from Aleksander Barkov at NHL.com,

The second half of December has been good; we have five wins in the last seven games. Looks like we've learned to win games, and that's what we have to keep on doing. Every win may not have been pretty, but that's not the point. The point is we need wins if we want to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Every guy in the room knows where we stand and what it takes to advance to the postseason.

Our power play has been very productive, and that's great. Our penalty kill has improved of late. But the biggest change has been our style of play; we move the puck faster, exit our own zone faster than we used to and bring the puck to the offensive zone quickly. We've adopted this new system well, and you can see the results in the wins column. All in all, things are looking good for us, but we still need to improve our game. We have half of the regular season left, and we definitely can't go back to our old habits. Two words for the rest of the regular season: fast pace.

I have 11 points (four goals, seven assists) in the last seven games, but the points don't tell the whole story.

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