Mitts doesn't play at all like Drouin though. Drouin darts in and out of holes, moves the puck very quickly, and mostly plays above the goal line with the puck.
Mitts likes to slow the game down, hangs onto the puck like Forsberg, often plays below the goal line, and likes to spin back and forth in the corners and the half wall playing off contact, to draw the opposition to him and open up someone for a pass.
Drouin's style doesn't need to be strong. Mitts kinda does.
If Mitts ups his conditioning, he may lose some muscle, because he's probably a hard gainer of muscle.
If he busts his ass with cardio like you did in the army, I agree he may improve his conditioning, and may adapt to Bednar's system better, but I think he'd probably lose some muscle mass along with the fat, and make his style harder to play, so he'd have to change his style with it. That was my point.
Its about efficiency. Muscle is not efficient to feed. It's very demanding actually it needs more blood, and that's because it needs more oxygen.
Mitts needs to find a balance. You can carry that muscle but then you have to train your body to feed it at the level you need to.
Stamina + strength is the longest hardest road to achieve. You can be fast and light quick, or maybe even quicker you can be stronger.
But be 200lbs and run a marathon? No.. thats the ultimate achievement. I used to run on a treadmill with a 40lbs vest that I started with 10, then 20, 30 etc. before I ever thought about trying out for Special Forces.
It's truly the hardest thing to do as an athlete to both build strength and stamina equally. You can get caught, and punished by doing one over the other.
Mack learned the lesson, Mikko didn't.
Watch some of these Hurricanes games with me. It's even more noticeable. Mikko takes three strides and coasts all the f*** over the place. Then makes a hard drive behind the net, and he's gassed loses the puck and nothing happens.
If you want your body to move the way you need it to you better train right.
I don't think neither him or Mitts did it right. There is no way my skinny ass was carrying 140lbs unless I got stronger, but I had to get ready to run with that weight not just hold it up. It took years of getting ready for it.
You suffer a set back, injury, and lose 10% it's extremely difficult to get back. It takes absolutely embracing pain as your friend to get it back. Especially the older you get.
Its all possible though. Mikko can absolutely fix himself and be a monster at his age.
Will he though.. that's the question. You need both humility and work ethic.