Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
This is purely anecdotal, but its always been that way with the Oilers. Its not even that they dont trust anyone else to play, but when you're riding the stars hard the rest of the team takes their foot off the gas.
The same thing happened when Hall was there. Everyone was expecting him to do everything and so their compete level dropped like a rock.
They've basically taken the same attitude and mainlined it.
"Why should I work hard when Connor and Leon have it taken care of?"
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Sure your right, its purely a guess on my part. Based also on coaching and on playing.
First of all I don't think Connor is a good Captain or leader. A good captain doesn't complain about his linemates, his goal as Captain is to provide that leadership that encourages players, if the coach puts a guy on your line and your el superstar, then you should take that as a Captain's view and try to make that player better.
Now the ice time distribution isn't a Captain's decision, however a Captain needs to look at the dressing room and go to his coach as an advocate for the other players as part of monitoring moral and say "Hey coach, I'm playing nearly half a game, and your benching everyone for me when the games in the balance. Maybe the the players are resentful.
A good captain doesn't coast back on defense, doesn't do flybys of his own zone, he leads by example because he doesn't he can't sit there and make statements like "We need to play the right way" when he is not playing the right way.
The biggest disaster, take a supremely talented offensive player that's lazy defensively and doesn't put in the effort to improve it, and make him a Captain and cram a ton of ice time on him.
You could see it in the last game, when the whole lineup pretty much threw up their arms and quit after the first period. The Oilers have a talent problem, a depth problem, a goaltending problem, a coaching problem, and a leadership problem, and if/when they lose the game tonight expect the sh%t show to intensify.
I wouldn't want to play with Connor, how do you approach a Captain and say, hey maybe help us out on defense Captain? Hey Captain, stop crying about linemates?