Manny Malhotra

So we tried to lead by example as much as we could.

For me, they go hand in hand.

And when you're

pushing your teammates in practice and you're competing and you're coming up with bragging rights because you won a puck battle that that level of intensity becomes infectious and all of a sudden now it just becomes a game amongst the guys who's better than who on this day who's winning more races than who on this day who's beating the goalie who's finishing the check then it then it becomes a game within the game for ourselves at practice that you want to best your buddy and

So for me, that's the approach we took in practice.

The adage RJ uses all the time is steel sharpens steel.

So we know that when we crank up the intensity in practice to make it as difficult as we can on each other, that come game time, we've been there, done that.

Now it's just about continuing to execute and play our game.

Well, you have to make training fun to a certain extent.

There's obviously it's necessary.

You need it for the improvement.

But how you go about that business and how you go about that work shapes how much fun the guys can have.

So when you make competitions of everything, when you're playing small area games, when you're breaking down, you know, different systems within the game and base it off of a small area game in practice, all of a sudden guys just want to win.

They want to win that particular drill.

Yeah.

That, again, becomes infectious and just becomes the way you play that when there's something on the line, I want to win, whether it's in practice, whether it's, you know, shooting hoops on the driveway, whatever it is.

But then all of a sudden come game time when it really counts.

It's just an automatic like there's something on the line.

I want to be more successful than my opponent.

Yeah.