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PREGAME: Head Coach Lane Lambert with Everett Fitzhugh before Kraken/Stars (2/25) · Seattle Kraken Audio Network

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thanks Mike all Ay, and it's been a long time
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: since we've talked to you last First of all, how
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: was your break.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Did you get some sun, did you get away for
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: a little bit?
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Were you able to decompress and step away from hockey?
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: I think we did. Yeah, it has been a long
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: time three weeks, but it seems like about three months
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: right now. You know, when you know you're coming back
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: and you know the stakes are high and you're looking
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: forward to, you know, sort of the playoff push in
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: the last third ish of the season, that the break
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: just took forever did turn the brain off for a while,
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: which was nice. I think everybody had to do that
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: and was able to go home to Arizona and you know,
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I was able to catch some sun that way. But
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: you know, happy to be back. I think we've had
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: a pretty good week of practice, and I think our
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: guys are more than ready to start playing in terms
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: of they're sick of practice. You know, I didn't love
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: our practice yesterday, but I like the ones before that,
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: so you know, I just think it's a matter of
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: we've had too many practices in a row and it's
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: just time.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: To get played.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: When you come back from a long break like this,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: whether it be the summer, whether it be an All
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Star Christmas holiday, whatever the case may be, what do
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you do to refocus the guys to get them focused?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, three weeks is a long time compared to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: three days normally, But what types of things have you
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: done the last week to get guys refocused and knock
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: as much of that rust off as possible?
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this one's different than say an All
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Star break or a three day break of some kind
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: of Christmas. This one is more almost like summer. We
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: tweeted a little bit about like training camp in terms of,
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: you know, our systems and film and reminders. You know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: So we went through a whole bunch of reminders, stuff
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: that they should know and do know. But there's nothing
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: wrong with giving them a refresher course either, you know.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: And then we obviously you design practices around your film
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: and your systems and a lot of individual stuff as well,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: because you know the game is going to be about
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: individual battles being able to make place under pressure, as
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: it always is, but when you haven't done it for
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: three weeks, it becomes a little bit more difficult potentially,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: unless you practice as much as you can and as
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: hard as you can to do that, and I thought
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: our guys did a good job of doing that. We'll
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: see what happens, you know, I will say this, Regardless
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: of what happens, our guys worked.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: We saw a lot of really good hockey over the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Olympic break, capped off via other worldly generational gold medal game.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: You yourself now are the head coach of two bronze
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: medalists and Coppocco and Elie Tolvenen. Did you get to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: watch any of the Olympic hockey? What did what did
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you make of the quality of play that we saw
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: over the last three weeks? And as you're watching Kraken
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: players play other guys that you've coached play, what are
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: some of the things that you were thinking about in
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: terms of, you know, the growth of the game and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: what this means for the sport.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was I watched as much as
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: I could, which was actually quite a bit, you know.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: I I watched most of the games that, in my opinion,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: we're going to be well played games. You know, there's
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: some games there that you know, there really isn't any
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: point in watching your nine ones and things like that. So,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: but I thought our guys played well. I thought the
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: competition level was high. You can tell the excitement of
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: the players with every country playing for their country, and
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: you know, they weren't holding back anything. And you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: because of that, we've got some guys injured coming back,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: you know, not from our team, but certainly the league,
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: you know. So that's that's kind of interesting. But what
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: a what an a final game as well? You know,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: so I don't think that you can argue that that
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Olympic Hockey Tournament was great for the game of hockey.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Dare I ask who you are rooting for in that
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: gold medal game?
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Uh? Well, I just you know, I I'm Canadian originally,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I do you know, I do have my US citizenship,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: so I'm proud of both things. How about that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You wanted both teams to have fun? I love it?
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I did.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: You mentioned a bit of the injuries and that that's
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the high risk, high reward of a tournament like this.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: You get to see best on best. But then we
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: find out this morning that Sidney Crosby's out for four weeks.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Kevin Fiala, his season's probably done here in Dallas. Miko
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Rantman's gone for a couple of weeks. Speaking with the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Dallas Stars, they're gonna be without a couple of their
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: bigger pieces for for tonight's game, but they're still a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: dangerous team. What are you looking for for the Kraken
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to come out strong with here tonight? Keeping in mind
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that there may be a few of their normal names
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and faces not in the lineup for.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Them, Well, the one thing about it is, and there's
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: no question, you know they're not in the lineup. They're obviously,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: you know, great hockey players. So you know, I guess
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: it's got of help for our team, yeah, in a
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: certain way, but you know, we've proven it all year long.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Other teams have proven it all year long. When you
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: have injuries and injuries to key guys, you know you're
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: a dangerous hockey team regardless. So you know, we certainly
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: want to focus on our team. We've got to play
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: a good hockey game. We need a good start to
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: this game, and that's been kind of our focus for
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: the last little bit here is just make sure we're
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: ready to go. Our brains are turned on