He makes $9 million a year until infinity with a full NMC and he's got 1 assist in 14 games.
I've been a huge Krueger critic, especially regarding putting Skinner on the fourth line, but Skinner's earned being scratched.
Skinner has been saying all the right things to the media about doing whatever it takes to help the team win, but it's clear that in private he isn't making any effort to change his game to fit into whatever system Krueger has implemented.
Ice time and being scratched are the only two cards Krueger has to play to motivate Skinner, who otherwise has no reason to do anything but show up, since his $9 million salary is fully guaranteed and he can't even be sent to Rochester, let alone traded due to his full NMC
The Pegula's will soon have to face the reality that they got duped again, this time into signing a guy who has no interest in anything but collecting a paycheck
Management by exception (taking away ice time when a player isn't doing what you demand) has negative correlation with leader effectiveness.* Sometimes it's necessary to fix reoccuring problems, racist behaviour etc. but it shouldn't be the go to solution as a leader.
Conditional reinforcement (rewarding with ice time) has a positive correlation with leader effectiveness but you're not likely to get performance out of the ordinary.
Both of your cards belong in the basic transactional leadership style according to the full range leadership model.
We are talking about a guy who wrote a book called: T
eamlife - Beyond Setbacks to Success. So I would assume he has some cards based on the more effective transformational leadership style up his sleave. A couple of examples:
- Intellectual stimulation: involving Skinner in problem solving and developing a role that works instead of working with demands/punishment.
- Individualized consideration: taking the individuals into account when it comes to decisions and creating roles that benefit from their strenghts and personal motivation.
This is already turning into an essay so I won't go deep into examples of transformative leadership. I just want to say: there are plenty of options for a good leader. If Kruger has reached the end of the line "punishment" it's because he changed the role of a 40 goal scorer, put him with f***ing Sobotka (and he still delivered for a while) and now has him demoted to a line with grinders. Essentially killing his motivation by threatening his role in the group and making him feel incompetent.
Kruger has done nothing to build him up and I think this situation proves once and for all that even Kruegers supposed strength as a motivator is just being a smooth talker when communicating with his boss. The great motivator Ralph Kruger is in reality an asslicker.
Skinner is overpayed, has been bad but there are plenty of guys who've been worse and still doesn't get scratched. If I felt a little bit more up for a conspiracy theory I'd say this is part of Kruegers nepotism and love for Hall but I'm all out of tin foil...
*Depends if it's proactive or reactive. For instance, creating a routine to avoid the problem altogether would be proactive (positive correlation with leader effectiveness), giving negative feedback or benching someone after the matter would be reactive (doing this once or twice is not necessarily a problem but if you go for this option you are entering destructive leadership territory).
