Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Bob crying about it
My response
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I'm so confused about the narrative out of Edmonton around "McDavid doesn't get protected." I agree that NHL needs to crack down on slashes etc... for everyone, especially star players, but what were they expecting? For the most part this seems to be a case of misaligned expectations on the Edmonton fan and media.
Clearly they believed that McDavid, was going to get Gretzky treatment from the 80's when it came to officiating. Such an out of touch opinion, almost like they haven't watched hockey in decades. One, the Gretzky treatment from the 80's was overboard, he literally had his own rule book with essentially made him untouchable, even within the rules, which was just stupid. Two, the game has changed so much since then. In the 80's, many teams had up to two full lines of players that literally 1000 times worse then first line players. You needed to make sure those far less talented players couldn't simply even the playing field by taking liberties, so the league and officials over indexed on protecting Gretzky and the few other stars.
In today's game the difference between McDavid and the worst player in the league (as great as McDavid is) is far far less steep. Almost everyone in the NHL, can actually play this sport at a top pro level. So the need to create a separate rule book for the McDavid's of the world to play there game isn't required.
It's like Oiler fans just assumed getting the best player in the world meant he'd be able to operate in his own little bubble the way Gretzky was.............and are shocked to see that it hasn't been that way for decades, and that isn't a luxury players like Crosby got either.