Vancouver Canucks Training Camp: Day Three, Part Three – Zack MacEwen, Richard Bachman, & Jalen Chatfield

“I think it’s confidence and knowing what to expect a bit more. Knowing the guys a bit better, being more comfortable around the guys. Getting that taste last year was good too. It gave me some things to work on over the summer, so you know, it’s time to implement that and try to keep implementing the things that you need to work on when the preseason games start. It’s exciting and fun to get going right now.”

“Yeah, exactly. He’s really good for improving that foot speed and explosiveness. He’s helped a lot of guys do that and a lot of guys have cranked up their game. I’m excited for this year after the summer that I’ve had.”

“Yeah, I’d say that comes with a little more quickness than I had last year. I worked on my agility a lot this summer as well.”

“Oh yeah! It’s awesome being an uncle! Little Phia is pretty cute and it’s awesome. They’re living in Halifax, so I got to see her quite a bit over the summer. It’s great…It’s awesome to see my brother so happy too!”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s an emotional injury. Especially with my age and just the severity of it. You don’t know how your body is going to respond, so when it happened, it was definitely an emotional time. You know, it puts a lot of different thoughts in your head, but for me, I just took it as an opportunity to try and come back a little bit stronger, and clean up other areas of my body that have been hurting for a couple of years. You just work hard and hope for the best.”

“Yeah, it’s a little bit of a different look than we’ve had in the past, but for me, especially coming off of this injury, and really in any year, for me, I just want to prove that I can still play and still compete at a really high level and win hockey games.

I think in order to do that, it’s just been a day-to-day mentality here through camp and we’ll take it day-to-day once we get down there…but you know, you want to see the young kids do well too. I’ve been in the organization for a long time and you want the best for everyone, but at the same time, I have to be a little bit selfish and take it day-to-day and try to compete and win a job.”

“Yeah, I think some of it is just by your everyday actions – your preparation, your mentality in games, your emotional control. There’s a lot of different things you can do by just showing it without even saying much.

I think there’s a lot of things…especially, you see it a little bit more now in the NHL because it’s a younger league than it used to be, but especially in the American Hockey League, you have guys coming right out of junior that are 18-19-years-old. It’s not just at the rink that you’re helping them out. It’s every day, figuring out how to take care of themselves away from the rink. We try to help them with that too…to help them make a smooth transition to pro hockey.”

“I’m just a little bit older, I guess. I know the guys a little bit better and know what the coaches expect in the organization. You just get a little more comfortable as the years go on…you get older and just more proven as a player too. You get more comfortable.”

“It was a blessing in disguise for me. I know I missed a lot of hockey, and you never want to do that. That was the most hockey that I’ve ever missed in my career. You know, it helped me sit back and I was able to watch all of the practices and I watched a lot of NHL hockey. You know, the staff down here got me clips of players that I wanted to watch and it helped me look at a different perspective of the game and helped my knowledge of it a little more.”

“I guess you never know when you break your foot. I mean, it was my first broken bone, but since I’ve been back, 100%, it hasn’t affected my skating. I’ve still got the speed and I think I’ve still got the power and everything.”

“No, to be honest, no, not really too much. I mean, they know I work hard and I’m committed to my game and getting better. The coaches down there knew I put in a lot of work when I was hurt and coming back from the injury, I put in extra time on the ice. They knew I was going to go into the summer with the same attitude and that’s what I did.”

“Well, yeah, I mean, I’ve always had that drive and everybody wants to make the NHL. I think being hurt is something that you’ve got to go through in your hockey career. It’s just adversity and I’ve faced it throughout my career. It’s just another thing for me to get over. Hopefully, I can keep impressing them and keep playing my game and get some games up, (with the Canucks).”

“It’s nothing new to me. I mean, I’m pretty sure we had the best penalty kill in OHL history…maybe in the CHL. My first three years in Windsor, I played top PK minutes every year. It was good experience for me to get that time. When I jumped up to the pro level, not much changed. I mean, you still want to play the same way, you still want to block shots, you want to clear pucks. You want to have a good stick out there and help prevent goals because you know, the penalty kill and power play can change games, for sure.”

“I mean, you make it work with everybody. You’ve got to build chemistry. They’re both great guys off the ice and they’re both my friends. I’m close with both of them. Whenever I get a chance to play with either of them, the best thing is just clicking together. 

You’re not really worried about what kind of player you’re playing with. You know you’re going to be playing with whoever the coaches want and you make it work. I think last year that’s what a lot of us tried to do. You know, guys were changing a lot, we had a lot of call-ups, so you’ve just got to be ready with who you’re playing with…help each other out, talk a lot, talk to each other about what you want to do, what kind of plays…you find that chemistry and definitely build your D pair to be stronger.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m a veteran, but I don’t know if I’m going to be one of the oldest guys on the backend. We’ve still got some older guys. I’ve got a few years under my belt in the pro leagues. I wore the C in Windsor and I thought I showed a lot of maturity there. I took a lot of guys under my wing. 

I know how it is to jump to the pros. It can be that the way the coaches want you to play is different than what you’re used to. A lot of these guys come from one team, one type of system, one coach. So it’s all about adjustment, helping those guys adjust better is going to make them better players and it’s going to help our team win games…and that’s what we want.”