(Photo: NHL)

One of the questions Head Coach Barry Trotz fielded during his luncheon at the National Press Club last week was regarding the perception that Braden Holtby stepped up his game last year. The questioner wanted to know what the reason was for this.  Trotz’s response starts at 41:10 on the video. A transcript of the question and response follows the video.

Audience Question: “You mentioned Braden holtby earlier. This questioner notes that Holtby seemed to move his game up a notch last year. What changed with him? How did that happen”?

Barry Trotz:  “Well I think, uh, it’s Mitch Korn. That’s what happened.  Um, and, and I give a lot of credit to Braden, because he was, he was having good success, he had good numbers, um, and what Mitch is so great at, and, and is that he doesn’t change the goal tender,  he says this is what you do. this is what you do best, ok. so Let’s enhance that,  lets clean up your holes. How do you clean up, cleanup the things you are not maybe capable of doing, be it physically, or you know in terms of tracking pucks, or, or  anything. He builds the player and he finds a way, uh, like the little mad scientist that he is, of finding ways to cleanup those holes, and what happened is Braden cleaned up those holes. If you remember the year before, I thought, man this guy is a dynamic goal tender, but every save , he was like, it looked like every save was an outstanding save. and now it’s everything seems to be slower and in control. Am I right or wrong? and, and what he’s done is made him very efficient, a lot more patient and a lot more in control using his great athletic ability and also his competitive spirit that he has, he’s a, he’s a fighter. He’s a blue-collar  kid from Saskatchewan, who, as Mitch said, it was funny, Mitch said he “wanted a little more blue-collar in the kid from Saskatchewan”, and Braden responded. but it doesn’t happen unless the player  buys in to what you are, and sees some success, and your gonna have those tipping points individually or as a team, so a lot of credit goes to Mitch but a lot of credit goes to Braden”