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Salming · 10-26-2020, 06:36 AM

Quebec City Times was lucky enough to catch shortly with William Salming and talk with him about his individual performance in Citadelles during his second year there. Salming also shared his thoughts about whole team before heading to SMJHL playoff bubble next week.

Reporter: Thanks for doing this William. Let's begin with your thoughts about Quebec City's regular season as a team.

Salming: No problem, I love to do these interviews. Well, we started pretty roughly and lost probably five first games. After that, we improved a little bit but still after 25 matches we had only 20 points. However, I was not in panic mode because I knew every team will go to playoffs and you just need to win right games then. It doesn't matter if you are not so sharp during regular season and that is something what I told also for the boys in the locker room. I said that I prefer to lose now than in playoffs. End of the regular season was really solid and we found some good chemistry between different lines. I was happy about it. We won eight out of twelve last matches and finished fourth in the East two points behind Maine Timber. Mat Smith was in fire in the net, Rieley scored a lot of important goals and Maximov was great in defence to mention some names.

R: On season 55, you came to the league as an expansion team and then won only 17 games out of 50. Your goal differential was also -79. Now you won 23 games and goal differential was +8. Thought about that?

S: We are heading in the right direction definitely. I am very confident about this team's ability to win playoff series. Actually, we already won one series last year as an underdog but now we are in much better position to repeat that and even improve by advancing to TOP4. But yeah, I expected that we will win more games and have much better goal differential and those goals were achieved in regular season.

R: Well, let's talk about then about your stats. On debut season, you scored 6+12=18, -7 in 50 games. You had only six penalty minutes and 55 shots on goal. Your shooting percentage was 10.91%, you had 34 hits, 12 giveaways and takeaways and 45 blocked shots. Your game rating was 53 and TOI 12:57. You basically had zero special teams responsibility.

On this season, you scored 11+16=27, +6 in 50 matches. You had 24 PIM, 72 shots on goal, 15,28 SH%, 60 hits, 15 giveaways, 26 takeaways, 40 blocked shots, game rating of 59 and TOI 17:26 (PP 1:35 and SH 1:05). Could you compare these two seasons from your perspective?

S: For sure. Like the team, I started my second season pretty badly. I played three first games without points before I got one assist in the fourth game against MET. My first goal came in game 5 against St. Louis but we lost 1-4. On the first season I started in the 4th line but got promoted to the third line before regular season ended. On this season I played whole season in TOP6 role on the right wing. My fellow Seattle Argonaut prospect Zdenko Beranek was my centreman on the beginning of the season if I remember correctly but like on the first season, we did not find so good chemistry than we would have hoped. We weren't bad but not great either and in the TOP6 role you need to be great to help the team win hockey games. I ended the regular season at the same line with Jst Maro. I played with him already on S55 a lot and again somehow I began to collect points alongside him and Rieley who played on the left wing. I had many multi-point games during past last two weeks and thanks to them I was able to set new career records in points and goals. My goal was to score at least 25 points and get PPG of 0.50. In the end, I had 27 points so that goal was achieved. In the last eight games I scored 5+6=11 points so that is a good sign right before the playoffs. I enjoy pressure and I feel that I am at my best when games get tougher and maybe those last eight matches already were a small signal what is coming in the playoffs very soon.

I also got some power-play minutes in the second unit in every match and scored 3+2 points on PP in 50 games. Because I am two-way forward, I was happy to get also some short-handed minutes and responsibility because I hadn't any special teams minutes on the first season. I didn't play most SH minutes in the team but helped a little bit to kill penalties still averaging 1:05 of SH time per game like you said. Before the season I also focused a lot to improve my physicality and it showed in the hits category. I am not happy that I got 12 penalties when I had only three on the season before. That is something what I need to improve next season. How to be physical without taking penalties? However, thanks to better physicality and improved checking game I had 26 takeaways when I had only 12 last season. Of course I played also more minutes but at the same time I had only three more giveaways than season before. Takeaway-giveaway differential improved from +0 to +11 which was a great thing. 26 takeaways was also team-high among forwards. Defender Bergman had 30 takeaways and won that category but because I mirror my game to Reilly Smith, I am very happy that I took some steps towards his two-way game during regular season. When it comes to blocked shots, I had five less than season before but at this season we played more with the puck and weren't so defensive in every game so the reason for less blocked shots is mainly changed game style as a team. I am still willing to sacrifice my body if we win games then.

I am also happy that I shot more than season before. Of course, I played again almost five minutes more per night than last season but still 72 shots on goal is solid amount of shots in my role. I am hoping to raise that to two shots per game as an average in the future. Again, in the last eight games I shot 22 times towards the goal which was almost three shots per game so I am heading in the right direction also in that category right before the playoffs.

R: Wow, thank you for very detailed answer. You will face Colorado Raptors in the first round of the playoffs. Thoughts about that match-up?

S: Colorado has a great team. They collected exactly 50 points like we did so the match-up is pretty even and maybe we will see even the first game seven in franchise history. It would be cool and awesome. Their goals for and against numbers were also very similar to us. They have also some great individuals like LW Lord Raiden, C Mack Daddy, LD Aumy Jr. and RW Gudmundur Kristjansson. Raiden led them in points (43) and is a key player to stop. We need to play hard also against Daddy and Kristjansson when they are on ice but I am pretty sure that we are ready for that challenge and win tough puck battles near the boards. We might have a slight edge in net thanks to Smith and Ward who were excellent in our regular season run.

R: Last question before we end this discussion. If you will be eliminated in the playoffs quickly, are you interested to represent Team Finland again in WJC?

S: I know that Finnish media is always interested about players who play in North America and if they will come help the team in the World Championships or World Junior Championships but now I am surprised that Quebec media is interested too. All I can say at this point is that I am fully focused to our playoff run in the Quebec City right now. Of course, representing Finland is always an huge honour and I love to wear that lion jersey every time. At the moment I am also 100% healthy but that can change quickly in the playoffs. Hopefully not and I stay healthy but you will never know what happens in the future. We achieved a great bronze medal last time in the juniors and it would be cool to continue that medal streak because I think Finland has now two bronzes in a row.

R: Thanks for your time and good luck in the playoffs.

S: Thank you and have a fantastic day.

Words: 1525

Mr. Finland · 10-26-2020, 08:53 AM

Do you use Jatkoaika at same nickname?

Matteo · 10-26-2020, 01:13 PM

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