from Michael Russo of Russo's Rants,

Yeo had what he called a “great talk” with Vanek before practice. Vanek has two goals and 12 assists this season and 39 shots in 25 games. Fourteen of those came in two games, so he has 25 shots in 23 others, including one or none in 16 games.

He has not scored a goal at 5-on-5 this season.

Yeo said there are a number of factors why, from Vanek bouncing from line to line to not working hard enough to the off-ice gambling issue that has been stressing him out.

Yeo: “I have no problem saying, it’s been public knowledge, but this stuff that he’s trying to deal with, I don’t want to say it’s a huge distraction, but it’s got to be weighing on him. There’s no about that. There’s the fact that he came [back to Minnesota] and he’s putting pressure on himself, he’s been bouncing around from different lines, he’s off the top PP now, there’s a number of things that could lead to him not feeling good about his game and so whatever the case is, today the message was pretty simple, ‘what are you doing when you’re a good player and what do we have to do to make sure you can control the things that you can control?’”

The message from Vanek? Put me back in a top-6 role. So today in practice, Vanek no longer skated on the third line with Nino Niederreiter and Kyle Brodziak.

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