Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
While true, IMO an important part of the GM's job is talking players into doing what the team needs them to do.
I'm just speculating, but I somehow doubt it would have been such a hard sell for Iggy anyway. I'm not at all convinced that Iggy was that motivated in Calgary the last couple of seasons, as his effort level was IMO all over the place. I'm sure he really wanted to win it here, but Iggy knows his hockey, I'm sure he had a fairly realistic picture of his actual chances, which were pretty close to zero
As to Kipper, if you talked to him earlier, he would have been in a completely different situation. He had many millions of dollars to look forward to and some good years left in him. While I agree that Kipper was/is an oddball, athletes are competitive and want to win championships.
Basicly I see it like this: if you can't talk an athlete into taking a better chance to win a championship, odds are you're not that great at handling people.
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Let me flip that around for you, how about Iginla really wanted to leave for a chance at a SC, and said he was willing to do so, but ownership don't want him to leave so they convinced him to stay. The tell him they are going to spend to the cap and give him a chance to win it in Calgary, and they won't trade him anyway, not yet.
You can twist it any way you like as we don't know the real truth either way.