Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Huge difference between productive play-drivers bringing grit (Benn, Iginla, Marchand, Forsberg, Perry, Pronger, Chara, Weber, Doughty, Stevens etc) and unproducive role players bringing little else but grit.
Tkachuk earned the right to muck around because he was a scoring chance machine. The best player on the ice was a bully. No problem. Caroll and Lomberg were at least at this level also able to generate chances/goals. The better team was being bullies, NBD. It's unneccesssary but fun to watch in the entertainment industry. I bet you the Jets don't give a damn about Logan Stanley's "grit" after their team got destroyed though.. winning is the funnest thing to watch
No one inherently dislikes grit. But there are aesthetic elements and functional elements that need to be identified / separated and players at any given level need to bring more to the table than just grit. You need some functional grit but you don't need an aesthetic of grit. And even teams with an aesthetic of grit are often good in spite of not because of their rah rah ######yness.
The 04 Flames may have been sore losers but they backed it up by being a damn effective team the next game, even Chris Simon was more of a key goal scorer for them but people just remember a goon. They also played in an era where everyone had inefficiencies at the bottom of their roster - it was an even playing field to bring the drama. You don't have that luxury anymore, even a former 7 goal scorer like Bollig is hanging on by a thread as a 14th forward. He might have been a legit 3rd liner back then.
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The Flames #7-11 forwards in the 04 playoff run were Donovan, Simon, Clark, Lombardi and Saprykin (Lowry and Kobasew and Oliwa filled in the 4th line) Bollig would be likely not have hung around as the 14th forward as he was not tough enough.
The Red Wing team that the Flames beat in that run had a HOF lineup... Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Hull, Yezerman, Shanahan, Holstrom, Robert Lang, and Ray Whitney. Their checkers were Maltby and Draper in their prime. Defense Lidstrom, Chelios, Hatcher, Schnieder and Fischer... Cujo in goal
The Wings won 80-20 on the talent scale There were only 3-4 players on the Flames that would have had the
talent to play a regular shift on the wings.
The Flames won 80-20 on the Grit scale... The Flames won
Oh the Jets are likely wondering about Logan Stanley's (and Lemieux's) grit. They did not stand up to the Flames physical onslaught. Continued play like that will make it harder for Lemieux to take away ice ice from Thorburn.