Article content continued

“And I wanted to show I could jump in and play right away.

“The testing was a huge part of that, mentally.”

BEST DECISION

Among the shrewdest moves Green made this season was doing something Willie would not.

He reduced Horvat’s penalty-killing minutes, most notably in the second half of the season.

And he upped Horvat’s power-play time.

“He had to work on his penalty killing,” Green said. “A lot of times it’s experience.

“Last year, when we talked, one of the topics was him becoming a better penalty killer.

“He’s done a better job of it. He has got better in that area.

“And in the power play, I think that’s a good spot for him down and around the net. He’s strong. It’s not just the play with the puck.

“When we don’t have it, he’s usually the first guy to get to the corner, and to get to a loose puck.

“That’s a part of the power play people really don’t talk about, puck retrievals.”

The results Green had from these deployment decisions are multi-layered.

He’s getting more out of Horvat on the power play, something many of us were shouting about the final two years of Willie.

Horvat has gone from three power-play goals to nine.

He’s also helped created a far superior killer.

This is understated because of the improvements Horvat has shown offensively.

But he’s gone from being a really poor killer who was hurting his team to a player who is just fine in the role.

It’s more dramatic than it reads too.

In other words, he’s shaved his goals-against rate by about 42 per cent.