Stop Saying You Play Better with Better Players

My whole career as a player and a coach I have heard people say they play better with better players. Parents especially say this about their player all the time. And every time I hear it, it immediately tells me that someone is making excuses rather than taking responsibility.

Think about it this way. Wayne Gretzky scored 215 points in a single NHL season. If he went back and played in the minor leagues, there is a good chance he would have over 300. He is not suddenly good for a 20 point season because the players around him are worse. Connor McDavid does not become a different player because of who is on his wing. Macklin Celebrini could go back to college and that team would probably win the national championship. He does not drop to the fourth line because he is playing with less skilled guys.

Once I realized that, I stopped using it as an excuse and started thinking about what I could do to be better no matter who was on the ice with me.

When you say I play better with better players, what you are really saying is that you need someone else to elevate your game. You are putting the responsibility for your performance on your teammates instead of yourself.

The best players I have ever been around think the opposite. Their train of thought is I am going to make everybody better that is on the ice with me.

That is the mentality in every professional environment. Some people blame the team when things go wrong. Others say they will do better next time to get the win. The second group is the one that moves up.

Before I review video with a player, I always ask them the same question. How do you think you played? I want to hear what they believe happened before we watch what actually happened.

Then I ask them this. If you were a scout who had already been to 200 rinks this season and just wanted to go home, what would make you stand out more than anyone else on the ice?

That sets the tone. And a lot of the time what ends up happening is they see things they did not expect. They were not as open for passes as they thought. They could have made smarter decisions. The gap between what a player thinks they are doing and what the tape shows is where most of the real growth lives.

Brad Perry playing for the Toledo Storm

Instead of blaming your linemates, start asking yourself better questions. What could I have done to get more shots on net? How many face-offs did I win? Was I first to the puck in the corners? Did I back check hard every shift?

Most of the leaders in hockey take responsibility for every part of the game. They want that responsibility. They would never shift blame on to somebody else. That is the difference between someone who plays at the next level and someone who almost did.

One of the things that changed my game was setting a goal of five shots on net every game. I started doing this after I saw a statistic about Brett Hull and Teemu Selanne and how many shots they were putting on net. So I tried it.

It worked immediately. I broke it down further. Two shots in the first period. Two in the second. One in the third. That made the goal feel achievable shift by shift instead of something I had to chase. I started scoring right away.

Every team needs a shooter. But usually the player who has two goals in a game does not need to be told when to make passes. Get on the scoreboard first.

I have taught my players to think the same way ever since. But what is interesting is when we go back and watch their game tape, even after we have had those conversations, most of them are not hitting that number. It is one thing to know it. It is another thing to do it when the puck drops.

Being a Black kid from Los Angeles in the 90s playing hockey in places like BC, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota put me in situations where coaches would not want to waste their top prospects with an unknown kid from a non-hockey background. I had to make do with playing on a fifth or sixth line during tryouts. I had to dig my way out of that.

I always took the mentality that I was going to make those other players better and we were going to make it together. That was not a feel-good thing. That was survival. And it worked.

So the next time you feel the urge to say you play better with better players, stop. Think about what you could have done better to get the win. Use tools like LiveBarn to go back and watch yourself. Track your shots, your passes, your effort on the back check. Set real goals for every game.

The players who make it don't wait for better teammates. They become the reason the team gets better.