Manny Malhotra

You saw the evolution of a lot of guys' games.

Hey, Matty, congrats.

A big part of being a coach is understanding what's going on around the league and stealing, if you will, different ideas and thoughts.

When you look at different teams and how they've gone through it,

Number one, there's an understanding that there's going to be some tough times.

And when you acknowledge that, it makes things easier to go through it.

Not to say that we are going to be accepting of those tough times.

It's going to be within those times that we will see the character of our group.

We will see what we're made of.

And it'll teach us resiliency.

It'll teach us how to...

turn things when they aren't quite going your way and how to maintain that positive mindset and work through things.

So yeah, I think the underlying message with all those teams that have gone through it is consistency and staying the course and believing in what you're doing and executing on those things on the daily.

I think a captain kind of emerges from the group based off of a lot of those fundamental things, their body language, their energy.

How do they carry themselves in the facility?

How do they show up on the ice?

How do they behave in the room?

How do they treat trainers and coaches and support staff?

And I think you'll find...

that the best leaders, they may not be your best players, but they will be the guys that will set the table in terms of how you want the team to look and how you want your team to behave.