On how close the team is to making the playoffs:
I guess the way I look at it is that I don’t even think like that. I know we are going to get there. I just don’t know what the timeline is. We’re just going to keep getting better. I really like a lot of the things that happened this year. I like a lot of our kids. What happens to the Marlies in the next little while affects what happens to us next year. They have talent. They’re a team that’s really going to dig in to find a way to win. I don’t know the answer to that. What happens at the draft – I don’t know the answer to that totally. What happens with free agency – I don’t know. What I would tell you is we’re miles ahead of where we were both in terms of our cap situation and our development of players and the amount of players that we have. Last fall, when we were trying to put a team on the ice, we didn’t have enough players for the 23 spots on the team. What you want to have is way too many players for the 23 spots on the team. That’s how you get better. That’s how you create competition. That leads to you having a chance.
When you go through it, and you look at the goals for and the goals against, it appears to me that if you give up 200 and you get 225 you’re going to get in. So we have a lot of work to do in those areas. We have to make sure we think we have enough goals on paper prior to the start of the season for that to happen. But, obviously, we’re no different than anyone else here. I’m optimistic that we’ve made great changes and that we’re going in the right direction.
On the opportunity to recognize some of the club’s youth this season:
I don’t think anybody went into the season thinking we were going to win the Cup. I think expectation and knowing what you’re getting yourself into allows you to have the right attitude everyday. Obviously, I’ve got to tell you I enjoyed this year very much. My relationship with Lou is spectacular. Lou’s a really, really good man and it’s fun to be around him. That goes for Shanny as well, and our people here I’ve been impressed with. We’ve put together, I think, a real good sports science team, a good coaching staff; our Marlies coaching staff and management group there is doing a real good job. I like all those things. Let’s be honest – some nights, on game night, it wasn’t as much fun as it’s been in the past. But the attitude, the effort, the commitment to doing things right was spectacular, I thought. I like the group of people we have moving forward.
On what he was most proud of this season:
Someone asked me yesterday, “you finished last, is your name all over this?” Well, obviously. I don’t think about it like that at all. From where we were, to where we are, is a million miles. But the journey has just begun. I knew that when I signed here. My contract expresses that very clearly. When you look at the teams that are in the playoffs today, all of those teams think they’re making the playoffs again next year. It’s great to say, “oh, we’re going to get in,” but who is going to be out? There’s a lot to it. The great thing about the playoffs and the opportunity to win the Stanley Cup is it’s supposed to be hard. The teams like us that think we’re close – you never know how far away you are until you get in the playoffs and you get hammered by a team that’s been doing it a while, and they’ve got real men and they’ve been through the wars and they understand how it takes to play.
I guess what I’d say to you is I think we’re really going in the right direction. I think we’re going to have a bunch of kids. I’m proud that we worked, and I’m proud that the fans in our community, in our town seem to be appreciative of what we’re trying to do and the direction we’re going. I think it’s going to be fun to be a Maple Leaf. I really do.
On Brooks Laich saying, “wow, am I ever lucky to be a part of this:”
I like ‘Laicher’ because he likes life. He gets up in the morning and he’s energized by it. A big part of that is choosing your attitude each and every day. What he’s been able to do off the ice — not just on the ice – for us is important. I think we have a special place in Toronto. I think it’s a fantastic city. We have unbelievable fan support. It’s crazy, actually, the punishment that some of these people have taken and that they’re still hanging with us. The future is bright here. It’s going to be right for a long period of time. Is it going to happen as quickly as we want? Probably not; never usually does in life. But it’s going to happen.
On Auston Matthews:
He’s a great kid. Tony Granato’s brother coached him and Matthew Tkachuk last year, so they were in my office in Detroit all the time. They’d drop in. I’ve seen him play a number of times; not this year, last year. He’s a big, talented guy. All we know for sure is that we have an 80% chance of not being in on that pick. We know we are going to get a top-four pick and that’s all we know. We’re going to be ecstatic with whomever we get.
On what excites him most about the group of young kids coming up:
There’s too many of them; that’s what I like the best. We don’t know which ones are going to be the good ones. We can speculate all we want, but you don’t know for sure. The kids that we have coming – not just the ones on the Marlies, the kids we have coming – we have some good players. The other thing is we have some guys and four or five of them have unbelievable drive trains. I think that’s what you need to be successful. Skill is a great, great thing. A drive train is a whole other thing that pushes people to be better around you. I like the group.
The other thing is I have a pretty good relationship with [Mark Hunter]. He can’t help it; even when he tells his wife he’s coming home for supper, the truck usually veers and goes to a game, which I really appreciate. In the end, those are the guys that make you good. You need players. The more players you have, the better chance you have to be a better coach.
On whether there’s a sense of relief heading into the offseason and thinking long-term instead of short-term pain:
Not really. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the playoffs. This is the most exciting time of year. You want to be part of this. You’re taking your team picture, and there’s still games going on here today. That’s not where you want to be. In saying all that, I like the position we’re in better than a lot of teams in the NHL. A lot.
On whether he identified some leadership within the room this year:
It’s really important. It’s also important that some of our young guys who are important really continue to grow up and become men so that they can do it right everyday and lead as well. You need your good players to be leaders, in the end. Not only do we have to have good veteran leadership; we have to have good leadership from within with our young guys and grow that. I think what will happen over the next – I don’t know how long it will be – I hope [the Marlies] get a long run. I hope we have some guys coming there. I sure witnessed the work ethic part of leadership when some of them were around, so that was positive.
On how much he’s going to miss the playoffs and how quickly he wants it back:
I want it back next year. I miss it a lot. I believe the best thing is when you’ve got best on best and they’re all healthy and you’re all healthy and you don’t know who is going to win. That’s the game you want to be in. We’re trying to build a franchise that’s going to have an opportunity to do that year after year. When we arrive in September, we’re not worried about this week. All you care about is the playoffs. That’s where we’re going.
On whether he’ll have a captain in place next season:
I think it’s really important. I don’t expect to have one. Now, things can change. Being a captain isn’t given. It comes on an earned basis. You have to have someone who is capable of being that. Lou and I haven’t even talked about this yet, or Shanny for that matter. We had a team picture today without one. It was not really what you want. In the end, it’s where you’re at. We’ll make sure we have a good captain over time.
On whether this year was harder than he thought it would be:
It was better than I thought. Everything was good until this last little bit. I enjoyed it a lot. We competed hard. I thought we were professional about how we went about our business. I liked a lot of things that happened. It went way better from a player movement standpoint than we ever could’ve thought or hoped. So we’re set up better that way. And the guys were great. They were great people to work with. They worked hard and they tried hard. I think that’s all you can ask from a group is to work hard and to compete hard.
On whether he’s more or less patient one year in:
I think I’m patient with the plan. I’m very impatient, probably, on game day. I’m no different than the fans. I want to have success as fast as I can and so do the players. It just doesn’t happen overnight. You just look at all these franchises, and many groups go to the media at this time of the year and tell them how great next year is going to be. And then next year never comes in sport. It just keeps happening over and over again. What makes you believe me? The answer is just, simply, that it’s going to happen. I just know by what we’ve done and what we’ve got coming and where we’re going and the plan we have. It’s just going to happen. I don’t know if it’s soon enough for all of us, so that’s the impatient part. But we’ll be fine.
