Peter Laviolette

And I still think that even though somebody runs with something, it's got to be under the direction of the head coach and the thought process of the head coach.

So for me,

Those systems of a power player, a penalty kill, you're talking about the penalty kill.

I remember back then that for me, I wanted to be super aggressive.

I wanted to go after teams.

I wanted to take time and space and eventually with skill.

There could be somebody open.

But you hope that with not just the first initial jump off of the penalty kill, the one guy where there's a bobble puck or there's a puck that's on the yellow, where he's already on his toes, he's kind of pre-jumped it, and now he's gone.

You hope that the second and third guy have closed on their guys as well.

And now there's no outlet.

You've taken away not only the...

the ability to turn up and make a play, you've taken steps towards taking away the outlet pass as well.

And I was always of the mindset that, and I think it leads to offense.

When you have an aggressive mindset and aggressive approach to penalty kill, not that you're looking for it, but you find the two-on-ones or you find the three-on-ones or the three-on-twos where you could possibly get a quick hit back the other way.

I think when we first came in with the Islanders the first two years, I think we were...

number one and number two in short-handed goals in both years.

It was, you know, 17, 18 short-handed goals.

So not only the penalty kill, and I guess the mindset of being aggressive was, well...

If they make four great passes and they put it in the back of the net, then go line up and drop the puck and we'll go from there.

But I just thought it was always really difficult if you can manage when you want to pressure and do it at the right times.