[The Athletic] Temps forts de la tournée européenne de la LNH : débat sur le rythme record d’Alex Ovechkin, le « meilleur jeu » du hockey et plus encore

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1. seeldoger47 3 semaines ago

   >Rasmus Dahlin’s leadership shines through

   >Rasmus Dahlin, now 24, might have proved to Buffalo Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams and new coach Lindy Ruff that he deserves the captain’s “C” this summer.

   >In July, Dahlin organized a weeklong minicamp in Lausanne, Switzerland, for his European teammates. His North American teammates were welcome to join, something Owen Power and Mattias Samuelsson capitalized on.

   >A player-run camp for teammates that early in the summer is unheard of.

   >“Just taking charge of things we maybe all thought about, but at the end of the day, he’s the one that was like, ‘We’re gonna do it,’” said Peterka, 22. “It showed he’s taking the next step (as a leader).”

   >The camp was run by Peterka’s skills coach from Germany and Dahlin’s father from Sweden. Players spent two hours a day on the ice and lots of time in the gym. They hung out at the hotel watching the UEFA European Championship, went for dinners, went for a boat ride on the lake and played some “bad golf,” goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen said.

   >“It shows how the younger guys are ready to take the step, and they want to take the step to be leaders on a team,” Luukkonen said. “We want to make sure that we have the best chance to make the playoffs. It’s always easy to talk about that. We’re a young team and we want to make the playoffs, but it’s really starting to show that there’s a lot of the younger guys now doing these things — like Dahls making the camp happen.

   >“It’s a small thing, but it really shows how we want to compete and be a really better hockey team and make the playoffs.”

   >The Sabres have missed the playoffs 13 years in a row.