Definitely, in John's case. It's very special to get these kind of people ? not just great players, but great people in the locker room. |
Guys are starting to gain a lot of confidence. Hopefully, it's time to climb up the ladder, and if we keep playing like this, we will. |
He didn't make the trip because in the third period last night he was having a recurrence of an irregular heartbeat. Obviously, we're concerned about it, so we left him at home. |
He hasn't achieved what we thought he'd achieve, based on the way he played two years ago. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of explanations for why things haven't gone that well this year. But a lot of guys haven't played up to the level that we'd anticipated. |
He made some nice moves on that play. That was great. |
He meant an awful lot to us, both on the ice and off. He had a great career, obviously, everywhere he was. But here, he solidified our team in the sense that he gave us a top two line person that made it a 1a and 1b situation, which no other team had at that time. He was very, very important to us winning our Stanley Cups. |
He really hasn't had a great opportunity to play in Carolina. He's been behind some guys who are probably better than he is. |
He was talking about skating (yesterday) but I'm not sure. |
He wasn't playing like he was two years ago, and I didn't see us re-signing him. This was a good opportunity to get a player for the future and someone who can do the job defensively this year and possibly beyond. |
He'd been complaining about his hip since Montreal. Actually, he had a little tightness there before, but in Montreal (on Jan. 4) he hurt it in practice. We didn't think it was that serious, but it kept bothering him and bothering him, so he decided to get an MRI done. |
He's going to be an off-ice conditioning program for the next 10 days to two weeks and then he will be reevaluated after that. They are going to try and get the right level of medication that he needs. Medicine is not an exact science, so you have to test things and try them. They are in that process now. |
He's played well, but the bottom line is winning hockey games. We want to win hockey games, and hopefully, he can help us do that. |
He's started his medication already and it will solve his problem. He's in great shape and he's in great spirits. This has been something that has been lingering on and off and they finally figured out what it is. |
He's working out, and he's hoping to skate sometime soon. |
His biggest benefits are his passion and his energy level. |