Ryan Leonard\u00a0has yet to match the offensive output he had in college hockey at Boston College.<\/p>\n
The two-time 30-goal scorer in the NCAA has just one goal through\u00a018 combined NHL preseason, regular season, and playoff games, with only one goal, an empty netter<\/a>, to show for it.<\/p>\n According to Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery, the lack of production has been weighing on Leonard. Carbery spoke about the Capitals\u2019 prized winger ahead of giving him a second preseason game against the New Jersey Devils.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Lenny has been solid, I would say,\u201d Carbery said Saturday. \u201cI know the finish and the scoring and the offensive stuff \u2013 I\u2019m trying to steer him away from that stuff. I get it. That comes with being a highly-touted Hobey Baker finalist, with all the accolades and what he\u2019s done. You expect production, and that\u2019s not what I\u2019m expecting and hoping. There\u2019s things inside of his game that I want to try to help him ingrain these habits.\u201d<\/p>\n Carbery\u2019s more personal approach with Leonard, aimed at alleviating some pressure from the rookie, comes just a few days after an EA Sports NHL 26 simulation predicted he would win two Hart Trophies and score over 600 career goals<\/a>. An incredulous Leonard joked that he\u2019s \u201cgot enough s*** already\u201d about the viral social media posts.<\/p>\n Leonard would have notched a point last Thursday in Hershey against the Philadelphia Flyers, but had an assist stolen from him by the on-ice officials who missed a Vincent Iorio goal during the third period. The Massachusetts native slid a pass to Iorio, who roofed the puck behind goaltender Alexei Kolosov.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wants to produce like Macklin Celebrini,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cI know that\u2019s a high comparison, but it\u2019s no different, right? All these guys, whether they\u2019re a power forward like Tom Wilson or they\u2019re a smooth, skilled, skating \u2013 they want to produce. They want to score. They want to help the team win production-wise. And so that\u2019s where I\u2019m working with him on trying not to measure his game by goals and assists or by the box score solely.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of trying to be someone else, Carbery would rather have the former eighth overall draft pick lean more into being himself: one of the most unique young physical players in the league.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that I\u2019ll draw you to is Ryan Leonard, different than a lot of guys that come out of major junior, even college, that are point producer,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of guys that get a lot of accolades that are what I would call very highly-skilled but also very perimeter players. What I mean by that is they\u2019ve got the hands, they\u2019ve got the skating, they\u2019ve got the toe drags, they\u2019ve got all, and they\u2019re phenomenal.<\/p>\n \u201cLeno\u2019s different than that. Leno is and why he\u2019s going to have a long successful NHL career is he has that but he also has this physicality, this power forward, this guy that\u2019s going to finish checks, that\u2019s going to go to the net front, that\u2019s going to win puck battles, that\u2019s going to take a puck hard to the net, and he can shoot it. It\u2019s harder at the NHL level because now to do that, to be a power forward, to be Matthew Tkachuk, to be Tom Wilson, you\u2019re going up against 6\u20194\u2033, 250-pound, 30-year-old men. And so for him, it\u2019s going to take time growing into that, for him to develop and be able to control those spaces and be able to hang in those [areas].\u201d<\/p>\n With Leonard being waivers-exempt and early in his entry-level contract with the Capitals, the team\u2019s top brass will need to consider whether they can afford to give Leonard time to develop at the NHL level. There are other players on the roster, such as Sonny Milano and Hendrix Lapierre, who have come out firing to begin training camp and must be put on waivers to be sent down to the Hershey Bears<\/a> \u2014 something that carries risk due to the likelihood of them being claimed.<\/p>\n \u201cHe needs to continue to push the envelope and play well in these last games that he gets,\u201d Carbery said.<\/p>\n Sunday afternoon\u2019s matchup with the Devils will provide Leonard with his best chance yet to impress this fall, as he\u2019s set to line up<\/a> on the Capitals\u2019 top line with Aliaskei Protas and his current housemate, Pierre-Luc Dubois<\/a>. The two 60-point forwards from last season are play drivers and will likely give Leonard an opportunity to showcase his game.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not giving him an out on this,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cWe want him to push the envelope and get there as quickly as he possibly can. But I also want to make sure that everyone knows the role that he\u2019s going to be successful at in the NHL is a lot different than some guys coming into the league that are running the half-wall on the power play and throwing sauce through the box and going one-on-one toe drag.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Leonard\u00a0has yet to match the offensive output he had in college hockey at Boston College. The two-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-187985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}