NHL should investigate something that occurred in a league that wasn’t the NHL. Makes tons of sense.
The Barracuda are owned by Sharks ownership and at least indirectly the staff there are overseen by the Sharks. It's not like the Sharks said "hey, you should hire X for your coach" and Joe Will went "nah, I like John McCarthy". And for that matter team GM Joe Will is
very directly in the employ of the Sharks as a SJS assistant GM.
It might not have happened in the NHL, but it happened in a part of the organization that's under their watch and that they are responsible for. And a coach advising a player with a concussion history who isn't even a fighter by trade that he has to fight every game or he'll piss away his opportunity at the NHL is profoundly dumb and damaging to the club.
that said, in reading Sheng's "actually translated by someone who speaks Czech" version of the interview, the fighting thing seems like a small piece of a larger bundle of issues that Kaut was having. The homesickness and whatnot played into it too, but my biggest takeaway is that he seemed, and I'm loathe to use this word, kind of entitled. Like he broke into the NHL and had a bit of success and was subsequently insulted that they didn't pretty much just hand him a full-time NHL gig at that point. That he had to go back to the Cuda on a two-way deal and fight for his opportunity against guys that he seems to imply are beneath him.
It's kind of the opposite of Zadina. Zadina could've rested on his laurels, cashed the remainder of his fat rookie deal, and coasted to free agency in a little while, but instead he said it wasn't about the money and sacrificed millions of dollars so he could have the chance to prove he belongs in the league. Kaut, on the other hand, wants his spot in the league provided on a platter and thinks that having to thunderdome his way out of the AHL after a 9-game NHL audition is beneath him.
Now if he wants to go home because he's coming apart at the seams living in a different country, speaking a different language, and without anyone in his support network there to help him out because they're all a world away, fine. I can respect that because it's something a lot of us never have to deal with (just imagine being plunked down into the middle of Ostrava or somewhere while speaking nary a lick of Czech and having to find your way at 20 while everyone you know and care about is half a world away and unlikely to hop on a plane and uproot their lives as well). But you don't wanna stick around because the Sharks said you're not done earning it and were also trying out other pieces of the farm in late-season auditions? Piss off with that nonsense.
I'm sad that he's gone because I liked what he did in teal and think that with another fair shot he could've been a decent tertiary building block for the team, but Martin Kaut needed the Sharks to keep his NHL career going more than they needed him for their future success.
www.idnes.cz
