Ned Colletti Talks Pressure, Hockey and Puig Making a Good Impression

John Hoven, at the always great LA Kings blog Mayor's Manor, had a chance to chat with Dodgers GM Ned Colletti the other day.  Over the years, Hoven has made many parallels between the Kings and Dodgers, as they both try to rebuild with scouting while adding key parts at the right time.  For the Kings they developed Brown, Kopitar, Doughty, Quick and others; while attaining the able hands of established stars like Carter, Richards, Mitchell and Scuderi, on their way to a Stanley Cup Championship.

The Dodgers hope to do the same thing, and with LA's other club taking home a trophy the pressure is certainly on to succeed.  Via Hoven's story:

“There’s always pressure,” said Dodgers’ GM Ned Colletti when we spoke with him Thursday night. “I put pressure on myself. I want this thing to be successful. I want the fans to have a great time coming to the ballpark. I want them to see exciting baseball. So none of it’s really new to me. It’s all the same. I’m thrilled for the Kings. I’m thrilled for Dean Lombardi, who I’ve known a long time. And Darryl Sutter, who is a neighbor of mine. Great to see them achieve that. You know, Darryl and Dean have been in the game a long time and they’ve won their first Cup now.  I’m very happy for them and hopefully we can follow suit. They’ll have a chance at number two though before we’ll get halfway through our season.”

Colletti speaks more about his love of hockey and his connections within the game.  He even drew parallels between the work all sports GM's do.  The best part of the story, though, is the discussion about Spring Training and the need for young players to leave camp with a lasting impression.  And as you can imagine, the topic of Yasiel Puig came up.  Colletti shares a scoop that is probably not so unexpected.

Then came the big reveal that many Dodger fans likely wanted to hear…

“As the season goes on, I’m pretty confident we’ll see him at some point in the big leagues,” Colletti continued. “In the meantime, he’ll learn the day-to-day routine. He’ll learn all sorts of routines to get himself prepared. You know, there’s still some fine points he needs to work on. He has great tools. There’s no debating the power he has or the arm he has, the speed he has or the passion he has. It’s been a great experience for him.”

Awesome!  I can't wait to see him at Dodger Stadium.  It's going to be a long wait.

You should definately check out the entire story.  Ned Colletti goes further in depth on how important Spring Training is.

Pic Credit at Top: JonSooHoo/LA Dodgers 2012

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