League to Torres: ya'll gonna learn today.
41 games.
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Island Nucklehead wrote:It's still a terrible trade.
What this does is show that Kassian still hasn't taken the steps required to be a true professional and take his job seriously. Frankly, I'm kind of amazed more teams haven't done like the Kings and hired a "life coach" to be in the room with these guys, share their experiences and do their best to keep these guys on the straight and narrow. You'd think when you're investing $60-$70M in payroll that $100,000 for someone like that, which doesn't count against any salary cap, could go a long way to reducing these kind of situations.
Of course you'll never stop the Slava Voynov's of the world from beating up their spouse, but you should be able to hammer into some of these mid-20's rockstars that ripping around town with a couple girls at 6am after an evening of Christ-knows-what, following a trade when questions of character are raised... probably isn't the best thing for your career. Same goes for guys like Kane who seem to have trouble with the liquor... why put yourself in a position where this is even a possibility?
Oh for sure, and we don't have all the details about this situation, except that it's Kassian and Bergevin seems pissed, so it's likely not good.
And obviously there would be some guys that wouldn't take part or trust such a person or feel it necessary for whatever reason, I just don't get why you wouldn't have that resource available. You seem to have everything from the third-string equipment guy that places the stink-fan in the room to dry the gear post-game, admin assistants booking travel arrangements for the "father/mother trip" and backup video review assistant coaches... If one of these kind of advisors could stop even one or two of these incidents from happening you'd think it'd be worth it.
And as for Topper's nonsense, I imagine the Blackhawks are looking at one of these positions (if they haven't filled it already) for Mr. Frat-House. It's not solely about just expecting these guys to grow up (wouldn't that be a perfect world, 24-year old millionaires never had to work a real day in their lives). If one of your star players run into these kind of scenarios, now your season (and business) is in the shitter.
Yep, it is unfortunate, and I've already said it a couple times for anyone who actually reads, it's a real shame Kassian has the million-dollar body/skill set and a 10-cent head. If he ever put it all together he'd be a helluva player and it's certainly frustrating to watch him continuously submarine his own career.
As for the trade, it was and remains a shit trade. The targetting of Prust, giving up the draft pick for the luxury of adding an older, worse, redundant depth player. I'll give Benning credit that he's not afraid to admit mistakes (Vey on Waivers, dealing Bonino and Clendenning after targetting them), I just wish he'd stop making them in the first place. We'll get there dude, giving the kids a shot here is a step in the right direction.
haha yeah that's exactly what I'm saying Topper. We'll hire a half-dozen chefs to prepare meals for the team, a couple nutritionists to monitor offseason dietary requirements, and all kinds of people to run the snaptwitfacetumblrchat accounts, but when it comes to educating guys and having supports in place to protect the franchise from embarassment and (in some cases) potential season-crippling off-ice events that could cost the owner millions and the team points in the standings... "nah they take care of themselves". It's not about shifting the blame away from Kassian/Kane/Stoll/Richards/Malone etc. etc., but about the franchise doing what they can to win hockey games by having their players on the ice and not in the court room or hospital. Anyways, like HW mentioned people need to avail themselves of the resources if they are present, I just don't see how such a small investment could be a bad thing.
So you're kind of hinting at and keep on rehashing the issue of that the team should hire rehab people/life coaches etc to help their players from such issues, is that correct?
An employer can only do so much to help you, but ultimately it's the person who has to put in the work to WANT to help themselves. Enough excuses for this guy IN.
You already said 'he has all the tools but a 10 cent head, submarining his own career'
...so to me it's a good trade for Benning for an immediate turn-around for the team.
How so?
People keep on bringing up players mentoring the kids, so imo it's a good ideal to have good example vets, Prust is a great guy for the team, Kass was cool but he was too cool for school. Prust is what Benning wants for this team, he brings a lot of character and reliability, you know exactly what he's going to bring night in and night out, he's a team guy first and foremost, superb locker room fella, but ultimately it's not having to worry about him and he adds a more cohesiveness to the squad right this instant, hell he's even teaching Virtanen already about defending himself.
https://twitter.com/VanCanucks/status/6 ... 8007419905
Can the Canucks just win a Cup within the next 5 years.