The Petey Predicament

[donlever]

Not directed at you Kenji.

I count at least a dozen injuries in EP's time with us.

Every player in the league has some sort of nagging injury they are playing through.

Some more successfully than others...always it has been so.

The game and schedule (especially in an Olympic year) equate to such a phenomenon.

Is this fucking guy a man or a mouse?

Now I'm no huge Linden guy (as a player) by any means but...

In a 2008 article with NHL.com, teammate Cliff Ronning summed up Trevor Linden’s leadership on the Vancouver Canucks’ 1994 Stanley Cup run perfectly: a leader who was willing to sacrifice personal comfort and health for the good of his followers’ play and morale. His perseverance in those games served as inspiration for his teammates in the series that they would ultimately and heartbreakingly lose: “I broke my hand in that game,” Ronning recalled. “But how do I say I can’t play when there’s a guy who has played four games with broken ribs and torn cartilage and he’s dropping his shoulder into guys to make plays?”


He will play. You know he’ll play! He’ll play on crutches! He will play! And he’ll play at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night!”


....this is pro hockey Elias.

Drop your nuts ffs....

[Meds]

1994 - 2024

30 years of declining toughness in our society made it acceptable to extend a muffin to the most lucrative deal in team history and then trade the alpha male with a bi-weekly surly attitude.

[Kenji]

Yes yes, very fragile.

My point, if I had one, is that this seems like a case of being hobbled rather than not trying, too busy counting his millions, crying from being called slurs, being dazzled to distraction by the overwhelming alpha-musk of JT, and other such theories.

If the Canucks had the reputation for excellence in medical science rather than what they have (dancing around an inflated goatskin in the moonlight) then my assumption would be not as incredibly obvious.

[Meds]

I don’t think anyone is saying that the player is phoning it in.

Most of us think he just doesn’t have the mental fortitude to overcome the rigours of the NHL game and the pressure that comes with it. He excelled at every level just on skill and smarts. He was the best when not playing against the best. From the time he arrived here he had hated media questions that were suggestive of accountability. He has bucked constructive criticism from teammates and coaches. He didn’t ever put in the offseason work (until perhaps last summer) and he really didn’t like being called out on it and was prone to pouting and quitting on plays.

It’s a case of, Tools? Yes. Toolbox? Not so much.

[Hockey Widow]

He maybe the example of that gifted athlete that everything came fairly easy to when he was younger. Never learned how to put in the work. Can't imagine him on a team with McKinnon or Crosby. They are known to be fierce in the offseason and tough on teammates that dont want to do the work.

I still think he can rebound to be a 80-100 point player while playing strong defence. I just don't know what it will take or if it can ever be in Vancouver again. I have come to accept that he is not the player you build around. He is not the player that should be the highest paid on the team.

I am all for trading him, just not dumping him.

[Kenji]

Maybe it’s his mental fortitude, bad training habits, and the waning of his youthful psyche, sure, but the Province gave us a before and after speed comparison. He went from
94th percentile before the mention of tendinitis to below average after.

All that is required for tendinitis to become chronic and maybe permanent is to fail to rest it. Because the team medical - the same medical that turned Tanner Pearson’s broken hand into six or seven surgeries and a public call out from Quinn Hughes - said that Pettersson could play, he played on it.

And now we have this.

What should be done? The Canucks still have to decide what he’s worth going forward, but for fans to be so trusting of how the Aquilinis treated this worker, despite all of the evidence of how the Aquilinis treat their workers, has been remarkable to see.

[Cornuck]

^ That all sounds all too plausible, and I'm guessing other GMs would have considered this as well.

So does another GM pick him up, and then rest him for half a season, and get a rejuvenated player?

Such is the Petey-Paradox.

[donlever]

Ummm..which fans are trusting of AIG exactly?

.....nice point made Kenji but this is not the first time lame ass medical & training has been brought up on these boards.

I believe we were chatting about it only 3 or 4 weeks ago most recently.

The knee tendinitis as a concern scenario was discussed as well with some posters casting it aside as so much fluff.

Were I Doc I would search the archives for back up but I am not nor would I bother....

[Kenji]

Don, you are one of the great posters and I respect that. However I do see you as an advocate of manning up and pushing through the nagging stuff - you quoted Jim Robson on Trevor Linden.

And that mention made me reflect on how Linden was an elite skater in his youth and how painful it was to watch his wide, gliding turns by the end. It’s been suggested by smarter people than me that playing for an Iron Man streak might’ve hurt Linden’s overall effectiveness.

Also how the SCF would impose a higher expectation of playing through stuff and having it fixed later on.

As for trusting AIG, it’s more prevalent on Twitter (as I still call it) but even here there’s a tendency to see EP40’s decline primarily in terms of his own fault.

And it may have been. With his scrawny build, he (or his agent) should have seen this coming and made him do the Gary Roberts Summer Camp of Torture instead of sprawling on yachts.

[donlever]

Well stated Kenji....I like the Linden parallel you have drawn to accentuate your point.

You have a lot to add.

Post more!!!

[Cousin Strawberry]

Ward (Donny) you're being a little hard on The Beaver!

[donlever]

Lol...no, I was not.

Just shooting the shit.

[Carl Yagro]

Kenji, you better start posting more. You've been ordered by the Don.

The worst thing to happen to Linden's career was the necessary shift to center for the 94 run. Had he gone back to his scoring RW role, he would likely have had a few more years of 25-30 goals/season, imo.

Instead, he became a pretty decent 3rd line checking center due to his lack of offensive playmaking abilities in a true top 6 role. But the worst downfall that we see with many guys is skating mechanics that didn't improve during their 20s, which tanked them hard in their 30s.

Him, Smyl and soon to be Brock. Horvat on the other hand, became a completely different skater early on and continues to thrive.

[donlever]

Agree....the 1989 - 2020's (and always and neverending) parallel.

The inability to draft and develop a legit #1 center continues to fuck us over.

Linden has a far better career on RW with a credible #1.

Thats what Nedved and Janney were all about in the end....

[Kenji]

Thanks Carl. I lurk here a lot!

It’s a great hockey community but sometimes it feels like I am coming in and hearing a long running family argument between two angry uncles who have so much history that it’s hard to know what’s going on, better to just sidle out the door before you get punched