How has your exit energies gone with the players?

Going good so far.

You know, they're all probably a little bit different.

I think the biggest focus right now is what each guy can do this summer for us to give them kind of guidance

in terms of what we think is most important for them to maximize their improvement over the course of the summer

and come back a better, a better player.

And ultimately, we talked about the growth of our team.

The growth of our team comes from the growth of the individuals.

And most of that's in order to get to where we want to go has to be internally

done and so I think like every summer this summer is critical I think everybody in the

NHL works hard some guys work extraordinarily hard and harder than others and we need as many of our guys do this as possible

would you say this season has been a step forward for the franchise?

Well I know for certain for me it's been a we took more steps in the right direction than wrong

and that's honestly going into the year you know know, we wanted to set a standard.

We wanted to begin the process of setting a culture.

I know we've done those two things for sure.

I know we've taken more steps in the right direction.

I would say by a lot, now that doesn't always show wins and losses.

And as I said, I think the other day, you know, when you have go through a stretch of some games where you're struggling,

it feels like those steps backwards have wiped out all the steps forwards, but that's not the case.

Like, let's say you took 100 steps forwards and 20 steps backwards.

Even though those 20 feel bad, it doesn't wipe out the other 80. You know, you still took steps forward. So I know for sure that we've done that.

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