Brazeau then got traded at the deadline to Minnesota, and even though he wasn\u2019t producing offense at quite the same rate with the Wild, Dan Muse liked what he saw on the whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see a guy who\u2019s got really good hands, really good around the net,\u201d Muse said of Brazeau, who is listed at 6-6, 232 pounds. \u201cHe can also score off the rush. He\u2019s got good instincts that way. A player that size, when they can get to the inside… whether it’s him at the net front, the first game you saw it off a faceoff… to be that size with those types of hands, when you can get into those areas, that’s tough to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n
But as Muse has said repeatedly, while the coaching staff studied players\u2019 pasts, this was a clean slate for everybody. And Brazeau went on to have a strong camp, with Muse saying his practices were good, and he put himself in good areas.<\/p>\n
So, Brazeau began the year on a line with Malkin (6-5, 213 pounds) and Anthony Mantha (6-5, 240 pounds), and they\u2019ve had some early success.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeno’s got so much skill down there. When he has the puck on his stick, he demands so much attention,\u201d Brazeau said. \u201cSo, me and Mants are able to feed off that and find little soft spots in the ice. And I think we both have the ability to make plays when he gets the puck there. So, I think we’ve just got to kind of keep doing that, imposing our size and our will down there.”<\/p>\n
But Brazeau has been careful to keep things in perspective, as there\u2019s still a lot of hockey left to play.<\/p>\n
“Any time you’re able to start a year and you’re able to get off on the right side of things, it definitely helps with the confidence and getting in the flow of the season, stuff like that,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, it’s been a good start, but it\u2019s a long season. So, I’ve got to find a way to keep doing that day in and day out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brazeau then got traded at the deadline to Minnesota, and even though he wasn\u2019t producing offense at quite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-210875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}