NHL owners have created this monster system themselves by starting to sign superstar players to multi-year multi-million dollar contracts with NMC/NTC. Most, if not all, NHL players are proud athletes. Even a short demotion to the minors could wake up a player whose compete level is not up to par. In my opinion, NMC/NTC is the whole reason superstar players feel and are pretty much untouchable. What CAN a coach/GM/CEO and, ultimately, an owner really do, when a superstar player checks out somewhere in the early to mid stage of his contract? Nothing. Buying out mid-term is a financial disaster.
Fans are siding with Benn and Seguin here, but they are wrong. These outbursts never happen out of the nothing. There is no doubt in my mind that the normal progression of warnings, heart-to-heart talks by the coach have taken its course already without a desired outcome. The owner pays for all this. He has the full right to be pissed off and voice his displeasure publicly, if his highest-paid players are not listening to their coach and playing half-ass.
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"An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think." Georg Hegel
“To generalize is to be an idiot.” William Blake
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