Grabo's hard work & discipline finally paying off
Leafs centre Mikhail Grabovski may have scripted his personal hot streak in an off-ice assignment during training camp.
Grabovski, like all his teammates, was invited by the coaching staff to participate in a simple exercise designed to address their personal goals for the season.
All the players were handed a piece of paper and asked to write down their thoughts on what they wanted to work on this season, what they thought they could do, and what their goals might be.
Grabovski’s answer bore a direct reflection to what the Leafs are seeing now as he continues on what has been the best goal-scoring streak of his NHL career.
“There was a lot of things I wanted and I wanted to do things that would help the team win,” Grabovski said before scoring two goals to help the Leafs whitewash Atlanta 9-3 Friday.
“Every player wants to score goals, but I think they know that if they do score, it’s good for the team, and that’s what I wanted.”
Grabovski wrote down his aim to score goals and play more responsible hockey before handing the questionnaire back to assistant coaches Tim Hunter and Rob Zettler. He hasn’t won any player of the week honours since then, but he may just be one of the NHL’s hottest players since the beginning of December.
With the Leafs now heading out on a three-game road swing through Los Angeles, San Jose and Phoenix, Grabovski has 12 goals in his last 14 games.
Since coming to the Leafs in a July 2008 trade, the team has waited for such an explosion of Grabovski’s obvious talents. It’s been a relatively long wait, and as talented as Grabovski has proven to be in his NHL career, he has shown only glimpses of the will it takes to combine that talent with consistency and responsible play.
Hunter in particular has tried to get Grabovski to elevate his game in all areas of the ice. The key was triggering Grabovski’s hockey mind to tune into the aspects of the game that make a centre more successful.
Among the tools at Hunter’s disposal were videos clips of Detroit centres Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Both players have been among the league statistical leaders over the past several seasons. In 2008, the two produced an awe-inspiring season in which they dominated the NHL offensively while being named Selke Trophy candidates as the NHL’s top defensive forwards (won by Datsyuk).
Hunter was able to access the clips through a sophisticated program developed by the Leafs coaching staff. The point with accessing those Datsyuk-Zetterberg clips was to show Grabovski how successful centres track the puck in all zones of the ice and follow it into the offensive zone.
At first, Grabovski embraced the request to become a better all-zone player. But he never showed the consistency the Leafs were seeking.
What the club wanted for their centre was an awareness of the puck in every zone. Instead of turning away from the puck and looking for lanes up the ice, follow the puck and become a better option for a pass out of the zone. It was a method used by Datsyuk and Zetterberg in the Red Wings video clips.
Grabovski appears to have mirrored those all-star examples so well his coaching staff is now saying Datsyuk and Zetterberg are watching videos of him.
“I need to do something more than score goals to help out, so if I play better defence, that is better for me and better for the team,” Grabovski said.
Grabovski is also quick to point to his linemates as a factor in his latest success. Nik Kulemin and Clarke MacArthur are also playing with confidence and together the trio is the longest-serving line on the club this season.
“Those two guys work hard every game and every practice, we just know everything about each other now,” MacArthur said.
“It’s almost robotic now. We know where each other is going to be. We draw things up in practice and talk about it all the time. We just know what to expect now.”
Grabovski is also a new father, and says the arrival of daughter Lilly two weeks ago further grounds him as a hockey player. His father, Yury, travelled from Russia to be at his son’s side for the birth and spend some time with the family.
“My baby is a new step in my life … now I’m working for me and my daughter,”
http://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...ipline-and-hard-work-paying-off-for-grabovski
