Oilers' Eakins 'hit the reset button on Yakupov'
/The Edmonton Sun touches base with Oilers winger Nail Yakupov, who vows to continue working hard next season.
Oilers coach Dallas Eakins said this year was a necessary evil for the youngster.
“With Nail, it was like with a lot of our guys. We had to come in this year and hit the reset button,” said Eakins.
“Hitting that reset button was very hard on Nail.
“He’d been allowed to just go out and play by his coaches in junior and everyone before. We could continue to do that. Or we could start to build the foundation of how we’re going to play as a team and what that means to each individual, so that we can have success in the playoffs and turn into one of these top-level teams.
“You can’t just play the individual game. And it wasn’t just Nail. We had a whole bunch of that going on here and we had to reset it and there’s been pain and suffering doing it. But I think our team is much better for it now.”
Source: Terry Jones, Edmonton Sun