littletonhockeycoach said:
It was totally mishandled. The only one who would have been upset was Duchene IMO. Always thought he was a bit of a cry baby anyways
Landeskog's reaction 2 years ago when O'Reilly finally signed was classic..." I don;t care how much he makes. He makes us a better." (or something lose to that.)
The players know what their team mates value is......
Couple things ... I don't think the "Duchene cap" was actually a thing that was necessarily
real when it came to the salary structure -- rather that excuse was trotted out in the media for leverage against ROR and to let him know just where he stood with the team. And it had the additional "benefit" of turning public opinion against him (which, again, is all too illuminating about where ROR stood with the team).
There's a thin line there, but I do think there's a difference. Whatever the case, it ended up creating a fracture in the team, obviously -- I don't know why you would ever publicly drag a second player's name into contract disputes with another player. That is
terrible business.
But this also clearly showed a complete misunderstanding of the type of character O'Reilly is. For a guy whose efforts and talents are so often underappreciated because his primary contributions tend not to show up on score sheet, I think it's paramount that you
let him know that you understand just what he brings -- and not use stats
against him to imply he's less of a player.
I'm not saying ROR is a crybaby that has to be coddled, as some COL fans have begun to tell themselves -- rather, he's a proud guy, a warrior, and if you make him feel like you're trying to take advantage of him,
you're gonna regret it. He's not going to cave.
But the fans took the front office's propaganda hook line and sinker and turned against ROR because how
dare he not take less money for the good of the team, like Matt Duchene so heroically did? ROR can't possibly be as good as Duchene, because Duchene was drafted higher, can skate in a straight line really fast, and stick handles very fancily! Oh, if only that's how hockey games were won.
It started to feel like rooting for a cult.