Jason Strudwick

This is a veteran team that's won, that has really good leadership.

What I think Torts has done a great job of is recognizing all of that and letting the players know

Take charge and take care of things.

I think he's really instilled confidence in players.

That's been really noticeable.

No one gets away with anything, whether you're Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, or the fourth line forward.

He keeps people accountable, takes them to task.

But he does so...

I really believe, I've said this many times, if you have trust in a relationship between a coach and a player, in the moment, you can be hard on the player.

In the moment, you can take the guy to task for his play or a mistake that he may have made if you've developed that trust.

And I think that John is so...

tremendously caring and genuine in his relationships with players that if he needs to bark at somebody I think in the moment they take it and they understand the point he's trying to make and they move on so that's been noticeable for me and I guess I'm making it a long answer but I think he's understood the situation and reacted and handled it very well that's probably the easiest way I can say that

Yeah, I spoke to it last week prior to our series against the Avalanche.

I don't have any more to say on it at this time.

It's only news because Edmonton leaked it.

So this isn't something that came out of our organization.

We've been forced to respond to it, which we did prior to our series against the Avalanche.

But I've talked to Bruce.

I've talked to Bruce as recently as yesterday.

I know how he feels.