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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That may be the GM's job for some players, but Iginla was obviously a special case. He was close with Murray Edwards, and there was absolutely no way that Edwards was going to OK the start of movement plans for Iginla anytime prior.
It wasn't just that Feaster couldn't do it because of ability, but rather that he couldn't do it out of restriction. There was no way Iginla was leaving before last season, no matter who the GM was.