How Kings Gabriel Vilardi finally arrived - ‘I had more to prove this year
# How Kings Gabriel Vilardi finally arrived - ‘I had more to prove this year
# Contributors
# Summary
The words sounded so incredulous to Gabriel Vilardi but they also brought the biggest smile to someone who is guarding against his arrival at the place he always imagined he’d be. Just a handful of feet across the Los Angeles Kings’ locker room at their El Segundo practice facility, Anze Kopitar called Vilardi the best player on the team. Hands down.
# Players
- Gabe Vilardi
- Anze Kopitar
- Phillip Danault
- Viktor Arvidsson
- Quinton Byfield
- Arthur Kaliyev
- Rasmus Kupari
- Trevor Moore
# Staff
# Notes and Quotes
# Gabe Vilardi
I don’t know about that. That’s pretty cool to hear coming from [Anze Kopitar]. He’s the best player hands down. If he’s saying that, that’s good. I just got to keep going. Hopefully I can help them out, I guess, and we can produce as a line.
When I missed those … I don’t want to say three years, but I played one year of hockey over three years after my draft, I really just learned a lot about my body and now I’m more in tune, I guess would be the world. If I feel something, I know what I need to do. If something’s sore or feeling tight, I know what I need to do to kind of counteract there. I don’t want to say it was a blessing in disguise because I missed three years and that’s a lot of development, a lot of hockey that I missed. But I do have a better sense of my body, I think.
I thought there was several months. I won’t say years. But several months where I wasn’t sure if I was going to be playing hockey for my life, which was pretty scary considering it’s all I ever known. All I ever want to do. I think that’s behind me now, though. Not really thinking about that.
Throughout the year, I’ve kind of been saying the same sh-t to you guys every day.
Yeah, I think I had more to prove this year. I stay off social media. I stay off all that stuff because I don’t like to read it. I don’t know who was kind of counting me on the team this year or the starting roster. I don’t know. I just worked hard this summer and taking the same mentality I had this summer into the season. And so far, it’s been good. Small sample size. I want to be a good player for a long time. Got to keep going.
# Anze Kopitar
I don’t think there is a more confident guy around here. Listen, it’s great to see. Obviously, he’s had a couple tough years. Couple uncertain years. The fact that he’s gotten off to a start that he is, it’s great for us. It’s great for him. We’re going to need him to keep going.
# Craig Johnson
His attitude when he was at Ontario was incredible. He was a good teammate. He never once said, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ He went about his business. He worked. To see him have success this year after putting in the work like he did is great.
When he played for us in Ontario last year, he was very focused and dialed in on what he wanted to do. He knew he was there for a reason and some of the reasons were his checking details. We worked hard at that. We looked at video. We worked on it after practice. He worked on it during practice. It was an area that he focused on to get better. There’s little things. He’s becoming stronger. The way he can puck protect down low and he has such good hands and that finishing ability and his vision has always been there. He’s learning the finer details. He’s building an engine, too. He’s built his engine last year playing in Ontario. The minutes he got to play in. I’m very happy to see where he is this year.
# Trevor Moore
It’s weird. When you’re confident, the puck just finds you. It’s like following you around like a magnet. When you’re not confident, it’s like you’re chasing it all the time. It’s a weird phenomenon.
I think that [Gabe Vilardi]’s come in with a really good head space this year. But also in the past, he’s so talented of a guy that he’s trying to go under guys’ sticks and things like that. Now he’s protecting pucks. He’s a big dude. It’s hard to push him off pucks. He’s able to stay in the O-zone for a long time when he does that, and his skill comes out from there.
# Todd McLellan
When you feel good about yourself and you believe in yourself and everybody does it, it’s magic sometimes.
You can only go with what you see. With all players, you like to project and hope and all that type of stuff. But the number of setbacks that he had, you wondered. But yet you kept going back to the package and the skill and the talent and the brain and the hands. Sometimes players it takes a while. We’ve said this a million times. It does take a while. And maybe Gabe’s time has arrived. And if it has, that’s great for him as an individual and us as an organization.