One-on-One with Hudson Fasching: Thoughts On His Season So Far

EAST MEADOW, N.Y. — After practice on Friday afternoon, I sat down with Hudson Fasching to discuss his season, which has had its ups and downs so far. From three separate injuries to multiple line changes, Fasching’s dealt with a lot. Finally, he’s found a comfortable home on line three with Pierre Engvall and Casey Cizikas.

Fasching has no goals and just two assists in 31 games this year, which is a frustrating total. Despite that, he’s played some truly solid games, especially of late. This morning, Head Coach Patrick Roy praised Fasching, saying:

“I love the way he’s been playing. It’ll come. I do believe it’ll come. The chances are there. That’s a good thing. I do believe that eventually, when you do good things, good things will happen to you.”

Exclusive Interview with Fasching:

Q- Recently, your line with Pierre Engvall and Casey Cizikas has been performing well. What’s helped make it click?

A- I’ve played with Casey quite a bit over the last couple of years. We’ve developed some good chemistry and I know where he’s going to be on the ice. I think that’s always been a strong asset between the two of us and I think Pierre kind of adds a nice complementary element to our line. He’s got the speed and the ability to bring the puck up the ice and create some chances off the rush. So yeah, we’re just working well together.

[Specifically,] I think our timing’s great on the fore-check. Our success rate on getting pucks back off fore-checks is really high. [With] me and Casey being able to work low and hold on to pucks and create some chances out of the corners and let Pierre kind of do his thing up higher in the zone and it works out really well that way.

Q- You mentioned the puck retrievals themselves. It’s one of those things that sometimes doesn’t get noticed, but that forecheck is very noticeable, and the analytics are fantastic. With Pierre in particular, that’s always something he’s excelled with. So does that make it easier for you to know because you like to kind of get to the net and set up?

A- Yes, one hundred percent. It’s nice. I want to play in front of the net. He wants to get the puck to the net. So it works well together. Those two things are complementary of each other. It definitely helps, and I mean, when you get the dump and chase game, it can get very frustrating, very boring, very quickly. But when you’re doing it well, it’s really fun. I think that that’s kind of the point we’re at is we’re doing it well and it makes the game a lot more fun because you’re getting the puck back and you get to create chances off of that.

Q- Just for you personally, after how this year started with constantly, has it been nice to get some stability in the lineup?

A- For sure. Consistent shifts and good ice time and being able to play well [is great]. I mean, I’d really love for one to go in. That would also feel great. But at the end of the day, our line’s playing really well. We’re creating a lot of momentum. We’re getting a lot of scoring chances. So, I’m happy, and we’re having fun with it.

And, I think the other thing, too, is we’re playing against some of the top six players, the top two lines a lot of the time and we’re doing well against them. So we’re trying to keep that consistency going.

Q- Just for the team itself, it’s now three years in a row, the team adds in a guy internally during the season, first you in ’23 then Kyle MacLean last year. This year’s addition is Marc Gatcomb. What do you think makes it easy for a guy to come up on this particular team and make an impact, as well as help down the stretch and fight for a playoff spot?

A- This is a veteran group so it makes it easy for a younger guy to just slide right in. It’s not anything [specific], everybody else is calm and collected so they feel that energy as well. I feel like that was at least how I felt when I first got here is. It was a veteran team and I could just do my thing and they supported me through that.

“I think that that’s what we’ve been trying to do. Same thing with Kyle [MacLean] last year and Gats [Marc Gatcomb] this year.  I think that they’ve obviously added a lot of energy, and there are a few huge goals out of them.”