[FanIn80]

Florida sunshine and taxes be damned, every STAR player worth their salt has the same boxes that need to be checked:

- Treat me and my family with respect
- Pay me what I'm worth
- Give me teammates that are fun to be around, contribute to what we're trying to do and aren't a distraction
- Communicate with me about how I can help and use me properly

If you draft a star player and check those boxes for them, they're not going to bail on you at the first chance they get. Granted, the 3rd one is difficult, but if you can at least show demonstrable effort at it while checking the other boxes, that's just as good.

Ottawa locked Brady up for 8, made him the Captain and is building their team around him. Calgary bridged Chucky, tried to tone him down in the room and even had their coach say "no one on this team is worthy of being a Captain" at a press conference, while refusing to name one at all for two full seasons.

Chucky has had nothing but love for this city since day one. His parents loved it here, and he still comes back in the summers for the Stampede. We had the greatest top line the game has seen since the 90s, and all we had to do was (this is only an educated guess) choose them over Sutter. Instead, we repeated "Gilbert vs Savard" all over again. We chose the coach, got rid of the player, fired the coach a year later anyway and then watched the player win a Cup with the team we sent them to.

I just don't get it. It's fine to make a mistake now and then, but it's not fine to repeat those mistakes. These people are being paid millions a year to make these decisions, it's not out of line to expect them to at least learn from their mistakes (or the mistakes of their predecessors).

At any rate, Conny is such a breath of fresh air. Literally the single best thing to come out of the whole mess.



Edit: Actually, I can't remember if we traded Savard to BOS or NYR (and then he went to BOS), but the point is still valid.