What We've Got (Looking Ahead With Current Contracts)

[Lancer]

The pickle I think the team is in moving forward is that it will be exceedingly hard for that dressing room to move forward with that pathetic Eeyore in the room.

It's not even a matter of the $11.6 cap hit. How is any kid going to work hard or commit to the right habits when they see Pathetic Petey coasting while collecting the highest salary in the room? He's not toxic, but he doesn't have a competitive bone in his body anymore. His is performative competitiveness - competing just hard enough to say you did and point to a shot-block or two.

The team needs to ditch him sooner rather than later for the sake of not ruining the kids, but nobody is going to take that contract and that performance without the kind of trade incentive that would get a normal GM fired.

Too bad the guy can't have a career-ending mishap in the upcoming training camp and ride out his contract on LTIR. He'd be more valuable to the team there than in that dressing room.

[Meds]

Too bad the guy can't have a career-ending mishap in the upcoming training camp and ride out his contract on LTIR. He'd be more valuable to the team there than in that dressing room.

Rumour has it that Matt Cooke and Steve Downie are being coaxed out of retirement on PTO’s for the Canucks.

[Lancer]

Too bad the guy can't have a career-ending mishap in the upcoming training camp and ride out his contract on LTIR. He'd be more valuable to the team there than in that dressing room.

Rumour has it that Matt Cooke and Steve Downie are being coaxed out of retirement on PTO’s for the Canucks.

If I was Petey and I saw those two in the dressing room, I would see the writing on the wall and come up with a mysterious ailment that achieves the same effect without the pain and life-altering consequences.

[UWSaint]

The pickle I think the team is in moving forward is that it will be exceedingly hard for that dressing room to move forward with that pathetic Eeyore in the room.

[etc.]

Let's say your description of EP40 is right -- I don't think its hard at all for hungry players to advance because they have a single Eeyore teammate. Sullen and/or insular people are pretty common. They are in most workplaces with 50 people (or however many players and staff are regulars with an NHL team). Yet individual advancement and group success happens.

That's not to say EP40s isolationism hasn't adversely affected his game. He seems to the type who is reluctant to accept help/criticism/advice/instruction. I could be wrong, but I've always seen this as EP40 being his own worst critic more than simple arrogance, and there is this personality type that tunes out help/criticism/advice/instruction when the person *knows* what the problem is because they've already thought of the solution that's being offered and they tried it and it didn't work. These folks are tough to coach.

But is that a personality type that is contagious to a group, so the group also adopts that personality? Not in my experience. Social personalities can be contagious, not anti-social ones.

And this is not to say people don't prefer to be around people who aren't sullen and who are, if not extroverts, friendly. But leave-me-be-I'll-leave-you-be types don't tend to destroy a group.

And this is not to say EP40s presence contributes to the group either. For better or worse (and frankly, it is always worse, but it is human nature), envy is the predictable sentiment that arises when a guy makes a boatload of cash and doesn't earn it and doesn't appear to be trying to earn it. And when people mistake that feeling of envy for that of righteousness, the whole ship collapses. But I think this danger is *way* less with a young team for many reasons.

And none of this is to say EP40 *should* be on the team. Its just that, in my view, his personality is less than 1% of the equation as to whether he is inhibiting the Canucks developing the next set of core players.