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Blake is out

Herby said:
I agree that my 40's self would disagree with a lot of the things my 20's self thought.

But I think my 20 year old self was 100% right on Rob Blake, once you remove the C from your jersey as a contract negotiating ploy you can F-off forever.
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I genuinely believe that's NOT what he was trying to do.

I suppose we'll never know for sure but I think his position was that the team captain shouldn't be a distraction and that his contract negotiation was a distraction.

It was portrayed as a defiant act of self interest when with the benefit of hindsight I believe it was a misunderstood act of selflessness.
Herby said:
It was an insult to the importance of wearing a C in the National Hockey League.

Blake also greatly overstated his value, he demanded to be the highest paid defenseman in the league, and he was clearly not as good as Lidstrom or Pronger. It's not as if the Kings were insulting him with the offers that were made. Like they did with Robitaille a year later.
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I also think the union was pressuring him and since his contract would have an impact on a non-cap world and other players coming up behind him I can see him feeling like he had an obligation to the rest of the league.
 
All The Kings Men said:
I genuinely believe that's NOT what he was trying to do.

I suppose we'll never know for sure but I think his position was that the team captain shouldn't be a distraction and that his contract negotiation was a distraction.

It was portrayed as a defiant act of self interest when with the benefit of hindsight I believe it was a misunderstood act of selflessness.
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If that is what he and his agent truly thought, they made a horrible miscalculation of the situation. When it happened it was the talk all over not only the Kings world but the hockey world in general. Because nobody else had ever done such a thing before.

That was the moment that Blake lost a large chunk of this fanbase.
 
Herby said:
If that is what he and his agent truly thought, they made a horrible miscalculation of the situation. When it happened it was the talk all over not only the Kings world but the hockey world in general. Because nobody else had ever done such a thing before.

That was the moment that Blake lost a large chunk of this fanbase.
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I was there dude I remember lol

I'm just saying I don't trust Bill Plaschke and Helene Elliott circa 2001 to tell me what was actually happening and I've seen how "news" stories get picked up repeated and then repeated again and again and again and if his real crime was misreading how his actions would be interpreted that's way worse than what he's accused of.

Now the 2008 thing?

Shoot man I don't know. I got nothing on that. In addition I suppose now I can say that it really bugged me that he attended Marleau's retirement ceremony in San Jose wearing a Sharks jersey while the GM of the Kings.

But ya know... that's just me?
 
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BaileyFan said:
The real question is who’s showing up to Blake’s garage tonight to indulge in a few beers and reminisce about the good times? I know Luc, Axl and the Mayor will be there.
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All The Kings Men said:
But with the benefit of hindsight I can say that the version of me in his late 40s thinks that the version of me that was in his early 20s was wrong and was an idiot about a lot of things.
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You are selling yourself short -- trust me, you are plenty wrong and an idiot about a lot of things now in your 40s too!

(lol -- just teasing you ;)....i hope you're having more "good" than bad days and going forward have many, many more "good" days)
 
He was lowballed in 2001 but the answer was not to take off the "C", even if it is spun as a "need someone else to be the captain since this contract thing is a distraction." Like, here is an extra $2MM because you made a public scene about not being the captain anymore. GTFO.

I know it isn't a lot to say a Kings player never won anything as a King since most of them haven't won anything as a King, but Blake's teams were first round fodder or a lottery team, just like the teams he managed. He has made a living off of making Kings fans miserable and I do not know of another pro sports franchise that made it a habit to basically cuck themselves for 20 years by continually giving out contracts and high-profile positions to a guy that spurned the franchise and is generally hated by anyone that was a fan in 2001.
 
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BaileyFan said:
The real question is who’s showing up to Blake’s garage tonight to indulge in a few beers and reminisce about the good times? I know Luc, Axl and the Mayor will be there.
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Muzz and Nelly will be there, too.

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Sorry Axl, only the McDavid's of the world can have an IPA.
 
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It's nice, but it's really just Luc giving up Blake's scalp to save his own.
Luc and Hiller both need to go as well before the rot is cut away and you can grow healthy new tissue.
 
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All The Kings Men said:
I genuinely believe that's NOT what he was trying to do.

I suppose we'll never know for sure but I think his position was that the team captain shouldn't be a distraction and that his contract negotiation was a distraction.

It was portrayed as a defiant act of self interest when with the benefit of hindsight I believe it was a misunderstood act of selflessness.

I also think the union was pressuring him and since his contract would have an impact on a non-cap world and other players coming up behind him I can see him feeling like he had an obligation to the rest of the league.
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Jesse, I like a lot of your takes but this is horseshit.

If you don't want to be a distraction, don't talk about your contract negotiations with the press and go about your business as captain until you are traded.

Rob Blake wishes he had half the heart of Adam Deadmarsh.
 
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I feel like there’s a lot of drama queen-ness and pearl clutching when it comes to Blake in 2001 and 2008. People just completely ignore the Kings part in it because it’s difficult to not take your team’s side. I’ve debated these instances a lot over the years and it’s exhausting. Having said that, none of that changes the fact that he wasn’t a good GM and I wish others went with him. Mainly Luc.
 
All The Kings Men said:
I genuinely believe that's NOT what he was trying to do.

I suppose we'll never know for sure but I think his position was that the team captain shouldn't be a distraction and that his contract negotiation was a distraction.

It was portrayed as a defiant act of self interest when with the benefit of hindsight I believe it was a misunderstood act of selflessness.

I also think the union was pressuring him and since his contract would have an impact on a non-cap world and other players coming up behind him I can see him feeling like he had an obligation to the rest of the league.
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I also remember them basically threatening to trade him with their “take it or leave it” offer which they had done to Norstrom, Stumpel, and even Aki Berg before him. He relinquished the C so they could give it to someone who wasn’t being traded. It was Andy Murray who convinced him to take it back.
 
I feel like, the more I think about this, I reserve judgement until I see the end result here. I'm glad Blake is gone and it needed to happen... but if the end game is Bergevin or Yannetti then it's clear Luc is the true issue.
If we get a fresh perspective from the outside with no ties to Luc or the Kings, great, I'm back in, and let's see the plan, any plan.

I guess TLDR, I'm willing to at least see what Luc does and give him the rope to hang himself.
 
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