream, you
you'll never want to leave, soyou'll come back over and over and over
again. So I think that's thefirst thing. You got to be aware
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it might be an addiction. Iyou know, I think that's just the
fast pace and the energy. Ithink the energy is always something that you
can feel when you come to thehockey game, and you guys do such
a great job of, you know, getting the fans engaged and being involved
in the game. It's it's alot of fun to be there. And
then I think, you know whatthe association with the game, the smell
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of the popcorn and you know,the zamboni and those kinds of things.
So honestly, I think it's justa real fun, energetic atmosphere that's quite
addictive, and you just gotta proceedwith cautions sometimes. So as folks are
watching the game, they're seeing guyscoming in out, hopping in and out.
What's what's the length of a typicalshift for for a forward and the
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defenseman. Well, I think ourdefensive coach, John Slaney would argue with
me that a forward probably tries toexcends a shift further than thirty or forty
seconds, So we're gonna say thirtyor forty second. He would probably say
a forward would try to extend itto a minute, just because he's the
d and more forwards, but that'sa typical length of a shift. Try
to get out there for forty secondstops. You know, a good analogy
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for the time spent on the ice. If you have the best players in
the world, that after thirty seconds, they become very average. And so
we try to, you know,make sure our guys are the best that
they can be. So we tryto pull them off the ice at you
know, thirty five seconds. Thirtyfive seconds. That's it. Get your
stop watches out, all right,Brad, come grab come grab Steve's white
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board. But first, first youhave a question. Do you have a
question for our head coaches? IsBrad Kroner? All right? So we
know that you started coaching youth hockey. Yeah, do you remember coaching me?
I always, you know what,you always had a peculiar smile about
yourself. And I didn't know whatit was. What I must have said
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something or did some No, Idon't remember that. I'm sorry. It's
okay, I didn't either. Mydad. My dad gave me he goes.
Oh, Steve's the coach of theroad Runners. He coached you when
you were growing up. Oh geez, oh jeez. Where So how old
were you? Probably a squirt?Squirt? Okay, good, So that
was I think probably fifteen years ago. Now, so what's something like ten
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fifteen years ago? We have agood excuse. We're off the hook,
you know? Is he coached alot of guys there at the ice dead.
Josh Stones, the big the bigname that we know that that you
coach as a kid, Eiston andScottsdale. Yeah, that that was.
That's that's a real that that was. You know what, that's a fun
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thing about hockey. You know thatthese guys grow up and you know,
they're the same type of player.He like, he's the exact same type
of player he was when he wasa kid. And how rewarding actually for
me to see him at at sucha young age grow up into a man
and he's the same type of kidthat he was. Yeah, he's the
same type of kid he is nowthat as he was when he was twelve
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years old. He just has thesame passion. He's a type of kid
that wants to learn. He lovesbeing around the rink, you know,
and of course he has a greatmentor and his dad, But I think
it's just his personality is just youknow, it's one of those guys that
he's just one of those guys that, uh, you know, he's going
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to be an elite athlete, elitesomething. He's going to be a GM
in the league, or he's goingto be a CEO, or he's just
a smart hockey player. He's justa smart human. He's a guy that
lives with a on the right sideof the edge all the time. So
it's been a lot of fun watchinghim grow and it's it's real rewarding.
I mean, we saw him forwhat fourteen games at a ASU, and
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now he's had a full off seasonto train as a pro, Like,
this is gonna be an exciting yearwatching Josh. Yeah. You know what,
when you watch him and when youwhen you see him on the on
the street or you see him inthe locker room, you don't really see
a real competitive, hard knocks kindof guy. But as soon as the
puck is dropped, he's a differentkid. You know. He wants to
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win so badly. He wants towin every battle. He wants to make
sure that his teammates respect him.And you know, that's that's a hard
thing from a kid that's come fromScottsdale, from a rich, traditional hockey
background, where a lot of kidsfeel like it's their right, you know,
And he's just one of those guysthat wants to earn respect. And
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it's not like it's not flowny,it's not fake. And to be honest
with you, that was one ofthe things that I was concerned about coming
into the locker room. He's he'sgot a lot of pressure because he's part
of the Coyotes organization and we allknow who his dad is. But how
he was able to communicate with histeammates and just he just really became one
of the guys, and he justreally is one of those guys that respects
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the game, respects the process,enjoys being a part of it. And
how can you not want to bearound a guy like that. So it's
great having him, And honestly,it's uh. If you see him down
walking across the street or you getinto conversation with him, he's gonna look
like this really happy, go luckykid, but just be careful when the
puck drops. He's he's a littledifferent. All right, you're ready to
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go to work on the on thewhite board. Yeah, it's yours,
took it from your office. Okay, good, Brad's gonna hold hold the
mic for you in it, allright? Do you wanna do you want
to draw quickly for the folks?Sure? What would be icing? Icing?
Does anybody not know what icing is? No? All right, so
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let's just say this is our offensivezone, this is our defensive zone.
We're transporting the puck across the neutralzone. This is the red line.
If we dump the puck in beforethe red line, that's icing. If
we cross the red line and wedump it, then we're in good shape.
So the only way that we candump the puck, and you might
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have seen Carconi do this a lotof times, is if Cracknell got the
puck here, he would elevate thepuck all the way down the end.
Carcony would already be in full flightand he'd beat the opposition to the puck.
And so that's how you negate icing. I don't know if we're gonna
see a lot of that. There'sonly one elite skater like that in our
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league. So far it's been him, so we might have to change our
approach a league. All right,there's icing, that's icing. How about
offside icing? There's strings attached.You can ice it when you're on the
penalty kill. There's no there areno exceptions to off side, that's right,
no exceptions to off side. None. Full strength. If we're a
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man up, man down, doesn'tmatter. So this is the blue line.
Both teams have to respect the blueline. If you're carrying the puck
over the blue line ahead of yourteammates, you're safe if you if your
teammates go ahead of the puck acrossthat blue line, then it's off side.
So the puck has to travel acrossthe blue line before or at the
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same time as your teammates. Theycan straddle it, yes, exactly,
very nice. So they can straddlethe blue line this way both feet.
Yeah, they can straddle blue lineboth feet, or they sometimes they drag
that back leg and they can enterat the same time. Yeah, as
long as they have a piece ofequipment, I would say, on the
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ice on the other side of theblue line, then we're safe. All
right. You're the power play powerplay guy. Steve two Son Electric sponsors
this question. Tell us what apower play is and why are you such
a genius coaching the power play.So now Zach's taking over the power play.
So he's he's the power play specialist. But so it's basically when the
(29:26):
opposite we get a an advantage fiveversus. Therefore, when the opposition takes
a penalty against us, So ifthey trip us, or if there's some
type of infraction that justifies a penalty, their player goes to the box.
Now they're down a man, we'reup a man, so we play five
(29:47):
verses. Therefore, all right,drop a drop a power play. We're
on the offensive zone. We're inthe offensive zone. We're on a five
on four and we're going to score, all right. So our main objective
on the power players, we wantto work from the top, So we
want to have a guy up topthat's skilled. He's able to get pucks
through to the net. So whenwe have the puck to the net or
(30:10):
puck in this position here, wewant to always have one player at the
hash marks, one player in frontof the net. So we want to
provide a double screen for the goalieso the goalie can't see the puck,
then the greater chance it goes in. And actually this is probably the highest
percentage of goals that go in inthe NHL. I think it's like thirty
four percent of the goals start froma shot point tip rebound screen from this
(30:33):
area right here. So our mainobjective is trying to get the puck high
and get shots to the net.The next best scenario to score goal and
the powerplay is off of recovery.So it all ties in together. If
you get the puck up top andyou get a shot to the net.
If we can recover the puck,get the puck back up top, and
look for a quick strike to thenet. That's the second most effective way
(30:56):
to score goals in the power play. And then, of course, one
that are one of our old friendsused to do quite often is once we
get this puck up top, wewant to try to create a little deception,
and so maybe we'll walk this way, steer the defensive players this way,
and now we'll pass it over toone of our flanks that's in a
(31:18):
position to strike downhill. And soa couple of years ago we had Mitchelli
in this area right here, andhe's obviously an a lead player and lead
shooter. He would offer a wholelot of deception where he'd have the puck
connected on a string and now he'dlook like he'd be shooting, and then
he'd find Carconi on his island righthere for a quick shot to the net.
(31:40):
That's realistically the best way to score, but it's not always the easiest.
The percentages are very difficult to getthat puck through the slot through the
scene. All right, John Slaneyis going to hear about this. Tell
Us, tell us what's the keyon the penalty kill, don't take a
penalty, stay out of the penaltybox. Years. Yeah, last year
(32:07):
was was you know what, that'sthe we value that that type of game.
We want to play hard, wewant to play but you know the
problem with having that type of DNAis that you do have to kill a
lot of penalties, and so wewant to play a lot meaner, but
a lot cleaner, and so thatthat became correct. So we want to
(32:29):
play mean but clean, and Ithink that was our our focus at the
end of the season last year.Uh, we actually started a fine to
to a fine pot just for thosereasons. If you took a stick in
fraction or if you took a penaltyin the offensive zone, then we theorified
(32:51):
we were we were. A lotof those also came from fighting. We
we led the team the league andfighting majors. Also, Yeah, we
had Boco, we had Douglas,we had Baron that can fight. And
so this year, I don't wantto get too far ahead, but on
a Bouchi's a player that can canreally fulfill that role. So he's going
(33:15):
to be a player to watch.But yeah, the keys on the penalty
kill is having players that are goodwith their sticks, that are relentless on
loose pucks, and that have thewillingness to block shots. And you know,
a lot of times we want totry to create predictability on the PK
where the goalie always knows where theSHOT's coming from. And so if you
(33:38):
look at our penalty kill system,we play a trap down system where we're
always in this type of formation whereone guy's going down coming back to the
interior. And now what we're tryingto establish there are these long shots from
that area, so we're trying toprevent them from getting to the middle of
(34:00):
the ice and not allowing these scenepasses to go through. That's the key,
all right, we're five on five. We want to break the puck
out of our zone so we cango up and score. What do we
do? So we're five on five, we get the well, we got
to use units of five. Wegotta come come back together, and then
(34:20):
we have to exit the zone together. So it takes a lot of detail.
We try to We tell our demandthat we want to have that skater's
mentality. So the first man atthe puck, we want you to have
that skater's mentality either left or right, And when you have that skater's mentality,
you're going to draw people to you. And when you draw people to
you, it opens up space andbehind them. So if they're skating,
they're going to get a player drawnand now they can use a little netdink
(34:43):
and now we can come out theweek's side. The other thing we like
to make sure that we do isthat our sentiments always have to come underneath
inside the dot line. And thenwhen we have full possession, we want
to get our wingers up as highas we can to the blue line,
because our main objective is to tryto get the puck over the blue line
(35:04):
to release the pressure. So wewant to get be in and out of
our zone in seven seconds. Andthen the reason why we want to be
in and out of our zone inseven seconds, it's gonna take us five
seconds, three seconds, two secondsto get through the neutral zone. Then
we're going to try to establish afour check and now we're probably at fifteen
seconds. And so what we're tryingto accomplish is a lot of pressure.
(35:28):
And when we play with a lotof pressure, we apply a lot of
pressure. Teams dump the puck outon us, and now we're probably at
twenty seconds, and now we wantto be able to have the ability to
catch them in a three quarter icegame and then be able to counter and
transition and now have the energy enoughso that we can create a second attack.
And so that's why we want totry to get out of the zone
(35:49):
in seven seconds, so that wecan spend all of our energy in the
offensive zone. And a lot oftimes you get two attacks if you're able
to get out of your zone andseven and seconds. If you're not out
of your zone in seven seconds,then you spend ten to fifteen seconds here.
Then you hope to get one attack. If you don't, then you're
ready for a change. And theproblem is when you're ready for your change,
(36:13):
you're always usually heading back in thedefensive zone and now you're tired.
So the key is we've got toget in and out of our zone in
seven seconds. Okay, rare instance, we're trailing in the third period,
When do we go six on five? When do we pull the goalie?
How many goals are we down?We're down one, We're down one.
Yes, So depending of the typeof game, it's it really depends on
(36:38):
how much pressure we're able to applyif our guys are really making it difficult
on their team, then we'll pullthem at We could pull them at two
three minutes. But the key isnot always the time. It's it's when
your best line is the freshest,so that that can change depending on if
(36:58):
you were able to get the changeat the appropriate time. So say,
for example, at two minutes,Carconi wasn't able to get out there,
and we're really not getting enough sustainedpressure on the opposition, We'll wait to
pull the goalie until Carconi's line,our first line gets out there. Unless
the second line is able to getsome pressure, then we'll pull the goalie.
(37:22):
All right? If you could changeany rule, if you could add
a rule, what would it be. I had a great answer to this
a long time ago. I can'tremember. Somebody asked me, and I
thought I had a good answer toit, and I can't remember. But
I think I don't know. Idon't know. I think I really like
(37:43):
the way the game is right now. I don't know if I would change
too much of it. I thinkI don't know if I have an answer
to that. Do you know whatI When people whine about a delay of
game penalty, yeah, I like, yeah, you cleared the puck out
of you're inconveniencing us. We were, we were working there, Like,
that's a penalty. Stop complaining.Like you hear a lot of people complaining
(38:05):
about that. Yeah, I thinkthat's that can be a little bit that
that could be a rule. Youknow. I think there was a time
obviously teams were using it as anadvantage. Teams were tired, so they
would just dump the puck out.Obviously that's delayed game. But you know
what, like I feel like that'spart of the that's it. Yeah,
that's part of it. That's partof the intrigue. I don't I don't
know if I would change much aboutit, right. Yeah. You know
(38:30):
what, during the regular season,I get it from you don't really love
to lose that way. You loveto win that way. You hate to
lose that way because you were ina good game. You you know,
you feel good about your team,you feel good about what you did at
that night, and you're losing ashootout. It still feels like a loss,
even though it's you lose it,you lost a point. But I
(38:51):
think it's it's something that's entertaining forthe fans. I don't know if I
would take it out just yet.What about you guys? Think? What
about three rounds? Zero? Threerounds? Is three rounds too short?
Is that the perfect amount? Isthat kind of settled? Like when we
went from five to three? Itreally I like the pressure of three.
Yeah. What about shooting first?Because the home head coach gets to pick
(39:16):
whether he wants to shoot first orsecond. I think it comes down to
your guys. You know, ifyou've got to clutch guys, let's go
and get the lead right away,you know. But if we don't have
real clutch guys, let's see whatthey do first. You know, what
about our team identity? We talkabout playing to our team identity? What's
(39:37):
our team identity? Who are weso our team identity? This is uh,
it's it's really important that you havean identity. We want to play.
We want to be a team thatplays fast, We want to play
we want to be a team thatplays hard, and we want to be
a team that has detail. AndI think if you have those three things,
(40:00):
you you're you're a team that's goingto be difficult to play against night
in, night out. Uh,you know, playing fast for me,
isn't really always necessarily how quickly youmove the poc or how fast you skate.
A lot of times it's are youchanging on time? Are you how
how is your awareness and your decisionmaking? Are you putting pucks into areas
(40:22):
where guys can skate into it quickly? So there's a lot that goes into
playing fast. And when you're sayingdetails, you know you have to be
able to hold yourself a player accountableto those details. And then you also
have to be able to support youryour teammates with those with those details.
And then you know what, ifyou're a hard and feisty and tenacious team,
(40:45):
it's hard to play against every night. So we we try to stress
that as much as we can.We want to be a team that plays
very physically. We want to bea team that plays fast, and we
want to be a team that's detailed. All right, let's get to our
fan questions, folks. If youhave any more questions, UH got our
guys back there to hand your form. Just raise your hand and we'll make
(41:07):
sure you get your question in.All right. First question emailed in season
ticket member named Ray. She says, I try to get your attention to
give you good luck fist bumps asyou head out onto the ice. But
you always seem so deeply focused what'son your mind at that time that that's
that's that's a good question. Ilike that question. My wife always says
(41:28):
that I'm somebody she can trust witha secret because she never feels that I'm
listening. So, you know,when you when you hang around coaches and
you start to get to know coachesthere, it always seems like they're distracted.
There's always something on their mind.You know. We we preach so
(41:51):
much to be in the moment,and I think we're probably the ones that
are the least in the moment.We're always thinking back on what happened during
that the period that we just played, or you know what what somebody said,
or how we can make the nextadjustment to get the next inch or
edge on on our opponents. Soit always feels or sounds, or or
(42:12):
or looks like we're distracted. Andso, you know, sometimes when when
I'm at home, even with mymy wife and family, you know,
there's a lot of good things thatare happening at home, and and I'm
very interested. It's just sometimes you'reyou're you know, your mind takes you
back to the game. Is theresomething that surprised you that you've learned from
(42:34):
from the players from the team.Yeah, there there's you know what,
I don't know if it surprises me, but to be real honest with you,
I feel like, so far,I feel very fortunate to be in
the position I'm in, being surroundedwith such hungry people, people that are
you know, wanting to improve.And some of these these guys do some
(42:58):
things that are that are not andyou know, they spend a little extra
time on their on their bodies wherethat's not common. They you know,
cold tubs, wake up early,you know, push their bodies to b
to the brink. It's you know, it's a it's a real fortunate position
for for coaching, for quote thecoaching staff to be around. And you
(43:19):
know, I I I can't say, you know enough about the players that
we have. I've learned so muchfrom them, So I'm not really surprised
about one thing. I'm just veryfortunate to be around them. And and
uh, you know, you surroundyourself with good people, you end up
finding a good way to live andto to to continue your path of growth.
(43:39):
Here's a question emailed in from Jeff. He says, what is one
word you would use to describe theteam and you cannot say the word tall
one word to describe the team,I would say relentless. They're they're a
relentless group. You know, They'renot only just relentlessly trying to get to
the next level or trying to wingames. They're relentlessly trying to to fulfill
(44:05):
their destiny. Like it's it's amazinghow fixed they are on on what they
want. They're they're people that arevery determined. And if I had to
choose one word, I think itwould be relentless. Yeah. Yeah,
it's it's hard to get through somepeople that are that are fixed mindsets.
(44:25):
You know, they're they're so fixedon what they want and how they they
think they need to get there.So it's it's a challenge to try to
get them to navigate in different ways. So it's it's they're a relentless group,
there's no doubt. Here's a questionfrom Bill, what are the cards
from no Bill? Bill? BillHarra mia Okay from Veil Okay. He
(44:46):
says, what are the assistant coachesand the players doing when the formal practice
ends and the guys stay out onthe ice and the coaches are working with
them and that the individual stuff.What do we do? Yeah, what,
what's what's going on there? Yeah, a lot of times it's just
you know, trying to find aninch in their game. A lot of
times it's just trying to get offthe wall, trying to find ways to
(45:08):
create space for for our players andtry to get the edge on on their
on the opponent. You know,I think there's three levels of skill.
The first level of skill is usuallywhat you do the first time you come
on the ice. So usually it'sit's a it's a wall battle, it's
a race, it's an angle onthe puck. So that's level one skills.
(45:31):
Try to work on those things asfrequently as possible because that happens probably
the most. And then level twoskills are are you know, passing and
receiving and jumping into holes, winningraces, creating space off the wall,
so try to work in those inthose, try to work on those areas.
(45:52):
And then level three skills is youknow, shooting the puck, demand
walking the blue line, trying toget pucks through to the net. So
basically after practice, uh, wespend a lot of time on level three
skills because most of the practice wespend on level one and level two.
Here's a question from answer. It'svery interesting. Yeah, one, two
(46:15):
three. Steve asked about Carcony andBoco, Mike obviously signing the two year
one way contract with the Coyotes,Boco going back back out east where he's
from with with the Senators. What'sthe question? Just expound on Carcony getting
(46:36):
the one way and and the yeahwith Boco and uh and moving on in
his career. Yeah, you knowwhat, he came to our team,
uh three years ago from Milwaukee,so that was Nashville's affiliate, and he
came on on loan. I'm goingto turn that off that there's motion at
your front door, Steve, therethere go. Yeah, so he came
(47:02):
from from Milwaukee and that's Nashville's affiliate, and you know what he Uh,
we're proud of it because he'd andyou know, maybe this is I don't
like to boast, but he wasnot really willing to go back to Nashville.
He really liked what Arizona offered.He liked the development part of it,
(47:24):
he liked the the the attention thatwas given to him, and then
the amount of ice time that hegot, and so he fit right into
our culture right away. And soto see him, you know, after
three years of fight and struggle andcompete to get to the next level,
to finally get that chance to toplay last season the way he did and
(47:45):
then now get his one way contract, it's it's pretty rewarding for for us
as a as an organization to tosee him develop and go through our process
and now get get the opportunity todo it. We're proud of him and
we're proud of the fact that hecame through our our culture. So it's
that's really rewarding for for coaches andand and the staff, there's no doubt,
(48:07):
uh. And then you know what, when when you see players move
on our our vision, as Ialluded to before, was is always to
create leaders that are able to leadthemselves beyond their selfish needs. And when
(48:28):
they leave our culture, we wantthem to be able to really turn into
grown men. You know, theycome into our sometimes organization as prospects and
then they got to transition into apro and then a man. And so
for you know, for a guylike Boco, he's been with us for
the last two years. He wasa pro when he came to us,
(48:50):
and now we know that he's inhe's in a good spot. He's in
a good place and and he's earnedthe right to play on a on another
team. You know, I thinkthis this ecosystem is always about what you
give and what value you can bringto a team. And so you know,
we're always proud of the guys thatmove on that get the opportunity to
(49:13):
play, because you know, aslong as you're giving and you can give
an add value, you're going tofind a place to play. And so
we're very excited to see Boco getthe opportunity to hook up with Ottawa and
and you know what, I suspecthell it will see him in the NHL.
Here's a question from Carry NHL deybutwith the Coyotes, by the way,
after four years with different organization forBoco, another another guy, we
(49:37):
got to the NHL, right,yeah, right, right. Question from
Carry is how do you decide theforward lines? How do you decide who
to put together the left wing,the center of the right wing and where
they line up? Yeah, youknow what, we try to stack them
with with players that are like alike. So usually two players that are skilled
(49:59):
and then a play or that mightbe more of a hunter, somebody that's
going to go and get the twoskilled guys the puck. So well,
that's how we try to match upthe lineups so that we have good depth
throughout and then you know, asthe game goes, if if you're not
really creating enough offense, then sometimeswe try to stack a line and get
you know, your three best playersthat are going that night on the same
(50:22):
line to try to create that energythat we're looking for. All right,
next question from from Jimmy. Jimmyasn't Jimmy. He never asked this one
before. So who was your favoriteplayer growing up? I thought you were
gonna say last year. I'm surprisedhe didn't. Who is my favorite player
growing up? Is Wayne Gretzky.He obviously he's a lot of people's but
(50:45):
you know what, I'd like moreand more and more. Yeah, just
not even what he just what hedid on the It's just how he was
just such an ambassador for the game, like you know, talk about creating
leaders and building leaders. He's aneasy guy to emulate off the ice.
I think that the guy that inToronto, I grew up in Toronto.
(51:06):
The guy that we enjoyed watching themost in respect of the most as a
Toronto maple leaf was was Doug Gilmore. Thanks everybody for coming to a Night
with Steve Potvian. Hey, honestly, how about a round of applause for
this guy. He always brings theEnergy's so good at bringing us together.
I love being here. Thank you.
Tune in for Hockey State for thefun. This is the Tucson Roadrunners Insider
Podcast with Adrian Dennis. Soup,salad and breadsticks. Let's go and exclusive
and entertaining look at all things Roadrunnersstarts now. Everybody, Welcome to a
bonus edition of your Two Sun RoadrunnersInsider Podcast. Wednesday night, we had
(00:26):
a great night a night with StevePopman at Rudy's Texas Barbie Q. You
didn't have a chance to make itout, got stuck in that monsoon up
an Oro Valley. Just couldn't makeit. If you were there and you
want to relive it, We've gotit all for you right here in a
special edition of our two Soun roadRunners Insider Podcast. Coming up earlier this
(00:49):
week, Jimmy and I talking withMichael kessel Ring in a curtain call edition
of the podcast for Jimmy. Greatchat with Michael, Jimmy and I wrapping
up a great era in the Insiderpodcast. Go back and check that out
if you haven't already. Coming upnext week, Kim Coda, Roblus and
I will be joined by forward NathanSmith. That will drop on Monday on
(01:15):
your iHeart Radio app. But anight with Roadrunners head coach Steve Potvin.
We talked about the upcoming season,our core group, some big acquisitions,
our team identity, and then wewent into the classroom for some hockey one
oh one. Steve got out thewhiteboard and we wrapped things up with your
(01:37):
questions. It was a great nightat Rudy's Texas Barbecue. Let's go back
there for a night with Steve Potvin. All right, Steve, we've got
an hour. All right, ifyou have a question you haven't submitted,
coles back there. He's got someforms and some pens, So don't feel
(02:00):
don't feel bad, don't feel shy. We'd love to answer as many questions
as as we can. Well,Steve, how are you. I'm doing
great. I'm happy to be here. This is great to see a lot
of familiar faces. Honestly, it'sbeen maybe I'm skipping ahead here, you
know how I like to talk,so I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit.
But it's it's great to see everybody, and honestly, it's been a
(02:21):
long time. It's been such along summer, and just can't wait to
get back at it and get backin front of you guys. Yeah,
this is not an event or youneed to hold your applause to the end.
You want to clap, you clap. If you want to meet meep,
(02:42):
you meet meep. All Right.I like that. I like that,
Steve Busy. Offseason, yep,Coyotes have added a lot. There's
a lot of organizational depth right now. That's gonna benefit them, it's gonna
benefit our develop that process in Tucson, and it's going to benefit the road
(03:04):
Runners on the ice. Yeah yousaid it, what a what a fun
time to be a Coyote. Imean, they did it right. They
took time to rebuild and and youknow, really they didn't miss a step,
and honestly, it's it's a greattime to be part of the organization.
And I think we're a little enviousof what happened down the road in
the Desert, and I think wewant a little taste of that, the
(03:27):
success that Vegas had. So Ithink we're heading in the right direction and
it's it's really exciting. And we'vegot a cores. We have several players
entering their fourth season with us thatwe've been able to see come in first
year pro second year. Last yearwe made the playoffs this year. The
guys are are hungry for more.Yeah, you know what, it's it's
(03:51):
amazing when you look back at howmany guys that were part of our team
that had been in the organization forover four or five years, and you
know, they really hadn't gotten thatshot. And then you know, something
clicked with them. They made thedecision that they were going to take the
next step, and they took theirtheir development process very seriously in that fourth
(04:12):
and fifth year and they just pickedit up one notch and then ironically we've
never seen them again. And soyou know, there's I think there's a
lot of really good players that havebeen with our organization for four or five
years that are really knocking on thedoor. And I know that the type
of character that these guys have,they're knocking on the door, and I
know that they'll take that next littleinch and take it very seriously. And
(04:36):
I suspect that a lot of themare a few of them will end up
in the NHL this season or nextseason beyond this year. You know,
last year was a big deal.We made the playoffs, and yes,
to be shy, this is notWe're at Rudy's Texas Barbecue. So everybody
(04:57):
go crazy meaningful games and we hadto fight to do it. Ivan was
in the NHL that month and ahalf that we were making that run.
The teams that we were trying tohold off had their goalie, weren't dealing
with recalls. That was a bigtest for us and UH and everybody came
together and we found a way.Yeah. You know, the best stories
(05:20):
in life always come with some prettylofty challenges. And what I liked about
it was that it didn't matter whatthe challenge was. Our guys always seemed
to just respond. And you know, we talk a lot about in the
room the difference between stress and pressure. You know, stress a lot of
times comes from the uncontrollables things thatyou kind of try to hold yourself to,
(05:44):
like, hey, we got towin a game tonight. We we
got to try to score a biggoal, or you know, this is
a big game. Of course,those are all big games, and a
lot of times when you when youput yourself in those kind of stressful situations,
you don't really come out of thembecause it builds ngs. I but
I what I really liked about ourguys is that they they were able to
apply pressure on themselves and they enjoyedthat those pressure situations where all they wanted
(06:10):
to do was play and compete foreach other, and you know, they
took care of the things that theycould control. And so instead of saying,
hey, we needed to win thenext game, or we needed a
big goal, or you know it, really the mindset and the conversations in
the chat in the locker room wasalways about what can I give to the
other guy, how much can Ihow much, how much can I improve?
(06:31):
What can I do to control myoutcome? And so it always came
down to practicing good habits and reallyjust you know, we talk a lot
about the brotherhood, but caring aboutthe brotherhood and that's how we came out
of it. And at the otherend of it, the developmental part,
the call ups. We talked toMichael Kesselring this week. How many times
(06:56):
did we see him go out foran eleven am practice and get pulled out
the ice five minutes into it becausehe was going up to play for the
Coyotes that night. These guys withus in our organization, with as young
as we are and the opportunity thatour guys have, anybody could get called
up at any given time given theneed, and and that's exciting. It's
(07:18):
Michael Kessler Ring's first NHL training campwhere he's got a chance to make the
NHL team. And for all ofour guys that have been with us,
that's that's what it is. Yousaid, drag him, Drag him off
the ice at eleven o'clock. That'sa hard thing to do, whether he's
getting called up or not. Thisis a kid that loves to be at
the rink and loves to put inhis practice time. So seeing him get
called up and get the opportunity isreally rewarding for our staff. And obviously,
(07:42):
you know, this is a kidthat we picked up from from the
Edmonton Oilers organization and to see himget that opportunity and what it meant to
him really just elevated his next coupleof steps, and I think it elevated
the rest of his season. AndI know now he's he's really convinced on
what it needs, what he needsto do to become a full time NHL
(08:03):
player. But you know, Ithink the best part about our our our
development is just the player's attitude andcommitment to it. You know, we've
really selected and traded for some somereally good people that are are hockey players
that want to be at the arena, And you know that that's not always
the case, and it's not aneasy thing to to really get the right
(08:26):
character and the right type of leadersto be part of the organization. So
hats off to our management group,our scouts and the guys that made it
happen for us. It's a lotof research, it's a lot of work,
right, So you go make atrade, you know what you're getting.
Is this guy gonna fit in ourlocker room with us as a group?
(08:48):
Is he? Is he going tohelp us as we keep going?
Yeah, there's no doubt. Youknow, I think there's unfortunately in our
in our game, there's definitely alot of testosterone, a lot of egos,
a lot of a type personalities thatall believe that they should be in
the NHL. And you know,at some point in time during their minor
hockey careers or in junior a lotof these guys were all the elite players
(09:11):
and they were given the special attentionand you know it's it's hard for them
to come to a team and nowthey're amongst the same type of people the
same type of you know, eliteathletes, if you want to call them
that, they're they're they're all basicallyat the same level, fighting for that
same inch, and so when youput them in a locker room, you
(09:31):
don't know what you're going to getand what type of character kind of unfolds.
And so that's I think one ofthe biggest challenges we have in the
American Hockey League is is trying tobuild a team. When you have that
type of personality, that type ofyou know, commitment to wanting to get
to the next level, it's hardto build a team. And so it
takes a you know, like yousaid, a lot of hours researching,
(09:54):
digging into seeing what type of characterthey have. And you know, a
lot of the scouts, they digin, they ask questions to their former
teachers, and you know, theyget they get the answers they're looking for.
And so it is a hard job. And you know, there's we're
all we're all connected in this thing. One person we don't need to do
any more research on. Is Ivan, our longest tenured Roadrunner, signed to
(10:18):
a contract last month. Nobody,Nobody takes it more to heart. Nobody
wants to succeed more. And Idon't think any anybody's more of a true
roadrunner than Ivan. Yeah, nodoubt. He's an elite mind He has
an elite mindset, and he's aplayer that really believes in himself and believes
that he can be in the NHLright now. And so it's hard when
there's only two goalies and there's onlytwo positions. So a lot of times
(10:43):
you have to be patient, andit's it's a hard thing when you believe
that you can. But you know, we all know that there's no there's
no time limit for learning. You'realways learning, you're always trying to improve.
And you know, I think Ivanis one of those guys that that
unders Dans and he's going to takethe next steps to continue to improve.
(11:03):
You know, it's a it's ayear round thing. Right out of a
pause. Yeah, I've it's comingback. You know, you guys started
this season right after the draft,our Prospect and Development camp fourth of July
week up and up in the valleywith UH, with our staff on the
(11:24):
ice and UH and a lot ofyoung Coyotes, some road runners that we've
seen, some road runners that we'regoing to see, yeah, that's uh.
You know, it's hard sometimes asa coach because you kind of get
to a position where you can't waitfor the season to start and get to
you know your players and get theseason started. But then you look at
the up and coming players that areare right in front of you, and
(11:46):
it's hard not to get excited.And you know, it's a great,
great time to build relationships with themand really get to know a little bit
of their characters, see what getsthem going, get what gets them motivated,
how they go by their process ona day to day on a day
to day basis, and you knowwhat, you really get to see how
(12:09):
far the game has come and howmuch it continues to improve year after year
after year. What these young guysare able to do now compared to what
they were able to do two orthree years ago. It's amazing. And
it's not even really what they're howthey're performing on the ice, how they
conduct themselves, how they prepare thequestions they ask. They have real elite
(12:35):
mindsets, and it's it's really amazingto watch these young guys come through.
You know, after a game,their shifts are ready for him, right,
they have a tablet. They canwatch their shifts like they don't have
to come visit you at the frontof a bus or come see you after
a game. They get their shiftson the tablet and they can watch it
right then. Yeah. You know, the I think when you look at
(12:58):
the guys that make it to theNHL the quickest are usually the ones that
are the self starters. So theones that are, you know, they
don't have to start up the dialoguewith us. They're already researching and finding
ways to improve right away on thetablet. And you know, it's amazing
when you sit down with them andthey're like, ah, yeah, they're
(13:20):
already ahead of it. So thesekids are are well coached, they're well
trained, and you know, thebest ones are always the self starters,
and it's great to see that we'rebringing a lot of those types of players
in are you're working on any projectsthis offseason, maybe maybe at our arena
(13:41):
with some stuff that's going to helpour guys. I'm glad you brought that
up. It's been I look backat my notes and it's been six years
coming. We've been trying to getan off ice shooting gallery started and and
honestly, it's it's exciting because youknow when you look at you know,
we just talked about how the kidsare so prepared and they're so well trained,
(14:01):
so well coached, they've already foundthat next ten percent ahead of where
they should have been, already been, and so now the trick is trying
to find another level and you justhave to be able to put the extra
time in. And so having anoff I shooting galley is going to present
(14:22):
that opportunity for our players. AndI think I counted this is I don't
want to take full credit for this, but Kali Kalishana, he counts the
amount of shots that he takes dailyand he has it charted and he knows
at the end of the year thathe's going to get to a certain number
and how many minutes he's going tospend doing it. And so I counted
(14:45):
in twenty minutes, I was ableto take one hundred and fifty quality shots
and two hundred not so quality shots. But needless to say, it ended
up being an extra ten thousand shotsfor the year for our for our prospects.
So you know, if they wehave sixty practices at home, if
we spend twenty minutes a day onehundred and fifty pucks a morning, then
(15:09):
it equates to nine thousand shots.So hopefully that'll help them with their process
and hopefully it'll help us score afew more goals. Is that Steve over
there? Steve's right there. Steveis our contractor, is going to be
building it. Honestly, without him, wouldn't be happening. He uh yeah,
(15:31):
And of course Bob and Sean areour manager and president. They are
also very helpful and supportive of theof the cause. So uh yeah,
we're we're happy to get it startedand hopefully it really helps our guys grow
and gets them to another step.Do you want to tell the folks about
why Koya chanis kind of daily routine, The amount of time that he spends
(15:54):
on the ice after practice, theamount of time that he spends at the
rink. This guy, this guyis the most calculated person. If you
asked him what your morning starts,what it looks like, and he would
actually tell you, Well, Iget up in the morning, and I
take the blankets off, I putmy slippers on, I go and brush
my teeth, I go to thebathroom, I spread the peanut butter on
(16:17):
probably five or six smooth even swaps, and then you know, I make
my toast that goes from there fromfrom there on. But yeah, he
is one of the most detailed athletes. And I know we've talked about this
on some of the podcasts, soI apologize if I'm repeating myself, but
he's literally a guy that is inno hurry to get to the NHL.
(16:38):
He really believes that he's in aperfect position right now to continue his development
and he's not in the race againsttime to get to the NHL. He
wants to enter the NHL as aready player, somebody that is ready to
compete on a on a night tonight basis, but really not just compete,
but help the team. A lotof times prospects go up and they
(17:02):
play a limited amount of number ofminutes and they're not really quite ready.
He doesn't, he doesn't really believein that. He wants to spend his
time to develop and he wants tomake sure that he's a ready player when
he gets up to the NHL,and he wants to help his team contribute.
What do you see big picture forfor the Red Runners this year?
A lot of depth, got alot of guys going to be in there
(17:23):
at their fourth year with us,and excited to excited to watch him,
excited to add some of the newguys and some of our young prospects.
Yeah, no doubt. You knowwhat when you when you look at you
know, we're hopefully gonna lose MichaelCarconi. He hopefully he's graduated at this
point. We're very proud of him. Uh you know, and you look
(17:45):
at that the end of the yearthat you know he's going to be up
with the big club, it's goingto leave a big hole. And then,
uh, you just you watch thejob that the management team is done,
and you see that the players thatthey've brought us, these are all
character guys that are going to reallyhelp our our team day in, day
(18:07):
out. And honestly, our visionthis year is to build leaders, and
you can't do that without leaders inthe room. So I'm excited to have
Kirkland. Hopefully we have some ofthese other guys come in. I don't
want to get too far ahead becauseI'm hoping that they get a really good,
strong look at the NHL. Butif they do end up with the
Tucson road Runners, I know thatwill be in a locker room filled with
(18:30):
good character and guys that are areready to lead and assist. And we
were close. We were close lastyear. We woke up on a Sunday
morning with flights to Calgary because wewere we needed to win and we were
gonna beat Cachella Valley. We're gonnamove on. They got that early lead.
They went on to Game seven ofthe Calder Cup Finals. So we've
(18:52):
been saying throughout the summer to everybody, Calgary, Colorado, Milwaukee, not
Hers, She Hers, she Hers. She played Cotchella Valley better than us,
But we played Cotchella Valley better thananybody in the Western Conference. That's
right, that's right. Well,we we only had three games. Hershey
had seven games to do it,so we don't know that for sure.
Yeah, Hers, she would havebeen done. Cotchella Valley was up to.
(19:15):
Oh you know what, it's it'samazing when you when you when you
look at teams like the Colorado Avalanchethat spent nine seasons really trying to capture
the Cup and the process it tookfor them to go through to establish a
team that was ready to win.Uh, you know, you have to
be able to stack, skill,stack, structure, stack, save,
(19:40):
stack everything in your process in orderto get to that point. And you
know, I don't think you canget to that point without going through a
lot of those challenges. And youknow, last year it was we I
think accomplished a lot, but Ithink it also opened up our eyes to
how much more we have to do. And I think putting the shooting gallery
(20:02):
together, putting a little extra timeat work, maybe a little bit more
time on video, a little bitmore shoulder to shoulder meetings with our prospects,
with our players, trying to developleaders not just players. I think
those are all things that that we'repaying a little bit more attention to.
And you know, when you gothrough that process and we are, we
were close. You know, Ithink we had a team that could have
(20:26):
beaten Colchella. And that's no disrespectto them, but you know, you
you really are excited about putting thoseextra minutes into the players. And I
think, you know, when whenyou look at our process as well as
I think it's going, there's alwaysways we can improve it. And so
looking back at last season and howclose we were, it's it's exciting to
(20:48):
see what where the guys can gonext year. All right, you want
to do some hockey one on one, Yeah, I can answer some some
hockey one on one questions. Yougot your white board over there, we'll
we'll draw some some stuff up.Brad's gonna help us with that. Brad
will have a question to you firstbefore we get to the whiteboard stuff.
But all right, let's let's startwith before we go to the whiteboard.
(21:11):
First thing you should know about comingto a hockey game as a fan for
the first time ever, first timeon the season. What should you watch?
Well, I don't know. Ithink you just got to be careful
because it's going to be addictive.Once it gets into your bloodstream, you
you'll never want to leave, soyou'll come back over and over and over
again. So I think that's thefirst thing. You got to be aware
(21:33):
it might be an addiction. Iyou know, I think that's just the
fast pace and the energy. Ithink the energy is always something that you
can feel when you come to thehockey game, and you guys do such
a great job of, you know, getting the fans engaged and being involved
in the game. It's it's alot of fun to be there. And
then I think, you know whatthe association with the game, the smell
(21:56):
of the popcorn and you know,the zamboni and those kinds of things.
So honestly, I think it's justa real fun, energetic atmosphere that's quite
addictive, and you just gotta proceedwith cautions sometimes. So as folks are
watching the game, they're seeing guyscoming in out, hopping in and out.
What's what's the length of a typicalshift for for a forward and the
(22:17):
defenseman. Well, I think ourdefensive coach, John Slaney would argue with
me that a forward probably tries toexcends a shift further than thirty or forty
seconds, So we're gonna say thirtyor forty second. He would probably say
a forward would try to extend itto a minute, just because he's the
d and more forwards, but that'sa typical length of a shift. Try
to get out there for forty secondstops. You know, a good analogy
(22:41):
for the time spent on the ice. If you have the best players in
the world, that after thirty seconds, they become very average. And so
we try to, you know,make sure our guys are the best that
they can be. So we tryto pull them off the ice at you
know, thirty five seconds. Thirtyfive seconds. That's it. Get your
stop watches out, all right,Brad, come grab come grab Steve's white
(23:04):
board. But first, first youhave a question. Do you have a
question for our head coaches? IsBrad Kroner? All right? So we
know that you started coaching youth hockey. Yeah, do you remember coaching me?
I always, you know what,you always had a peculiar smile about
yourself. And I didn't know whatit was. What I must have said
(23:26):
something or did some No, Idon't remember that. I'm sorry. It's
okay, I didn't either. Mydad. My dad gave me he goes.
Oh, Steve's the coach of theroad Runners. He coached you when
you were growing up. Oh geez, oh jeez. Where So how old
were you? Probably a squirt?Squirt? Okay, good, So that
was I think probably fifteen years ago. Now, so what's something like ten
(23:47):
fifteen years ago? We have agood excuse. We're off the hook,
you know? Is he coached alot of guys there at the ice dead.
Josh Stones, the big the bigname that we know that that you
coach as a kid, Eiston andScottsdale. Yeah, that that was.
That's that's a real that that was. You know what, that's a fun
(24:07):
thing about hockey. You know thatthese guys grow up and you know,
they're the same type of player.He like, he's the exact same type
of player he was when he wasa kid. And how rewarding actually for
me to see him at at sucha young age grow up into a man
and he's the same type of kidthat he was. Yeah, he's the
same type of kid he is nowthat as he was when he was twelve
(24:30):
years old. He just has thesame passion. He's a type of kid
that wants to learn. He lovesbeing around the rink, you know,
and of course he has a greatmentor and his dad, But I think
it's just his personality is just youknow, it's one of those guys that
he's just one of those guys that, uh, you know, he's going
(24:52):
to be an elite athlete, elitesomething. He's going to be a GM
in the league, or he's goingto be a CEO, or he's just
a smart hockey player. He's justa smart human. He's a guy that
lives with a on the right sideof the edge all the time. So
it's been a lot of fun watchinghim grow and it's it's real rewarding.
I mean, we saw him forwhat fourteen games at a ASU, and
(25:14):
now he's had a full off seasonto train as a pro, Like,
this is gonna be an exciting yearwatching Josh. Yeah. You know what,
when you watch him and when youwhen you see him on the on
the street or you see him inthe locker room, you don't really see
a real competitive, hard knocks kindof guy. But as soon as the
puck is dropped, he's a differentkid. You know. He wants to
(25:37):
win so badly. He wants towin every battle. He wants to make
sure that his teammates respect him.And you know, that's that's a hard
thing from a kid that's come fromScottsdale, from a rich, traditional hockey
background, where a lot of kidsfeel like it's their right, you know,
And he's just one of those guysthat wants to earn respect. And
(25:59):
it's not like it's not flowny,it's not fake. And to be honest
with you, that was one ofthe things that I was concerned about coming
into the locker room. He's he'sgot a lot of pressure because he's part
of the Coyotes organization and we allknow who his dad is. But how
he was able to communicate with histeammates and just he just really became one
of the guys, and he justreally is one of those guys that respects
(26:23):
the game, respects the process,enjoys being a part of it. And
how can you not want to bearound a guy like that. So it's
great having him, And honestly,it's uh. If you see him down
walking across the street or you getinto conversation with him, he's gonna look
like this really happy, go luckykid, but just be careful when the
puck drops. He's he's a littledifferent. All right, you're ready to
(26:47):
go to work on the on thewhite board. Yeah, it's yours,
took it from your office. Okay, good, Brad's gonna hold hold the
mic for you in it, allright? Do you wanna do you want
to draw quickly for the folks?Sure? What would be icing? Icing?
Does anybody not know what icing is? No? All right, so
(27:07):
let's just say this is our offensivezone, this is our defensive zone.
We're transporting the puck across the neutralzone. This is the red line.
If we dump the puck in beforethe red line, that's icing. If
we cross the red line and wedump it, then we're in good shape.
So the only way that we candump the puck, and you might
(27:30):
have seen Carconi do this a lotof times, is if Cracknell got the
puck here, he would elevate thepuck all the way down the end.
Carcony would already be in full flightand he'd beat the opposition to the puck.
And so that's how you negate icing. I don't know if we're gonna
see a lot of that. There'sonly one elite skater like that in our
(27:51):
league. So far it's been him, so we might have to change our
approach a league. All right,there's icing, that's icing. How about
offside icing? There's strings attached.You can ice it when you're on the
penalty kill. There's no there areno exceptions to off side, that's right,
no exceptions to off side. None. Full strength. If we're a
(28:14):
man up, man down, doesn'tmatter. So this is the blue line.
Both teams have to respect the blueline. If you're carrying the puck
over the blue line ahead of yourteammates, you're safe if you if your
teammates go ahead of the puck acrossthat blue line, then it's off side.
So the puck has to travel acrossthe blue line before or at the
(28:38):
same time as your teammates. Theycan straddle it, yes, exactly,
very nice. So they can straddlethe blue line this way both feet.
Yeah, they can straddle blue lineboth feet, or they sometimes they drag
that back leg and they can enterat the same time. Yeah, as
long as they have a piece ofequipment, I would say, on the
(29:02):
ice on the other side of theblue line, then we're safe. All
right. You're the power play powerplay guy. Steve two Son Electric sponsors
this question. Tell us what apower play is and why are you such
a genius coaching the power play.So now Zach's taking over the power play.
So he's he's the power play specialist. But so it's basically when the
(29:26):
opposite we get a an advantage fiveversus. Therefore, when the opposition takes
a penalty against us, So ifthey trip us, or if there's some
type of infraction that justifies a penalty, their player goes to the box.
Now they're down a man, we'reup a man, so we play five
(29:47):
verses. Therefore, all right,drop a drop a power play. We're
on the offensive zone. We're inthe offensive zone. We're on a five
on four and we're going to score, all right. So our main objective
on the power players, we wantto work from the top, So we
want to have a guy up topthat's skilled. He's able to get pucks
through to the net. So whenwe have the puck to the net or
(30:10):
puck in this position here, wewant to always have one player at the
hash marks, one player in frontof the net. So we want to
provide a double screen for the goalieso the goalie can't see the puck,
then the greater chance it goes in. And actually this is probably the highest
percentage of goals that go in inthe NHL. I think it's like thirty
four percent of the goals start froma shot point tip rebound screen from this
(30:33):
area right here. So our mainobjective is trying to get the puck high
and get shots to the net.The next best scenario to score goal and
the powerplay is off of recovery.So it all ties in together. If
you get the puck up top andyou get a shot to the net.
If we can recover the puck,get the puck back up top, and
look for a quick strike to thenet. That's the second most effective way
(30:56):
to score goals in the power play. And then, of course, one
that are one of our old friendsused to do quite often is once we
get this puck up top, wewant to try to create a little deception,
and so maybe we'll walk this way, steer the defensive players this way,
and now we'll pass it over toone of our flanks that's in a
(31:18):
position to strike downhill. And soa couple of years ago we had Mitchelli
in this area right here, andhe's obviously an a lead player and lead
shooter. He would offer a wholelot of deception where he'd have the puck
connected on a string and now he'dlook like he'd be shooting, and then
he'd find Carconi on his island righthere for a quick shot to the net.
(31:40):
That's realistically the best way to score, but it's not always the easiest.
The percentages are very difficult to getthat puck through the slot through the
scene. All right, John Slaneyis going to hear about this. Tell
Us, tell us what's the keyon the penalty kill, don't take a
penalty, stay out of the penaltybox. Years. Yeah, last year
(32:07):
was was you know what, that'sthe we value that that type of game.
We want to play hard, wewant to play but you know the
problem with having that type of DNAis that you do have to kill a
lot of penalties, and so wewant to play a lot meaner, but
a lot cleaner, and so thatthat became correct. So we want to
(32:29):
play mean but clean, and Ithink that was our our focus at the
end of the season last year.Uh, we actually started a fine to
to a fine pot just for thosereasons. If you took a stick in
fraction or if you took a penaltyin the offensive zone, then we theorified
(32:51):
we were we were. A lotof those also came from fighting. We
we led the team the league andfighting majors. Also, Yeah, we
had Boco, we had Douglas,we had Baron that can fight. And
so this year, I don't wantto get too far ahead, but on
a Bouchi's a player that can canreally fulfill that role. So he's going
(33:15):
to be a player to watch.But yeah, the keys on the penalty
kill is having players that are goodwith their sticks, that are relentless on
loose pucks, and that have thewillingness to block shots. And you know,
a lot of times we want totry to create predictability on the PK
where the goalie always knows where theSHOT's coming from. And so if you
(33:38):
look at our penalty kill system,we play a trap down system where we're
always in this type of formation whereone guy's going down coming back to the
interior. And now what we're tryingto establish there are these long shots from
that area, so we're trying toprevent them from getting to the middle of
(34:00):
the ice and not allowing these scenepasses to go through. That's the key,
all right, we're five on five. We want to break the puck
out of our zone so we cango up and score. What do we
do? So we're five on five, we get the well, we got
to use units of five. Wegotta come come back together, and then
(34:20):
we have to exit the zone together. So it takes a lot of detail.
We try to We tell our demandthat we want to have that skater's
mentality. So the first man atthe puck, we want you to have
that skater's mentality either left or right, And when you have that skater's mentality,
you're going to draw people to you. And when you draw people to
you, it opens up space andbehind them. So if they're skating,
they're going to get a player drawnand now they can use a little netdink
(34:43):
and now we can come out theweek's side. The other thing we like
to make sure that we do isthat our sentiments always have to come underneath
inside the dot line. And thenwhen we have full possession, we want
to get our wingers up as highas we can to the blue line,
because our main objective is to tryto get the puck over the blue line
(35:04):
to release the pressure. So wewant to get be in and out of
our zone in seven seconds. Andthen the reason why we want to be
in and out of our zone inseven seconds, it's gonna take us five
seconds, three seconds, two secondsto get through the neutral zone. Then
we're going to try to establish afour check and now we're probably at fifteen
seconds. And so what we're tryingto accomplish is a lot of pressure.
(35:28):
And when we play with a lotof pressure, we apply a lot of
pressure. Teams dump the puck outon us, and now we're probably at
twenty seconds, and now we wantto be able to have the ability to
catch them in a three quarter icegame and then be able to counter and
transition and now have the energy enoughso that we can create a second attack.
And so that's why we want totry to get out of the zone
(35:49):
in seven seconds, so that wecan spend all of our energy in the
offensive zone. And a lot oftimes you get two attacks if you're able
to get out of your zone andseven and seconds. If you're not out
of your zone in seven seconds,then you spend ten to fifteen seconds here.
Then you hope to get one attack. If you don't, then you're
ready for a change. And theproblem is when you're ready for your change,
(36:13):
you're always usually heading back in thedefensive zone and now you're tired.
So the key is we've got toget in and out of our zone in
seven seconds. Okay, rare instance, we're trailing in the third period,
When do we go six on five? When do we pull the goalie?
How many goals are we down?We're down one, We're down one.
Yes, So depending of the typeof game, it's it really depends on
(36:38):
how much pressure we're able to applyif our guys are really making it difficult
on their team, then we'll pullthem at We could pull them at two
three minutes. But the key isnot always the time. It's it's when
your best line is the freshest,so that that can change depending on if
(36:58):
you were able to get the changeat the appropriate time. So say,
for example, at two minutes,Carconi wasn't able to get out there,
and we're really not getting enough sustainedpressure on the opposition, We'll wait to
pull the goalie until Carconi's line,our first line gets out there. Unless
the second line is able to getsome pressure, then we'll pull the goalie.
(37:22):
All right? If you could changeany rule, if you could add
a rule, what would it be. I had a great answer to this
a long time ago. I can'tremember. Somebody asked me, and I
thought I had a good answer toit, and I can't remember. But
I think I don't know. Idon't know. I think I really like
(37:43):
the way the game is right now. I don't know if I would change
too much of it. I thinkI don't know if I have an answer
to that. Do you know whatI When people whine about a delay of
game penalty, yeah, I like, yeah, you cleared the puck out
of you're inconveniencing us. We were, we were working there, Like,
that's a penalty. Stop complaining.Like you hear a lot of people complaining
(38:05):
about that. Yeah, I thinkthat's that can be a little bit that
that could be a rule. Youknow. I think there was a time
obviously teams were using it as anadvantage. Teams were tired, so they
would just dump the puck out.Obviously that's delayed game. But you know
what, like I feel like that'spart of the that's it. Yeah,
that's part of it. That's partof the intrigue. I don't I don't
know if I would change much aboutit, right. Yeah. You know
(38:30):
what, during the regular season,I get it from you don't really love
to lose that way. You loveto win that way. You hate to
lose that way because you were ina good game. You you know,
you feel good about your team,you feel good about what you did at
that night, and you're losing ashootout. It still feels like a loss,
even though it's you lose it,you lost a point. But I
(38:51):
think it's it's something that's entertaining forthe fans. I don't know if I
would take it out just yet.What about you guys? Think? What
about three rounds? Zero? Threerounds? Is three rounds too short?
Is that the perfect amount? Isthat kind of settled? Like when we
went from five to three? Itreally I like the pressure of three.
Yeah. What about shooting first?Because the home head coach gets to pick
(39:16):
whether he wants to shoot first orsecond. I think it comes down to
your guys. You know, ifyou've got to clutch guys, let's go
and get the lead right away,you know. But if we don't have
real clutch guys, let's see whatthey do first. You know, what
about our team identity? We talkabout playing to our team identity? What's
(39:37):
our team identity? Who are weso our team identity? This is uh,
it's it's really important that you havean identity. We want to play.
We want to be a team thatplays fast, We want to play
we want to be a team thatplays hard, and we want to be
a team that has detail. AndI think if you have those three things,
(40:00):
you you're you're a team that's goingto be difficult to play against night
in, night out. Uh,you know, playing fast for me,
isn't really always necessarily how quickly youmove the poc or how fast you skate.
A lot of times it's are youchanging on time? Are you how
how is your awareness and your decisionmaking? Are you putting pucks into areas
(40:22):
where guys can skate into it quickly? So there's a lot that goes into
playing fast. And when you're sayingdetails, you know you have to be
able to hold yourself a player accountableto those details. And then you also
have to be able to support youryour teammates with those with those details.
And then you know what, ifyou're a hard and feisty and tenacious team,
(40:45):
it's hard to play against every night. So we we try to stress
that as much as we can.We want to be a team that plays
very physically. We want to bea team that plays fast, and we
want to be a team that's detailed. All right, let's get to our
fan questions, folks. If youhave any more questions, UH got our
guys back there to hand your form. Just raise your hand and we'll make
(41:07):
sure you get your question in.All right. First question emailed in season
ticket member named Ray. She says, I try to get your attention to
give you good luck fist bumps asyou head out onto the ice. But
you always seem so deeply focused what'son your mind at that time that that's
that's that's a good question. Ilike that question. My wife always says
(41:28):
that I'm somebody she can trust witha secret because she never feels that I'm
listening. So, you know,when you when you hang around coaches and
you start to get to know coachesthere, it always seems like they're distracted.
There's always something on their mind.You know. We we preach so
(41:51):
much to be in the moment,and I think we're probably the ones that
are the least in the moment.We're always thinking back on what happened during
that the period that we just played, or you know what what somebody said,
or how we can make the nextadjustment to get the next inch or
edge on on our opponents. Soit always feels or sounds, or or
(42:12):
or looks like we're distracted. Andso, you know, sometimes when when
I'm at home, even with mymy wife and family, you know,
there's a lot of good things thatare happening at home, and and I'm
very interested. It's just sometimes you'reyou're you know, your mind takes you
back to the game. Is theresomething that surprised you that you've learned from
(42:34):
from the players from the team.Yeah, there there's you know what,
I don't know if it surprises me, but to be real honest with you,
I feel like, so far,I feel very fortunate to be in
the position I'm in, being surroundedwith such hungry people, people that are
you know, wanting to improve.And some of these these guys do some
(42:58):
things that are that are not andyou know, they spend a little extra
time on their on their bodies wherethat's not common. They you know,
cold tubs, wake up early,you know, push their bodies to b
to the brink. It's you know, it's a it's a real fortunate position
for for coaching, for quote thecoaching staff to be around. And you
(43:19):
know, I I I can't say, you know enough about the players that
we have. I've learned so muchfrom them, So I'm not really surprised
about one thing. I'm just veryfortunate to be around them. And and
uh, you know, you surroundyourself with good people, you end up
finding a good way to live andto to to continue your path of growth.
(43:39):
Here's a question emailed in from Jeff. He says, what is one
word you would use to describe theteam and you cannot say the word tall
one word to describe the team,I would say relentless. They're they're a
relentless group. You know, They'renot only just relentlessly trying to get to
the next level or trying to wingames. They're relentlessly trying to to fulfill
(44:05):
their destiny. Like it's it's amazinghow fixed they are on on what they
want. They're they're people that arevery determined. And if I had to
choose one word, I think itwould be relentless. Yeah. Yeah,
it's it's hard to get through somepeople that are that are fixed mindsets.
(44:25):
You know, they're they're so fixedon what they want and how they they
think they need to get there.So it's it's a challenge to try to
get them to navigate in different ways. So it's it's they're a relentless group,
there's no doubt. Here's a questionfrom Bill, what are the cards
from no Bill? Bill? BillHarra mia Okay from Veil Okay. He
(44:46):
says, what are the assistant coachesand the players doing when the formal practice
ends and the guys stay out onthe ice and the coaches are working with
them and that the individual stuff.What do we do? Yeah, what,
what's what's going on there? Yeah, a lot of times it's just
you know, trying to find aninch in their game. A lot of
times it's just trying to get offthe wall, trying to find ways to
(45:08):
create space for for our players andtry to get the edge on on their
on the opponent. You know,I think there's three levels of skill.
The first level of skill is usuallywhat you do the first time you come
on the ice. So usually it'sit's a it's a wall battle, it's
a race, it's an angle onthe puck. So that's level one skills.
(45:31):
Try to work on those things asfrequently as possible because that happens probably
the most. And then level twoskills are are you know, passing and
receiving and jumping into holes, winningraces, creating space off the wall,
so try to work in those inthose, try to work on those areas.
(45:52):
And then level three skills is youknow, shooting the puck, demand
walking the blue line, trying toget pucks through to the net. So
basically after practice, uh, wespend a lot of time on level three
skills because most of the practice wespend on level one and level two.
Here's a question from answer. It'svery interesting. Yeah, one, two
(46:15):
three. Steve asked about Carcony andBoco, Mike obviously signing the two year
one way contract with the Coyotes,Boco going back back out east where he's
from with with the Senators. What'sthe question? Just expound on Carcony getting
(46:36):
the one way and and the yeahwith Boco and uh and moving on in
his career. Yeah, you knowwhat, he came to our team,
uh three years ago from Milwaukee,so that was Nashville's affiliate, and he
came on on loan. I'm goingto turn that off that there's motion at
your front door, Steve, therethere go. Yeah, so he came
(47:02):
from from Milwaukee and that's Nashville's affiliate, and you know what he Uh,
we're proud of it because he'd andyou know, maybe this is I don't
like to boast, but he wasnot really willing to go back to Nashville.
He really liked what Arizona offered.He liked the development part of it,
(47:24):
he liked the the the attention thatwas given to him, and then
the amount of ice time that hegot, and so he fit right into
our culture right away. And soto see him, you know, after
three years of fight and struggle andcompete to get to the next level,
to finally get that chance to toplay last season the way he did and
(47:45):
then now get his one way contract, it's it's pretty rewarding for for us
as a as an organization to tosee him develop and go through our process
and now get get the opportunity todo it. We're proud of him and
we're proud of the fact that hecame through our our culture. So it's
that's really rewarding for for coaches andand and the staff, there's no doubt,
(48:07):
uh. And then you know what, when when you see players move
on our our vision, as Ialluded to before, was is always to
create leaders that are able to leadthemselves beyond their selfish needs. And when
(48:28):
they leave our culture, we wantthem to be able to really turn into
grown men. You know, theycome into our sometimes organization as prospects and
then they got to transition into apro and then a man. And so
for you know, for a guylike Boco, he's been with us for
the last two years. He wasa pro when he came to us,
(48:50):
and now we know that he's inhe's in a good spot. He's in
a good place and and he's earnedthe right to play on a on another
team. You know, I thinkthis this ecosystem is always about what you
give and what value you can bringto a team. And so you know,
we're always proud of the guys thatmove on that get the opportunity to
(49:13):
play, because you know, aslong as you're giving and you can give
an add value, you're going tofind a place to play. And so
we're very excited to see Boco getthe opportunity to hook up with Ottawa and
and you know what, I suspecthell it will see him in the NHL.
Here's a question from Carry NHL deybutwith the Coyotes, by the way,
after four years with different organization forBoco, another another guy, we
(49:37):
got to the NHL, right,yeah, right, right. Question from
Carry is how do you decide theforward lines? How do you decide who
to put together the left wing,the center of the right wing and where
they line up? Yeah, youknow what, we try to stack them
with with players that are like alike. So usually two players that are skilled
(49:59):
and then a play or that mightbe more of a hunter, somebody that's
going to go and get the twoskilled guys the puck. So well,
that's how we try to match upthe lineups so that we have good depth
throughout and then you know, asthe game goes, if if you're not
really creating enough offense, then sometimeswe try to stack a line and get
you know, your three best playersthat are going that night on the same
(50:22):
line to try to create that energythat we're looking for. All right,
next question from from Jimmy. Jimmyasn't Jimmy. He never asked this one
before. So who was your favoriteplayer growing up? I thought you were
gonna say last year. I'm surprisedhe didn't. Who is my favorite player
growing up? Is Wayne Gretzky.He obviously he's a lot of people's but
(50:45):
you know what, I'd like moreand more and more. Yeah, just
not even what he just what hedid on the It's just how he was
just such an ambassador for the game, like you know, talk about creating
leaders and building leaders. He's aneasy guy to emulate off the ice.
I think that the guy that inToronto, I grew up in Toronto.
(51:06):
The guy that we enjoyed watching themost in respect of the most as a
Toronto maple leaf was was Doug Gilmore. Thanks everybody for coming to a Night
with Steve Potvian. Hey, honestly, how about a round of applause for
this guy. He always brings theEnergy's so good at bringing us together.
I love being here. Thank you.
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