Bruce Boudreau calls out one of his top stars both privately and publicly.

Boudreau trying to get everything out of his star.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Bruce Boudreau calls out one of his top stars both privately and publicly.
Russell Hons/CSM/Zuma

Normally you would expect a head coach to call out a player when he is performing poorly or when his team is struggling, but sometimes head coaches will go above and beyond and call out a hot player in an effort to get every last drop of talent out of that particular individual. 

On Sunday Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau did the latter when he called out one of his top stars publicly after, by his own admissions, already having done so behind closed doors. The star that was the target of Boudreau's comments was 26 year old winger Mikael Granlund who appears to have really entered his prime this season with the Wild.

In spite of his recent success it seems like Boudreau believes that the talented Finnish forward still has another gear he could reach if he simplified his game and game his maximum effort through the full 60 minutes of play on a night in and night out basis. It appears that Boudreau believes that Granlund has been playing too fancy this season and reportedly called him out for not skating at times when out on the ice. 

“way too cute,” said Boudreau as per Minnesota Wild insider Mike Russo.

According to Russo Boudreau informed him that he met with Grandlund today regarding his concerns which makes me believe that his decision to comment on it publicly through Russo is purely a motivational tactic from the experienced head coach. It will not only be interesting to see how much Boudreau believes he can get out of Granlund moving forward but it will be interesting to see if Boudreau is in fact correct in his assessment and there is still another gear to Granlund's game.

Through the first 20 games of the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season Granlund has already been very strong with 10 goals and 9 assists for a total of 19 points on the season. That has him producing at just under a point per game pace, a pace that if he can maintain will unquestionably lead to the highest single season offensive output put of his career by a long shot. 

Wild fans will certainly be hoping that Boudreau is on the money with this one.

[pub]


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