McLellan talks Bjornfot, Fagemo after 2022-23 Kings debut + Madden to ONT

Last updated Dec 7, 2022 Edit Source

• News post

• Zach Dooley

Lots of good storylines last night, Insiders.

• Tobias Bjornfot
• Samuel Fagemo
• Tyler Madden

• Todd McLellan
• Marco Sturm

# Todd McLellan

We wanted to see where we were at with lefties and righties, we haven’t been able to do that all year and [Tobias Bjornfot] drew that straw. He’s been real good in the American League and I thought he was solid [last night]. He plays well when he uses his legs, when he’s active and he’s up, he’s back and closing. If he’s just kind of standing around, waiting for things to come to him it doesn’t go real well. [Last night] he used his legs really well.

I thought that’s the best I’ve seen [Samuel Fagemo] play this year. If anybody was there this morning, we talked about his training camp, we were really hoping he would be here full time, he didn’t have the camp that we anticipated he would and I’m sure himself. So, that is the best game that I’ve Sammy play, exhibition and regular season this year. Hats off to him for having an impact.

It’s one of the most confusing things that that all players have. You can be Quinton Byfield and be the second-overall pick and have a lot to learn and be a dominant offensive guy in a teenagers league. Then you get here and first of all, you’re not taking away anybody’s job right away, even Connor McDavid didn’t do that. Then you have to have a B game that you can bring, something else that you can bring, because the odds of you scoring and being really effective offensively right off the bat, night after night, aren’t as great as they wouldn’t be if you played against teenagers. So, that happens there. Sammy coming up, you have to adjust your game but you’re trained to have a backup game and you’ve got to be able to play with that.

It’s pretty close. Marco doesn’t pull any punches, we sat for 45 minutes [on Tuesday] morning, Marco and I, and we talked about everything from players that are coming up to who is playing well there. We talked about some noses being out of joint at the American League level, because certain guys are being recalled and others aren’t. I told him a story when I played and that’s the worst thing, those are the worst words that a coach could ever use, but when I did play, every time that somebody else got called up and I didn’t, I thought I was getting screwed, the team screwed me. Eventually, in the back of my mind and I didn’t know any better, no one told me, but I started thinking about playing for another team. Okay, I’m with the Islanders, maybe next year I’ll go play for the Rangers, I’ll play for Philadelphia and guess what it did? It didn’t and it doesn’t work that way, your best chance is with your first team, so quit pouting and start playing. You can’t control who gets called up and who doesn’t and I think they have a little bit about there right now or players get sent down and their lineup gets adjusted, that’s life in the minors. If you don’t like it, then get get up here, so we talked about all of that……we talked about individuals. Quinton, we’re asking all the time, Clarkie, were asking and others that are down there, Madden, Dudas get asked about. We’re asking all the time. The great thing is, he doesn’t pull a single punch, he tells us exactly and he knows how we operate. This player is playing really well, you’ve got to be aware of it or nope, he’s not.