Quote:
Originally Posted by GullFoss
The overarching media narrative in explaining the team's struggles last season was that the team was in a funk last season because of Sutters negativity, "no fun" demeanor, toxic atmosphere around the team, mean to Huby, disrespectful to players, uncompromising with the system, poor utilization of talent, etc. He kicked players. He was mean to pelts. He made a poop joke. He wouldn't listen to Tre. He was mean to staff members.
Not once in the 2022-23 season did the media think, "maybe it's that the roster just kind of sucks." The closest the media got was looking at Huby and Markstrom and Kadri and noting a contributing factor of the poor team results were the subpar performance of individual players. Not team construction, but individual players. Not a single person in the media blamed Tre. The quality of the roster wasn't questioned by anyone in the media.
It's wild how this season laid bare that the truth was largely the opposite of the narrative that everyone amplified last year. The truth: the roster isn't good enough to compete, the best players are post-apex, Huby is massively overpaid (it isn't the coach), and the coach wasn't the primary problem with team performance (lack of finishing talent is). Even with Kadri and Markstrom playing substantially better, the team is less competitive than the 2022-23 season (when they missed the playoffs).
Isn't it interesting that the media amplified a fake narrative that just happened to make Tre look as good as possible and pin all the blame on someone else? And that someone else just happened to be the guy Tre was internally feuding with. Maybe the media just got it entirely wrong by mistake. But it reads an awful lot like fake news. Skew the facts to fit a narrative that blames whoever it is that your guy needs to blame.
Isn't it odd that the media constantly reported that "Tre was in on that trade. He works so hard. He was so close." for every big player. "Tre was in on that UFA. He works so hard. He was so close to singing him" for every big UFA. Then Conroy comes out and says "yeah, he didn't really include us in that." So where is that narrative coming from. Who is leaking that "this super hard working GM Treliving was involved with this UFA until the 23 hour." I'm guessing it's Treliving and Maloney.
Who's going to the media with tidbits on the Sutter-Tre feud. Who is telling the media that "Tre wanted to make a coaching change, but ownership wouldn't oblige." It's either Tre, Maloney or Edwards. No one else has that information.
Then the media gets super upset because Tre isn't allowed to sit at the draft table or sign with Toronto or whatever it is. So again, the media amps up pressure on Calgary to allow such things...to Treliving's benefit. Who was leaking that to the press that the flames were being mean to Treliving? Probably Treliving...
IMO it seemed that Tre was constantly leaking things to the media off the record to help shape the narrative and get his way. Let's give it time...maybe the same types of things will happen in Toronto. He'll sign garbage UFAs and do stupid extensions and then get the media to spin it like he's a great, hardworking gm. And then he'll leak to the media when shanahan or ownership won't let him get his way.
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Very little of this is true.
Your premise is that the narrative re. Sutter was fake. It wasn't.
Moreover, I think most people have understood that Sutter is a coach that drives results. He was fired because of how he treated people, including non players.
Anyways I would suggest that you are applying a strong amount of bias yourself to create what is largely a imaginary scenario that you just outlined.
Both things can be true:
The roster wasn't good enough
Sutter was justifiably fired, including for reasons beyond on-ice performance.