Hog was back on the 4th line yesterday
My point was never about the actual medical staff or physical injury to Pettersson. My point was that if Pettersson had a significant injury, or one that was impacting his play, then I would have expected management to have very different public messaging, sort of like what we saw for Miller. Instead, they've essentially treated the injury as very minor and not used it as an excuse at all, and point to different reasons, like confidence, for Pettersson's struggles. This is what I meant about the team "protecting him", from a PR perspective, and not from a medical perspective.
My point is that appealing to mgmt on anything related to how they're handling an injured player doesn't work after how bad Mik was bungled. Anything.
I was just paraphrasing what Pettersson said in his interview. You should watch the interview if you haven't already.
I did, at least that part of the clip. Saying "I'm fine" does not negate talking about how he has an ongoing, nagging, chronic injury that he worked around all summer and still is working around.
I mean, this just isn't true. A nagging or chronic injury can be extremely minor, and not significant at all.
I shouldn't even have to argue this but the fact that Pettersson himself doesn't even think the nagging injury is significant should be enough for you to totally abandon this line of thought. Again, during training camp Pettersson said his knee was fine and that he had no pain. That is not how anyone would describe a significant injury.
He had to work around it in the offseason and still has to work around it. That is, by definition, significant.
Referencing that clip as proof that EP thinks he's fine is like referencing Hronek saying he wasn't injured in the playoffs.
I don't really want to get sidetracked into a debate about Garland's consistency but Garland has scored 52, 46 and 47 points in Vancouver. But anyway, my point isn't that point production, whether total or even strength, won't change with deployment and linemates. I have never disputed this and I think the ansawer is pretty obvious. My point is that Garland has never looked, relatively speaking, anywhere as bad as Pettersson has looked during his slump even during his second year in Vancouver, and I think in that sense, he's actually been quite consistent. Again, almost all of the criticism surrounding him was a result of his cap hit during the flat cap era and not because people thought he was inherently "bad" or looked bad.
Look you're just wrong on Garland. He has not been consistent since getting here. His performance was massively different in his first vs second season and it's born out in the ES points plus the eye test.
He was carrying the second line and scoring like a 9m borderline star player when he arrived until Green beat him down, and it took about around 1.5 years to get his mojo back.
I brought him into this because he's a perfect example of how getting f***ed around on the ice can transfer into a long term slump and confidence problems, even in a vet, even in a vet whose calling card is heart and drive and all that good stuff.
Again, my point is that getting screwed around on the ice can directly cause a slump that doesn't instantly go away when you get put back in the correct role/line/ice time. We saw this over and over and over again with Green.
You obviously have no idea and can't honestly think you are in a position to rule confidence, or other mental health issues, out.
I am absolutely ruling confidence out as an initial cause. I'm sure it's a problem now, and I'm sure at some point last season it was a problem, but it didn't start the fire.
You don't randomly get your confidence gutted as a first order effect in the middle of a career season in a contract year. Something causes that first.
The leap of logic to assume with 100% certainty to the point that you're 10000 words into it with me that the documented and well supported still ongoing chronic injury was absolutely not a factor just seems insane to me. Same with thinking that a random confidence drop out of nowhere with no reason for it to start during a career year, at the exact same time as the reported injury, is somehow more plausible than the reported injury.
Could it be that you're just dug in after committing to him not being injured during the playoffs and literally nothing that comes out at this point can change your mind? What would change your mind that his injury was significant?
I don't disagree with you generally on this point, but I think you are 100% wrong in these circumstances as Pettersson has literally said he has no pain in his knee and that his knee is fine. You are making this injury into something that isn't even consistent with Pettersson's own description of the injury. Its bizarre.
When he says he has a nagging injury that he worked around in summer and is still working around it, saying "but im fine" does not negate that he has a nagging injury that he worked around in summer, is still working around, and is at this point a chronic injury.
The thing is when Pettersson played like crap the first half of 21/22, he said he was fine at the beginning of the season then it came out he was taping his wrist because it was still injured. So this wouldn’t be the first time.
This is why I've never been completely convinced that the wrist injury went away. At one point the wrist had been a problem for at least 1.5 years, maybe more, I can't quite remember. Then he heated up in 2022 and I shelved the idea.
