Quote:
Originally Posted by devo22
yeah I never expected we'd run into these kind of problems with Americans who've been on the team for such a long time. I mean, we already got burned by Fox, but all things considered that was still an outlier. Now obviously people will be antsy with regards to Coronato, who, to be fair, has done nothing but say the right things since being drafted.
I don't know what the answer is. Obviously you could just draft more Canadiens and Euros, but even the trusting the Swedish mafia isn't foolproof (see Erixon, Tom).
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I don't think this is an American player issue. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there is probably some matrix of probability of not wanting to be in small Canadian markets that would show Canadians are more likely to be ok with it vs. Americans, so I'm not saying there's 0 story here, but I don't think it really all about these players being American vs. Canadian.
- Johnny was about being close to home. No doubt maybe some recent events with COVID maybe increased the issue, which is a US / CAN thing. But, really, Johnny could be from Toronto, and want to be closer to home (think Dubois wanting to go to Montreal). What we have with Johnny, is a player that had location, and close to family, far more on their mind than what we've seen from any other player of his caliber before. So much so he left crazy dollars on the table, and better chance of winning on the table for location. I'd view him as more of a unicorn in this respect than the norm. I also don't think the Fox thing is unique to American vs. Canadian, that was also just a player leveraging what power they had to control location early in career (wouldn't work, if he wasn't as good as Fox). But again, is that a US / Can thing, or just an individual player thing. Likely Johnny, I think it's an individual thing.
- Tkachuk, if it goes this way, I also think isn't really a US / Can thing at the core. For him I think it's a winning thing. Unfortunately, the loss of Johnny, may have him believe that winning here isn't an option, for a long time. I'm guessing if we had Johnny, he'd likely be signing here, because for him it's about winning. Not saying that players don't have preferences on location, and not saying a player like Tkachuk might not try to get all things he'd prefer (contender, location and money), but in this case, I don't think for example, if the Flames were based somewhere in the US in the west, in this exact situation (just lost Johnny), that Tkachuk would be more likely to sign here.
Point being, I think the location thing is something to think about, but I think we are over indexing on it when it comes to where our players are born. Calgary is always going to be a tougher sell market location wise, but not sure it means we need to forgo US players in the future.