Sturminator
Love is a duel
We discredit Harry Cameron based on the foggiest of accusations about his behavior in Toronto. We discredit Gordie Drillon because he was supposedly benched during the Cup Finals because of his terrible defensive play, even though I've never seen source documents detailing the incident. We discredit Clint Benedict for showing up drunk in the Cup Finals because of a newspaper report. None of this can be truly proven, but we have reason to believe that these events occured and so we believe them.
Almost all of the negative evidence used to make arguments in the ATD would not pass as proof of anything in a court of law, but that doesn't mean we should simply throw it out. I find it strange that this "presumption of innocence" argument is only used to defend Krutov when, in fact, we could trot it out every time negative information comes out about a player. In what way is first-hand testimony from NHL trainers and the word of Krutov's teammate (not to mention the weight of circumstantial evidence), weaker than the vast majority of what passes for evidence around here? I would honestly like to have this question answered, because I find the persistent "it wasn't me" arguments in defense of Krutov confusing.
As it is with all players, I weigh all the information we have on Krutov in order to come up with a valuation. I factor in how good he could have been vs. how bad he could have been, multiply that by the likelihood of each scenario or something in-between, and come up with his value. It's not as mathematical as it sounds, but that's essentially how I do it. For most players it is easy because we know essentially how good they were - so the upside vs. downside evaluation is no great burden. For Krutov it is much harder because the upside is a player about on Larionov's level and the downside is a beer leaguer. Krutov is not the only one. Hod Stuart and Herb Gardiner are also quite hard to evaluate (wide variation in upside vs. downside), although for different reasons.
I don't actually consider Krutov a beer-leaguer in this thing, and it is hyperbole when I say I wouldn't draft him in the MLD. I would. At some point, Krutov would become worth it even to me. The problem here is that his potential downside is so huge (think Robert Paulson from Fight Club) and the probability of that downside substantial enough that I think it takes a lot of the shine off of his upside. Notice that I said "substantial". I don't think it's an open-and-shut case against Krutov, either, but I think there is easily enough evidence in favor of the downside that it should be factored in to how we view him as a player.
I guess I would draft Krutov as a 4th liner in the ATD. Hell, in a 40 team draft, I might even think about him on a 3rd line if I needed what he brings and I was hungry for donuts. I obviously can't tell you who in the ATD I think has similar value to Krutov because those guys haven't been drafted yet. Like I said, I take both Krutov's upside and his downside seriously when evaluating him as a player, and though his upside is better than where you selected him, his downside is much, much worse.
