Trevor Zegras Wants To Improve His Defense
Trevor Zegras is one of the most exciting young players in the NHL right now. He’s also dreadful on the defensive part of the game thus far in his young career. It’s not an accident that the Ducks stink. When your number one center can’t defend, your team is going to have problems.
Greg Cronin is the new head coach in Anaheim. Under Cronin, Zegras was to really make sure he improves his defense in the coming years.
“(Cronin) was telling me how to play defense,” Zegras said with a laugh, according to NHL.com’s Matt Weller. “We were doing some shuffle around the dots, and the first thing he did was take my stick and throw it in the corner, which I thought was definitely interesting, but we’ll work through it for sure.”
Zegras, 22, just signed a new three-year bridge contract to keep him with the Ducks. If Zegras wants to cash in on an even bigger deal next go around, the defensive part of his game has to improve.
According to Evolving-Hockey, Zegras posted a -7.9 in defensive goals above replacement. That was one of the worst marks in the NHL among forwards. Cronin knows part of his job will getting Zegras to buy in as a two-way player.
“When I talk to ‘Z,’ I don’t talk to him about his offense,” he said. “He’s a dynamic offensive player. First, get to know the person, then when you sit down and talk to them, you start talking about value systems. Some of these guys that are offensive their whole careers, they just follow the offense. … Just keep focusing on the offense, that’s all you’re going to chase, is offense.”
“(Zegras’) offense isn’t going away – it’s always going to be there – but we’re going to try to create a focus for him to be defensively responsible. And I guarantee you if he does that, he’ll get more possessions with the puck.”
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