Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Is he improving things?
If the avs are such a disaster of an organization why did he sign there for so long?
The Iginla starts and stops with team accomplishments and outside of being surrounded by All-star lineups, there really aren't any.
This has been documented over and over through the years. Darryl saying he is a tough player to coach, the team absolutely ####ting the bed in game 7 vs the ducks, quitting on play fair the year after that, losing out on the Chicago series at least in part because the team was too busy getting wasted the night before the games in Chicago. Pouting his way through the tenure of Sutter which involved critical breakdowns in the stretch drive Yar after year and then forcing the flames hand by refusing to negotiate a contract during his final season with the club.
Francois beachemin was apparently ripping the abs just the other day about their play, no mention of Iginla in the article.
I've never criticised his ability, only his desire to do what it takes to win.
There has been a myth built around Iginla largely because there wasn't anything else worthy of mythologizing around the rest if the flames organization.
To get it back in track with the thread, I don't want that element back on the team, I want guys willing to do what it takes to win.
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39 year old Iginla is probably the only guy left on that team that still cares. If he didn't care any longer, he wouldn't have gone after Emelin in that game.
He signed on the Avs thinking they were the 'next Chicago' with their talent. Not his fault that the team decided to make trades and let people walk without getting anything in return, or doing a single thing about their porous defence.
It is funny how you and the 'anti-Iginla' crowd have a difficult time seeing his desire to win, when the 'pro-Iginla' crowd see it. He has been lauded by teammates in Pittsburgh, Boston and on the Avs for how hard he prepares and how much that rubs off on players. You see him stick up for a teammate, when nobody else would, and you want to tell people that Iginla is the problem on the Avs?
Iginla has never been a shouting and speeches kind of leader. You don't expect him to do that. But just go back and read about what people ARE saying as positives about him from every team he has been on. You didn't include those. You just mention the article where Beauchemin is ripping his team.
Every single team he has been on, players and coaches alike have gone out of their way to tell you how good Iginla is on the team and in the locker room as an example for everyone.
I don't even want Iginla back on the team, but the constant hammering at Iginla makes me want to click that 'yes' button. I am starting to feel deja vu. It is the Gaudreau signing watch with Gaudreuvertime all over again. I didn't want Iginla back on the team, but reading attack after attack on his character and 'desire' hopes he is back just to infuriate the haters even more.
Keenan didn't say a single bad thing about Iginla. Darryl Sutter's insinuation in hindsight was probably more about the lack of ability in hiring a competent coach - Playfair was never an NHL-capable coach (still isn't apparently), Keenan was semi-retired and had to go to the KHL, Sutter inherited a strong team and beat into them that they were playing 'wrong' even though they were leading the west, and we all know how it turned out after they were playing 'right'. He hasn't ever got another sniff at the NHL.
Hartley came in without benefit of a training camp, in an NHL-shortened season, with a GM that was holding the plug the whole time ready to pull it. If you can be patient with Gulutzan, then there is no reason to do the same with Hartley that first year - though the defence that year was nothing to write home about.
I think Iginla took a lot of the flack for those teams not having success, even though those teams simply were not talented enough or coached well enough to get a sniff at the cup.