It's no secret that Drew O'Connor has struggled this season, not having scored since Oct. 18 and, in the 24 games since, producing only five assists.
Mike Sullivan was asked Wednesday after practice what can be done to help O'Connor.
"It’s everything from knowing your faceoff responsibilities, win or lose, knowing what your responsibilities are on the forecheck, getting to the net-front when we have possession, simplifying the game, shooting the puck, trying to get inside the dots, things of that nature," Sullivan replied. "When you play the game the right way, the byproduct is, you’ll find a way to create offense. So, if players simply focus on -- and it’s human nature -- if you just dwell on the fact that you haven’t scored, the conversation you have with yourself is ‘I gotta score, I gotta score, I gotta score,’ and it makes it harder to score. So that’s really the conversation, the advice and the suggestions that we are giving OC, right now."
"Would we like him to find the back of the net a little bit more? Sure," Sullivan said. "But he's a big part of our penalty-kill, he's a great puck pursuit guy, he's willing to block shots, he's a sound consciousness player defensively, so there's other aspects of the game where he's helping us."
THE ASYLUM
Sullivan: O'Connor needs to play 'the right way'
It's no secret that Drew O'Connor has struggled this season, not having scored since Oct. 18 and, in the 24 games since, producing only five assists.
Mike Sullivan was asked Wednesday after practice what can be done to help O'Connor.
"It’s everything from knowing your faceoff responsibilities, win or lose, knowing what your responsibilities are on the forecheck, getting to the net-front when we have possession, simplifying the game, shooting the puck, trying to get inside the dots, things of that nature," Sullivan replied. "When you play the game the right way, the byproduct is, you’ll find a way to create offense. So, if players simply focus on -- and it’s human nature -- if you just dwell on the fact that you haven’t scored, the conversation you have with yourself is ‘I gotta score, I gotta score, I gotta score,’ and it makes it harder to score. So that’s really the conversation, the advice and the suggestions that we are giving OC, right now."
Sullivan doesn't think O'Connor's necessarily struggling overall.
"Would we like him to find the back of the net a little bit more? Sure," Sullivan said. "But he's a big part of our penalty-kill, he's a great puck pursuit guy, he's willing to block shots, he's a sound consciousness player defensively, so there's other aspects of the game where he's helping us."
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