Houston Dynamo forward Will Bruin has said that there is a different kind of feeling around the dressing room and training complex for the team this season and there's something else that's different: "excitement."
The Dynamo are just two games into the 2016 Major League Soccer season, but there's good reason for that excitement. The team leads the league in goals scored with eight and have recorded the second most assists in the league with six.
Many of those goals and assists were racked up in a 5-0 Texas Derby win against defending Western Conference champions FC Dallas last Saturday -- a game that should signal that Owen Coyle's team means business ahead of the 2016 campaign.
"There's a different excitement around this team. There's a different feeling in the locker room and out in the training field at the game and the atmosphere at the stadium," Bruin said on MLSSoccer.com.
"It's been two good games, two good showings but most of all we need to have consistency, especially after Saturday's win against Dallas, we can't get too high."
Houston missed out on the playoffs last season, but the hot start has the team thinking big and playing with a new kind of confidence that is helping to inspire that excitement around the team and with Dynamo fans.
"We have a lot of confidence going forward," said Dynamo defender David Horst. "It's just something we haven't had the last couple years, was that confidence to go forward.
"We had great players potentially but we didn't have that identity and that style. When you bring in guys like Chaco Maidana and Andrew Wenger, these guys really cement our style of what we want to do."
The Dynamo aren't getting ahead of themselves, according to Horst. But he says the team is already looking forward to getting back out on the field next Saturday vs. 2015 Supporters' Shield holders New York Red Bulls to see if they can make it three wins from three and then continue on game by game from there.
"We have to have that mentality and these two road games coming up are going to be huge for us to see where we are," Horst said.
"It is the beginning of the year, but if at the end of the year we want to be a playoff team, and a championship team, we have to show that consistency now and build towards that."