(San Jose) It was brightly sunny on Thursday afternoon in San Jose, but Josh Anderson chose to lock himself in an arena before everyone else to go shoot pucks.
It may seem trivial, throwing pucks, but in the case of a player who is struggling, who hasn’t scored all season, and in fact hasn’t scored since March 14, it’s probably all that’s left to do: throw, and then throw again. Hoping that one day the puck will end up going in.
“It’s probably the hardest series of my career,” Anderson admitted at the end of Thursday’s practice. I don’t think I’ve ever had to experience anything like this before. But as I said before, you must not give up…”
This season, it’s 19 games without a goal for the veteran striker, who will try to get rid of this bad luck in the next match, Friday at the Sharks. He’s been through worse; once, as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, he went 21 games without scoring.
He has now reached the point of trying everything, anything; at Thursday’s training, he even wanted to borrow the stick of a colleague, Justin Barron, probably to try something new.
So are we to believe, to quote Dave Hilton Jr, that the damage is “inside” the head?
“I don’t know if it’s psychological,” he replied. It’s frustrating, obviously. But I think I’m in a good place. I have to keep my head up and continue to try to be the player I know I am capable of being. »
While waiting to find answers, Josh Anderson remains a player who is looking for himself and who better than Martin St-Louis to revive him? The coach, himself an accomplished scorer in his younger days, says he is working closely with his player to put an end to this never-ending drought.
“I don’t want him to forget the details of his game just because he’s trying to score a goal. If you forget the details of your game, you just wait until you have an easy chance, next to an open net… If you do that, you might score one, but not many. So Josh has to keep working on the details. »
Anderson himself admits that he has difficulty aiming where he wants, and besides, he spent part of his individual Thursday lunchtime routine posted near the goal, looking at the posts , as if the dimensions of the goal were suddenly no longer the same.
“To be honest, I’m not comfortable with the way I’m aiming, where I’m sending the puck these days…I’ve always been so good at putting the puck exactly where I want it. It’s a matter of centimeters, but I haven’t placed the puck where I want it recently. »
What happens next Friday night in San Jose, and who knows? Maybe Josh Anderson will end up putting one in there.
In any case, Martin St-Louis is confident. “He’ll be fine,” he added.