After returning from Des Moines, Iowa and Rosemont, Illinios last Sunday, the Ontario Reign returned to work this week in preparation for their home opener against the Bakersfield Condors on Friday and Saturday at Citizens Business Bank Arena.
Today’s Practice Buddies:
Maroon: Sutter, Walker, Herr
Green: Imama, Devane, Crescenzi
Grey: Maillet, Brodzinski, Amadio
Yellow: Schmalz, Iverson, Marcinew
White: Luff, Mersch, Hensick
Black (Defense): Walker, Falkovsky Roy, Lintuniemi, LaDue, Gravel, Leslie
Purple: Zatkoff, Campbell, Petersen
– Power play work kicked off the first half of practice with the first and second man-advantage units reviewing offensive zone face offs, retrieving the puck from their own zone and skating back in. Last week Stothers preached “playing with pace” and moving the puck from defense to offensive quickly. The Reign power play seeks their first goal of the season after going 0-for-13 in the first three games.
Scoop From Stutts
ORI: What details have you been stressing this week, namely on the power play?
Head Coach Mike Stothers: There are any number of things to improve upon. We are 0-3. It’s not just the power play. We’ve got 10 rookies in our lineup and there’s been a heck of a change over from the previous regime. You cannot put a price tag or value on LoVerde, Backman and Bissonnette and what they add to your team on and off the ice. Then you look at the start of the year and we didn’t have LaDue, Brodzinski, Kempe and MacDermid and the list goes on. All those guys weren’t here and that’s a HUGE turnover. Am I overly concerned or alarmed in any one area? No. You say we went 0-for-13 on the power play and I can think back to the Kings most recently and they were 0-for-16 before going 3-for-3 vs. Buffalo. Nobody talks about their power play anymore. That’s the way it goes. It’s going to come. Would we rather be 3-0? Absolutely, but if you are 3-0, you might be masking some of the things you need to work on. We don’t measure our success on wins and losses. We measure our success by the fact that Justin Auger gets recalled to the Kings.
ORI: With the turnover and change in personnel, is there more communication or pressure with the current leadership group (Sutter, Crescenzi, Hensick, Devane, etc) to help communicate to the team?
Stothers: Not exactly. If you dangle the fact that we are 0-3 in front of them, that puts the work “pressure” on and I choose to look that there is no pressure. All you have to do is win your next game. Who cares? There has been teams that started 7-0 that didn’t make the playoffs. You make whatever you want out of it Jay.
ORI: What area’s of Bakersfield’s game have you focused on in video seasons? What do they present that might be different from previous seasons?
Stothers: It’s going to be a match up of the birds. They are the Condors and we have a Falcon (defenseman Stepan Falkovsky). HAHA. I expect it to be the same as it has been the last couple years. There is no easy games, especially with the team we have. Our division is very competitive. I’m sure they will be good. We are no position to take things for granted or to take things likely.
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