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How does a player get in your good books?

“Just playing the right way. Come to work every day. We need you for two and a half or three hours a day and the best part of your day needs to be when you’re here at work. Be respectful of the situation. And be accountable.”

How can you get the most out of this group?

“We have to become consistent. Every team that’s a good team in the National Hockey League is very consistent. It’s a long year. It’s 82 games. You’re going to have some ups and downs. You’re going to have some points in your schedule that are challenging and more challenging than others and you have to be able to get through it.”

Photo by Al Charest/Postmedia

How do you get the most of star players?

“They want to play. The best players want to play and they want to be on the ice in key situations. They have to be able to get the job done. When it’s going good, obviously your star players and your best players are the guys that carry the load. But, we’re seeing it now with the NHL playoffs and the war of attrition that they are, you need everybody. You need depth, you need everybody to find a way to contribute. And you have to find your game within the structure and framework of the team game. That’s the biggest challenge for our guys.”

What is your opinion on advanced statistics? How do they help you?

“It’s good. There’s more information now than ever. We’ve got a real good department that looks after all of our analytics and we do a lot of it in-house. A lot of it that you get generically isn’t as accurate when you check it — you’re looking at shot locations and different stats. They don’t always match up. So what you do as a coach, we have our own analytics and a vision — they have to pass the eyeball test during a game. But after the game, the next day, we’re breaking down tape the next day and making sure what we see is correct. Then, it’s supplemented with analytics. You can have your conversation with analytics people but at the end of the day, you have to put people in situations to succeed.”