Bik Nizar

Chase Reed, all right.

I thought that was going to be Kevin McKenna.

No.

No.

Well, there's your personal encounters with these guys as well that informs it.

But when we're watching games, and you in particular are watching every single one of these games, I imagine you see that infused in the players' output.

Whether it's, hey, this guy's on a 25-goal pace at the AHL level, or this is a guy crafting out a role, and...

trying to get the most out of his career right now.

And it can be challenging, but here's this guy fighting for a spot as the third line or whatever it is.

And you see that character and that communication output through those players in their efforts.

And I think that was intimated a little bit too by RJ and in his presser earlier today, just that second year of having everything go wrong, but trying to utilize that as some form of a positive for,

To say like, OK, if you had you stepped in as a head coach and you immediately win right away and it's like, oh, this is what it's always like.

Do you kind of rest on your laurels?

But having to go through that year again, like losing sucks and finishing as low as they did in the HL sucks.

But what are you taking out of it?

Is there a common thread between some of the development stories that you look at of, okay, this is why it's been successful for those players?

Because we've mentioned the names of the guys who have graduated through to the NHL level, whether it's DPD, whether it's Linus Carlsen, Sassone, Mueller flashing at the end of the season.

But when you look at the profile of players, is there a thread between them all that you say, okay, this is why it's worked so well for Manny Malhotra to have these guys advance?

Yeah, and just evaluating, it's easier to evaluate the contract stuff than it is the player development, even though there's been success stories.

But I think there's a difference between giving out bad contracts and not having contracts work out.