What about effort in the weight room to get stronger? In addition, maybe he could make up for his (alleged) lack of straight line speed by going directly where he wants to go and take better angles?
Anything is possible .. and there are a few examples of guys who have done it but not very many .. Mitch is a great kid .. always a great teammate and still friends with my son .. and I have told this to Paul and Mitch many times .. he is already a great edge skater and gets MAX from his edges .. but he can't win any races to pucks due to his short stride .. so if race is close due to his innate lack of strength he backs off because he knows he will get rolled .. and i get that no one likes getting rolled .. if I was him I would change his skating instructor (and this is a dear family friend) and go to Barb .. but only if he really gets it (kinda like a drunk who has to hit bottom first) .. i doubt he does though .. and on strength point i think that is even harder to fix as it is genetic .. he could bulk up for sure and build muscle but that does not increase strength .. and I think it would slow him down to point where he becomes ineffective .. his only chance is to change skating instructors and rebuild his stride and spend entire summer doing it to best of his ability
You will never get hard questions from TO media with Bell and Rogers as owners of team .. these people need these jobs to survive and they can't bite da hand that feeds them .. best bet is to be entertained from it and LOL
