“I always talk about respecting the process, and I feel like he did,” said head coach Geordie Kinnear. “He had a good year last year, he went through his ups and downs, knew what he had to work on this summer, put the time in, and now he’s come in and he’s still got his competitiveness and growth.”
“I think last year was a good start to my pro career,” said Guzda. “But it’s time now with my second year to take a step forward and continue to build on everything that we’ve worked on.”
After going along for the ride as a black ace during Florida’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals, Guzda took the lessons he gained over the past year and headed into a critical offseason.
“Conditioning was a big thing,” said Guzda of his main focus. “I lost about 17 pounds over the summer and got in a lot better shape. Just tried to bring some more control into my game. Just to help build that consistency.”
The 22-year-old’s commitment to growth has been evident during this high-intensity week of training camp.
“I think you saw a little bit of it today,” said Kinnear. “You want to see that they’ve used their experience to their advantage. One thing today was the puck handles, I thought he looked more confident with the puck, that’s something that he has wanted to improve and you can see there’s an improvement there.”
As a goalie making the transition from year one to year two, the coaching staff has a road map that they want to see Guzda follow.
“I think reasonable expectations for people,” said Kinnear. “First year you can make those mistakes, and now second year some of those mistakes have to go away a little bit. That’s a reasonable expectation that we want a player to take a step in his second year. Guzda falls into that category. He’s respecting the process. It takes a long period of time to get where you want to go, but he’s on the right path.”
As for the young netminder, he’s ready to take that journey.
“I’ve been feeling good,” said Guzda. “I’m super excited to be here and super excited to get things started. Just knowing the layout, knowing what to expect on a day-to-day basis. I’m looking to just take everything I learned last year and build on the start I had last year.”
