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Welcome back, Alexis! Always enjoying these sessions with you.

Thanks again for having me over, Avakael. This coffee's pretty good, where's it from?

Venezuela, I think. Let's get down to business. How do you think the Falcons are doing?

We're actually doing pretty good right now. We kept none of that momentum from the pre-season unfortunately- couldn't win a game to save our lives for a while and it sucked. But naturally, we recovered and I think we've been sitting at 2nd in the east for quite a while.

What about your own play?

I think I've been a better player thus far in the regular season than I was in the preseason. My numbers are all roughly the same, but they're more defensive. Two less goals, two more assists, a few less shots on goal, a few more opposition shots blocked. Also, I've seen a few more results on the power play, which was the thing that was eating at me a bit.

As you'd know by now, Nerokov has been traded. What are your thoughts on that?

I guess he's still the big story in the SMJHL right now, isn't he? My true thoughts aren't actually too dissimilar on what Zach (Evans) said to a group of reporters a few games back, but he's off in Montreal now, so I guess I'll say a few final words. Viktor is a good player. He'll do well wherever he goes. He doesn't need Harvey Hustle, and I hope he figures that out before too long in his career. Otherwise, I think he's just going to run into the same problem, the problem of GMs and coaches not using him as much as they could, over and over- because no general manager is going to want to trust him to be their teams go to guy if they know Harvey thinks he might be able to lever a little more out of them.

Will you miss him?

Nobody on the Falcons will miss him, because we know that this is explicitly what he wanted. There was a moment in one of his last games with us that got completely missed by the media- which is kind of odd because if you'd noticed it, it would have been the story of the week.

Viktor scored a goal, on the Sunday game against Kelowna. Not that unusual, he's nearly been a point per game. None of these contract issues or anything had mattered on the ice at all, period. That's office stuff. There's a fundamental understanding on the ice that what's good for the team is good for everyone on the team, because everyone out there is playing a specific role, and the better you play your role, the better the team is, and the better that everyone else can play their own role, and so on. If I'm good, it means every other individual player has a better chance to be good. If you go back far enough on a play before a goal is scored, you can see things happening to help make that goal possible that were done by players that aren't even on the ice anymore when the puck goes in. So when a goal gets scored, that's a team effort. That player got the chance to score that goal because of stuff that everyone else did. Are you following?

Every goal is an entire team thing.

Yep. So here's where it went bad for me and for everyone else on the team that was in doubt about Viktor. When a goal happens, that's a team celebration. Viktor scores. He had two assists on that play- from Zach and Jari (Sinikka). The guys on the ice go over to him- Zach and Jari and Prince (Daniel James) and Cikgnar (Konstantinov), and Viktor just ignores them. He skated right past them, past the guys on the bench ignoring them too, and sat down. I've never seen anyone do that before, ever, all the way back to when I started playing when I was 9. The GMs were absolutely flabbergasted- I didn't quite hear well enough to be certain, but I think Sven told Kaapo on the spot that they've got to get rid of him right now. From that moment on, we had an atrocious game, because it shredded our focus. I don't think I said a word to Viktor since and neither did most of the rest of the team.

Did we actually miss that? That's insane.

It wasn't easy to notice on the replay of the game- when I noticed nobody was talking about it on TV I went back to the broadcast to try and find out why. Viktor did slow down a little when Jari and Prince reached him, so that's probably why it wasn't noticed. Also, the camera didn't follow anything that happened on our bench at all after that goal. Dunno why.

I'll have to have a look at that later. What about the other half of the trade? How is Henrik Vikstrom settling in?

He's great. Only played 1 game but already got a goal and an assist with us. First thing he did when he walked into the training facility was announce that he already loved it here. We're gonna take him out for drinks and the fastest food we can find in Detroit tonight. Chadathy (Brodangleschlong) has a minivan that seats 9, so fairly often after practice we grab as many of us rookies as possible and get in the van, and terrorise the drive thru attendants at as many places as we can.

I also have to bring up Sivy McSieve, because he publicly asked for a trade as well. Any thoughts on that?

Oh man. That's been even more confusing than the Nerokov business. At least there was a reasonably logical explanation behind that, right? He thought he should have more ice time and he had an agent that brought in the artillery for him. Sure, most of us thought he was a jerk at the end of it, but at least we could sympathise, in theory, with what was going on- if I thought I was getting robbed on ice time I'd be looking for a solution too. But I have absolutely no idea what's up with the Sivy business. I've never once seen Kaapo lose his temper with him. Or Viktor, for that matter.

He wants to know why Jeremy (Anderson) is starting over him, and the rest of the team, especially the other veterans, ripped into him at the next practice. Specifics varied, but in general- number one, he's not playing great. He's got a 0.888 save percentage right now. Most of the rookie goalies that were drafted with me are doing better than him right now. Only Colorado doesn't have a goalie playing better than Sivy right now. Number two, the backup is required to start a minimum number of games per season- so why not do it right now, while the regular goalie isn't doing so hot?

The bit that frustrates me most of all, though, is when the Texas Renegades organization came out and backed up everything Sivy said. That means you'll probably be asking me more questions about this when we next chat.

So now I have to ask this- is there a wider issue in the locker room?

No, these are absolutely unrelated. I think if there was a wider issue, I'd have seen literally anyone else in the Detroit organization speak up for either Viktor or Sivy, even internally. But nobody has. There's a good chance I've been the most moderate voice for Viktor across that entire affair. There's no animosity between players, we're a tight knit group. If anything, these things make us even tighter. We're all somewhere from irritated to angry about the same thing.

Let's drop the rest of the messy stuff for now. What about the other end of the media spectrum? Do you think there's anyone not getting the media attention that they should be getting?

I actually think my buddy on my (2nd) D pairing is underrated right now. Marc (Leclerc) only has two points for the season, and I know he's not happy with those numbers, but in terms of actual defence work, he's kicking butt out there. Nothing is getting past him. He's equal 7th in the league for most blocked shots, and he hits like a truck. When Prince inevitably gets called up to the SHL sometime in the next season or two, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Marc got bumped to the 1st pairing over me.

That's something interesting and positive to take home. Thanks for swinging by again, Alexis, we'll see you again soon.

All the best, Avakael.