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| Photo By: USHL |
Leading all Steel defensemen with 12 assists and one goal,
Dennis Gilbert has proven to be a huge asset for Chicago in his first USHL
season. He currently ranks 7th on the team in points (13) and 2nd
in assists, yet remains humble and credits the depth of the team for his active
offensive play. The Steel drafted Gilbert in Phase II of the 2014 USHL draft.
Last season, Gilbert played in the Ontario Junior Hockey League for the Buffalo
Junior Sabres and ranked 4th in assists among defensemen in the
OJHL. Looking forward, Gilbert has high expectations for himself and his
teammates as the Steel approach 2015. We had a chance to catch up with #8 this
week.
Q: Can you talk
about your play so far this season? How have you been able to come in and find
success in your first year with the Steel?
A: I think a lot
of it goes to what I was able to do in the offseason. I played Junior A last
year up in Canada. It’s a different style of play, it’s way more offensive, so
stepping in here this year the adjustment wasn’t as much offensive as it was defensive.
I was able to come in and do my thing. The coaches have been great in helping
me make the transition. We have some really good forwards. You can check, but
I’d bet a bunch of my assists are breakout passes and watching Mason Bergh go
down the ice like he does. We have a really deep forward corps here. It’s all
of us putting the work in and getting it done.
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| Photo By: MJB Images |
Q: How have you
adjusted your defensive play, and has the adjustment been tough?
A: Yeah, it was.
It’s a lot quicker. The puck moves a lot faster in this league. The speed of
the players is similar to where I played last year - but the puck movement - the
puck zips around and you can get caught out of position. So that’s where I’ve
been able to focus defensively and worry about that aspect of things. I think
once I adjusted to the speed of the puck movement, I was okay because I’ve
always been a bigger kid, pretty fast.
Q: What do you
like about playing for the Steel?
A: I love it. I have
loved every second of being here. My billet family is absolutely great for me.
It’s a great group of guys, too. Last year I was one of the youngest on my
team, and this year we’re all in the same age range. We’re all going through
the same thing. We’ve been out of
high school for a year or two and are looking to make the jump to college.
Everyone has a lot in common. It’s a great group of guys and has been a lot of
fun so far.
Q: How has
playing with this team as well as in the USHL helped your development as a
player?
A: I think the
farther you move up, especially in hockey, everyone tends to have the same
skill set, making it easier to play. I think it’s because you’re not worrying
about ‘is this guy going to catch my pass, is this guy going to know how to
make this read’. We
all think the game pretty much the same, so it makes playing easier especially
as a defensemen because if you come back, you feel pressure, you can just leave
[the puck] off, and one of your guys is going to come through and pick it up.
It’s really good with relieving pressure in the zone. On the breakouts too,
everyone knows where to be. There aren’t a lot of mental breakdowns. When there
is, we’re in great shape with Coach McConnell - we workout every day - and we
know we’re in shape. When things go bad and you get caught in your zone, the
habits we built up in preseason and so far this year are good habits. You’re
still playing smart, you get the puck out and get your change. I think it’s
been great as far as playing with guys who have the same skill set and think
the game at the same level. Last year, for me, it wasn’t that way.
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| Photo By: MJB Images |
Q: How do you
prepare prior to a game?
A: I don’t really
have rituals or anything like that, but this year there is a little down time
between our warm-up and going on the ice. Coach McConnell likes to give us a
little talk. Some guys like to sit and tape their sticks or sit and eat a
granola bar or a Gatorade. I can’t do that. I have to go out after our pregame
talk. I go out for a 5-7 minute jog to get my blood flowing, so you’re not
sitting still thinking about stuff. You go for your run, you come back, get
dressed, and go on the ice. There’s no time to worry about anything, just kind
of clear my mind.
Q: Did you have
any goals coming into this season or anything you wanted to accomplish in your
time with the Steel?
A: I think that
any player coming into this league wants to make a clean adjustment and do it
as fast as you can. I know of guys that came into this league last year, and it
took them 40 games to adjust. I know guys that came in, and it took them two
preseason games to adjust. I knew that once I adjusted, that with the coaching
staff and playing with guys that think the same and have the same skill sets,
it’s only going to set you up for great things during the year. As far as ‘I
want this many points’ or to be a ‘plus this’, it wasn’t about that for me. It
was just about adjusting to the speed of the game because this is by far the
closest thing to college hockey. I thought that by coming to this league, it
would give me the best opportunity to develop and adjust to this style of play,
so it’s not as big of a jump from Junior to college. In other Junior leagues,
it’s a bigger jump. I thought that by coming into this league, it would make
that jump a lot smaller and easier. And you see it in college, the best guys
played in this league beforehand.
Q: You were on
the CSS Players to Watch List. Can you talk about what that meant to you?
A: It’s obviously
a great honor. To be completely honest, it doesn’t mean anything though. It’s a
list. There are six more lists to come out or something like that before the
end of the year. So it’s great with me, Robby, and Tanner getting on there - it’s awesome - and Freddy getting drafted last year, that’s awesome. But you
can ask me, Robby, and Tanner, it’s cool, but it doesn’t mean anything to us
because we weren’t drafted. It’s good that we’re being watched more and being
noticed, but at the same time, there are guys that didn’t make that list who
want to be on that list, so they’re chasing you. We’re all Cs, we want to be Bs.
The Bs are chasing the As, so everybody is hungry to play their best and help
their team the most. To be drafted at the end of this year, I think that’s a
lot of our individual goals, but it doesn’t mean anything yet because there’s
still a lot more to go. I mean you can ask me if I were to get drafted, and
then I’ll tell you what it means to me because that’s every kid’s dream.
Q: Do the Steel
have any team goals or focuses for the remainder of the season?
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| Photo By: MJB Images |
A: Right now, we
only have three games left before a short break. Cale is a big part of our team
and so is Robby, so those are two voids we’ve got to fill while they’re away
(Both will be playing for the U.S. Junior Select Team at the 2014 World Junior
A Challenge in Saskatchewan). I know Johnny’s going to do a great job in net,
and I know our forwards are going to do great without Robby too, but we’ve got
three games left. We want to win these three games and go into break happy. We want
to get these six points here and get back in the driver’s seat after that
little skid we had last week. As far as long-term goals, this is a playoff
team. My team last year made the playoffs. We weren’t a playoff team - we were
a skilled team. This is a playoff team. The guys on this team work hard,
they’re simple. You can tell with some of the comebacks we’ve had, this is a
playoff team. Our goal is just to get to the playoffs, and I think once we get
there, whether we’re the fourth seed in the conference or the one seed, you’ll
see the Chicago Steel go far.
Q: You play
Madison and Green Bay this weekend. What are your thoughts on these two games?
A: You can see
with both teams, they have a few guys that are really skilled, but we’ve played
them both before. We split with Green Bay and beat Madison. They’re both great
teams, and if you look at the standings, they’re teams that are right with us
or are chasing us. These are big games for those teams this weekend, so they’re
going to be coming out hungry. They want to move up, and they want us to move
down. I think it will be a hard-fought game. I think both of those teams play
kind of a similar style to us. They aren’t very pretty about it. They just like
to go to work and get it done. It will be a close, hard-working game, but we’re
confident in our guys and our skills. As long as we can out-work them and play
our style of game, we should be in great shape for this weekend.
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| Photo By: MJB Images |
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