from Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe,
There were stretches in St. Louis where David Backes met with Ken Hitchcock every day. Backes exited some of those meetings with less-than-fuzzy feelings for his boss.
“Sometimes I left the rink cussing him and not very happy with him,” Backes recalled. “You look back on it a couple weeks later and you go, ‘Oh, he was doing that for a reason — to make us better.’ ”...
The Stars no longer play fast and loose. They are applying their legs differently: sprinting to and staying in high-danger areas, reducing space in open ice, and getting in opponents’ faces to limit their touches. It is Hitch Hockey, applied previously with success in St. Louis, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Dallas the first time around. The Stars are within the Western Conference’s top eight, ahead of Minnesota and Chicago in the Central Division.
“He’s got guys with high levels of skill, and he’s got them playing hard in the dirty areas,” Backes said. “They’re winning puck battles along the wall, committed to back pressure and backchecking so they can get turnovers and go back the other way.
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