NHL

Brad Lambert is a player with skill, speed, and the kind of easy talent that's highly noticeable on the ice. But what's he like off the ice?

And I thought I was going to get a lot further playing with men in those things that I need to get better at than I will playing against juniors. I thought about going to the WHL last summer but I thought that there was some things that I wanted to work on in my game on the defensive side just being more responsible, playing with men and getting stronger. Hockey was what I loved to do and I knew from an early age that that’s what I wanted to do and I’ve been lucky enough do it until now and I’m hoping to do it for a lot more years to come. It’s been too bad the last couple of years because I haven’t been able to go to Saskatoon to visit him or any of my family but I’m really looking forward to seeing him again and training with him. I always liked doing skating work and did a lot of it, and I’ve gotten a lot better at it over the years. Half my family’s from there and half’s from Lahti, so before I started going to school full-time in Finland, we lived back and forth and I travelled a lot and it was 50/50 in both places. So it won’t hurt me in the draft but it might have hurt me in the public eye a little bit. I love talking about hockey and I love playing the game so it was pretty easy for me to go in there and talk about hockey and allow them to get to know me as a person — and being myself. And I’m staying here until the draft and then just going to the draft from here. And I’ve got some questions for you about that as well but I really just want to use this as an opportunity to introduce you to our readers. I was here for a couple of weeks before the combine, went down to Buffalo, and then came back. And then there was a pair of moves — of teams and of agencies — as he fought to finish stronger than he was able to start.