On Carbery / Kuzy comments. I have lead large sales teams most of my career. I use sports analogies that translate to business. Here is a business analogy applied to sports.
You Lead Teams. You Manage individuals.
That is what Carbery is doing. He is leading the team which is focusing on team goals - like winning. How he manages players is different for each player. How you manage Kuzy is going to be different than how you manage Milano. People respond to different things. To do this you have to build relationships based on trust and respect. Those Relationships take time. That is still happening 20 games into the season.
Thing is you can’t “get through” to all individuals. Carbery has made an impact on many individuals. Some he hasn’t. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but may take more time. Players are investments. With Kuzy, at $7.8M, you gotta keep building trust and respect and that is likely why he is getting so much ice time. OV I think is a different issues. Jensen was slow to adopt in WSH 4 years ago.
Not even 25% of way through season, so gotta keep working the system. If next 62 are like last 20 we’ll be in good shape.
Great way to put it. It's not about stats and equal application of the rules so as to maximize the stats, it's about figuring out which stats you can break by adequate mentorship, positive affirmation (if necessary), etc.
Like... Mantha right now (granted he isn't blowing it out of the water but he had a scratch or two, and now we're seeing a new dude for the time being), it's possible that playing the buttons in a certain order can create building blocks that lead to a more possessive and dominant player.
It's also true that the building blocks aren't universal. Kuznetsov doesn't need to be shown that he can take over games, this dude knows that. He needs to be shown that he needs to in a way that makes it resonate with him, and can make him
want to carry other people on his back instead of punching in, trying some stuff, mostly being useless, and punching out again.
Maybe that
is a slow burn. Maybe it never happens. I would love if there's a moment in game 40 where Carbery finally goes "do you see how you doing what you want is hurting these people?" and it all clicks but maybe it never does. Hell, it'd be
nice if it comes before then, but he has to try everything before he can say there's nothing left to try, and that might mean leveraging the respect of the people pulling the weight right now.
Now... there's a non-zero chance that Kuznetsov doesn't respect Ovechkin that way. Might not be large and we don't really know, but personally I've never noticed Kuznetsov to be in the Ovechkin+Orlov+Russians group to the point that they were all a unit. It's speculative at best but maybe there's just a slight rift there? Sometimes it felt like you'd see Ovechkin+Orlov+Alexeyev out and Kuznetsov just absent, and hey, if that's personal flavor and they're all still tight that's fine with me, I need my recharge space too. I just think it's interesting, especially in light of the Ovechkin/Sammy/Kuznetsov friendships and how that all played out, and then Kuznetsov trying to get in Alexeyev's ear about staying.
