Armed with a wealth of confidence, a look into Gabe Vilardis high-flying start to the season - LA Kings Insider

Last updated Nov 1, 2022 Edit Source

• News post

• Zach Dooley

You can picture the game of Jeopardy. The category reads “Words That Start With C.” The clue is a ten-letter word that helps to identify Gabe Vliardi’s start to the 2022-23 season. The word, of course, is confidence.

• Gabe Vilardi
• Anze Kopitar
• Adrian Kempe

• Todd McLellan

# Todd McLellan

I’m going to use that the C word again, confidence. He feels good about himself, we feel good about putting him on the ice and when you feel good about yourself and you believe in yourself and everybody else does too, it’s magic sometimes. He’s done an outstanding job, I don’t know what else I can say. It’s confidence and him feeling good.

There are others that we’ve tried that with and they haven’t taken advantage of it, but [Gabe Vilardi] is the one guy that has done it. I think if the players are honest, they’ll tell you that they feel it when the coach believes in them or trust them. We tried to create that right off the bat with him.

We talked about giving [Gabe Vilardi] a really good opportunity, as much as you possibly can, throughout the exhibition season to try to get him into situations where he feels good about himself and the team feels good about him. We tried that and he took advantage of it.

It’s really refreshing to see him walk into the rink, he’s sticking his chest out a little, he’s smiling more, he seems to be enjoying the whole package and that’s great. He’s earned the opportunity to feel that way and as a result he’s playing that way.

We have people in the organization that help all of us, including me, when we talk about pressure and what what we feel sometimes. We [as coaches] can help him as much as we possibly can, but there are others, it’s the training staff, teammates, other people on staff that that help all of us with that.

# Gabe Vilardi

I think I had more to prove this year. With social media, I don’t like to read it, but I don’t know who was kind of counting me on the team this year, on the starting roster. I just worked hard this summer and I’ve taken the same mentality into the season. So far it’s been good, but small sample size, I want to be a good player for a long time

I don’t know about that, that’s pretty cool to hear coming from [Anze Kopitar], I mean he’s the best player hands down. If he’s saying that it’s good, it means I’ve got to keep going and help them out and just try to produce as a line.

# Anze Kopitar

It’s easy to be hard on yourself when things aren’t going well, it’s easy to spiral a bit and that’s probably the biggest thing in an 82-game season, is keeping steady. Not going too high, not going too low and it seems like he’s figured that out. It’s great to see.

best player right now, hands down

# Adrian Kempe

I think it was good and sometimes it’s good to mix the lines up and get some good chemistry going, some new energy on the line. Gabe did a great job [yesterday], he’s good on pucks and he’s good down low. He got a goal too, so that’s good for him and for us.