Just look with your eyes as
@Mrb1p said
But I'm not going off just the eye test, also came with receipts via Dach's own words. He said he only started taking his training seriously at the start of December, which coincides with his shortly lived improved play
At 23-years-old and coming off a serious knee injury, Kirby Dach is arriving at a crossroads. How he approaches this reality check and how much he invests into the work will come to define the rest of his career. Eric Engels has the story.
www.sportsnet.ca
"Dach knew this season was going to be hard for him no matter what, coming off ACL and MCL reconstruction for a knee injury that kept him out of all but two games last season.
“I knew it would take time,” Dach said to us on Wednesday. “I was at home last summer (in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.) watching the Oilers run with my friends, seeing how Connor Brown (who tore his ACL the season prior) had struggled all year before playing amazing in the playoffs, and I was thinking about it.”
Dach wouldn’t have wished for it to have gone this way so far, but maybe it had to just to bring him to some important realizations that he hopes will propel him forward.
The first one was that even if Dach thought he was doing everything he could to mitigate the difficulty of returning from his injury, there was a stronger investment to make.
“I kind of looked at that maybe
three weeks ago and decided to go deeper and just do everything possible to give myself the best chance and give my teammates and coaches the best version of me,” he said.
“I committed to finding that extra level of drive and commitment to the game and doing all the little things before and after practice and in the gym and on off-days — treating my body right and making sure I’m doing the right things to feel good for the next day — to build better habits.
“I think there’s a lot of off-ice work and stuff that I do on my own when nobody’s around now. If we have the chance some days, sometimes I’ll get out early when nobody’s around and skate by myself to just get a feel of the puck. And in the gym, it’s not just doing everything hard that one day but more about consistency and building up and doing everything right; not overdoing it, but having that consistency to hopefully change the layout of my season and my trajectory.”
It hasn’t happened yet, but it would never happen if Dach refused to face some hard truths he’s currently grappling with.
We asked him if he’d approach last summer’s preparation for this season differently, and he said, “For sure.”
Dach added that realization is helping him now, and should help him next summer, regardless of whether or not his further investment into the current labour bears fruit between now and then.
