If you’re interested, former Red Wings forward Filip Zadina gave an in-depth interview to Hockeysverige.se’s Uffe Bodin tonight. Zadina doesn’t have anything bad to say about the Red Wings or his time there, simply stating the following to Bodin:
“I had been there for almost five years, and things didn’t go as I had hoped,” says Filip Zadina, when he explains why it ended as it did in Detroit.
“I have been injured a lot and didn’t feel well. Sometimes it’s best to try and leave the old behind, move on, and focus on the future. Sometimes it’s better than staying in the same place and just hoping things turn around. Hope can be good, but it’s not something I want to sit and wait for. I felt it was time for something different, and I think it will help me, especially mentally, to get a fresh start, forget what happened in Detroit and find the joy in hockey again.”
You still gave up a lot of money to do that, and you don’t see players doing that very often.
“If I had been 31 or so on, I might have thought differently. But I’m only 23 now, and I think the best case scenario for me is to play hockey for less money and get a chance to play regularly instead of going in and out of the lineup. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something to get something more out of life. I am still young, and I will be able to earn the money later.”
It has been argued that Zadina’s development was harmed because he entered professional hockey too early, before he was ripe for the task in the NHL. He himself believes that there may have been some truth in that, but that he did not think along those lines at the time.
“It’s tough for a young rookie to come to a team under rebuilding like Detroit was then. Such a team didn’t have as strong a core as other teams have. I was happy and lucky that I got the chance in the NHL so early, which I probably wouldn’t have gotten with many other teams.”
“I tried my best at the time, but if you’re not a McDavid or a Matthews, it’s difficult to make that kind of difference. I couldn’t do it and that’s okay. These are unique players who we’re talking about. You don’t get five or six players in the draft every year who play for the same team for 20 years, and can make such a big difference.”
The interview continues, and you can read a Google translation of the interview here.
