Player Discussion Elias Pettersson - A Forward Who Scores

[bandwagonesque]

Short of being inside Pettersson's body, anyway, absolutely nobody knows what it's like.

This statement doesn't really mean anything, unless it's that we can't have certainty, which no one has suggested we have.

People are acting like a health issue has never affected a professional athlete's play before Now

No they aren't. They're saying there are various reasons to believe this specific instance of prolonged poor play is not primarily a health issue. You're declining to address this argument and instead pretending they actually said that the general idea of health issues affecting play is illegitimate.

 

[Tinhorn1]

Nobody is denying that there might be some minor issue.

But again, how is the team treating this? It is *very* clear that the team does not view this as any sort of excuse for his play. The team views this as very minor. The team’s concerns with his play very obviously extend way beyond any sort of minor knee tendinitis.

And again, this is the 3rd time this has happened.

Like, we know when guys are hurt and the club thinks they’re hurt. Miller/Hronek/Boeser were hurt at the end of last year. Miller is hurt right now.

If Petterson was hurt in any way that the club thought was connected to/influencing his play, the club would be making that clear to protect their $11 million asset. They are not, and that speaks volumes.

What I’m posting lines up basically exactly with the messaging we’re getting from the team/coaching staff/medical staff. And people really, really don’t like hearing it.

I hear what you're saying in this post and respect it. But I actually haven't heard anything from the medical staff, only some tidbits from Tocchet and Allvin and Pettersson himself, and then indirect stuff from the media, some of whom mention that he is "dealing with something." I mean - yes. Skating and shooting. I can see it. But anyway, that's fine. Shades of Dr. Vigneault for me, but that's fine. What I don't think is fine is all the mind-reading and conjecture about effort based on body language or whatever. But reasonable people can disagree on something that is inherently subjective, so I'll leave it at that. For the record, I do think it's also a mental thing with its root in a physical issue, but I have no way of confirming that. And it is important and worth discussing for sure, as they're screwed if he doesn't pick it up.

 

[mriswith]

Gaslighting bologna.

Basically saying 'you don't agree with me so you're not trying to have a nuanced and intelligent discussion like I am'.

When I read this thread and the last one, I see two types of conversations.

First type: Analyze the drop off in his skating that corresponds exactly to his injury timeline in meticulous detail. Analyze the change in his shooting rates and shot selection for the same. Post charts about it. Discuss a wide range of possible explanations for his performance. Agree that EP needs to either do better or if it's injury causing the issue, sit and recover, status quo is a disaster. Confess we don't have all the information and every opinion is ultimately a shot in the dark.

Second type: 100's of posts repeating the same HE'S NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS cliche, oftentimes caps included

I guess the people reading this thread can decide for themselves who is trying to have a nuanced discussion and who is a dogmatic spammer.

One argument other posters have disregarded is especially persuasive to me -- if he was injured, I really doubt the team would publicly attribute his poor performance to his approach/attitude, even indirectly. Leaving norms aside, they would have to know it wouldn't help this particular player to be motivated that way.

After what we saw with Mik, where his injury was grossly mishandled by every single person in leadership and on the medical staff who was aware of his situation, I don't give any credit at all to managements assessment of injuries or competence at navigating through a situation where an injury "could" be played through, but absolutely shouldn't be played through.

An argument I've brought up and seen brought up a dozen times and get disregarded every time by the ultra dogmatic crew is how the slump also coincided with him getting stuck with two 4th line wingers and not getting the majority of the Hughes shifts last year and yet he's still expected to put up 100 points as if he's a prime Crosby.

 

[MS]

i think you give too much credit to management/coaching with regards to their agenda, their honesty and their expertise. this team has been a horror show of public pr and especially medical issues for the last decade

What people are essentially accusing the organization of – with zero evidence – is utter incompetence and buffoonery. That our star player is seriously hurt and the whole team is basically just ignoring it while also rubbishing him in the media for his associated lack of performance. These are obviously very competent people and it makes no sense and there is no evidence that this is the case. There is a MASSIVE difference between ‘Pearson got a hand infection’ and what this would be.

Management knows *a lot* more about this (both the injury and the person) than we do and they clearly are not connecting any minor knee tendinitis to his performance.

Also, what happened under Benning doesn’t really have a lot of relevance to what is happening now medically. If you recall, Rutherford was horrified when a media member told him that Quinn Hughes had questioned what was happening with Pearson and was immediately meeting with everyone involved to sort. They clearly take this stuff very seriously.

to me pettersson's problems are at least 50% coaching. he just isn't suited to the game tocchet wants him playing and he is struggling to be effective while playing within it. pettersson is at fault here too for being unable to adapt (and he is probably checked out a little which is deserving of cricitism) but i'm pretty confident if you put him in a different situation his performance would rebound

Pettersson had 110 points in his first 82 games under Rick Tocchet. It was literally the most productive 82-game stretch of his career, playing this exact system.

I would agree that it looks like some friction has built between player and coach since Pettersson’s struggles but I think that is because of the struggles, not because of the system.

I don’t doubt for a second that Pettersson would magically instantly rebound if traded elsewhere and given a fresh start. The question is how to push those buttons here so we aren’t forced to trade him at a loss.

 

[strattonius]

Second type: 100's of posts repeating the same HE'S NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH AND NOTHING ELSE MATTERS cliche, oftentimes caps included

I guess the people reading this thread can decide for themselves who is trying to have a nuanced discussion and who is a dogmatic spammer.

I think most people have decided he has some mental health issues.

'Not trying hard enough' sort of circulates around a mental health issue. But conflating that side of the argument to such simplistic terminology puts you in the same category of debate that you're criticizing.

 

[Canucker]

At the end of the day, this is a results industry and if he's not producing results befitting someone at his salary level, and he becomes more of a daily distraction for the team and coaches...then its time to cut bait and move on. Not suggesting they are even close to that right now, but if the team is constantly having to divide their attention between trying to build a team to win a cup, and getting Petey's game on track...then as much as I really, really enjoy EP as a player I would be in favor of moving him out for players who you don't have that concern with, players who allow the focus to remain on the team and not the individual.

That said, I think its pretty likely within a couple weeks he'll be back on track and this will be forgotten for a while...until his next mental detachment and slump. Confidence is a fickle thing that seems to come and go with him, hopefully he figures it out because I'd rather he succeeded here than somewhere else, he's an ultra talented player when he's on his game.

 

[mriswith]

I think most people have decided he has some mental health issues.

'Not trying hard enough' sort of circulates around a mental health issue. But conflating that side of the argument to such simplistic terminology puts you in the same category of debate that you're criticizing.

I read through this thread again before posting that comment trying to find any other reasoning, argument, attribution or nuance put forward by the try harder crowd and didn't see anything. Feel free to explain what I missed.

I also think there's a wide range of "mental contribution to a slump" beyond just mental health issues.

We've seen this kind of thing over and over during the Green era with his "non development development plan"™ crushing prospects repeatedly, even the ones that ultimately sort of succeeded like Hog.

Or Garland's end of year comments after his first year where he was getting constantly screwed by Green about how he was disappointed in himself after putting up a monstrous 50 ES point campaign without prime ice time is still one of the most insane things I've heard from a player. And then he slumped the next season. I 100% attribute that to mentality causing a slump, but not a mental health issue in the medical sense.

There's no space to discuss any of this in with the constant dogmatic "try harder and any other explanation is wrong" spam from a select poster or two.

 

[credulous]

What people are essentially accusing the organization of – with zero evidence – is utter incompetence and buffoonery. That our star player is seriously hurt and the whole team is basically just ignoring it while also rubbishing him in the media for his associated lack of performance. These are obviously very competent people and it makes no sense and there is no evidence that this is the case. There is a MASSIVE difference between ‘Pearson got a hand infection’ and what this would be.

Management knows *a lot* more about this (both the injury and the person) than we do and they clearly are not connecting any minor knee tendinitis to his performance.

Also, what happened under Benning doesn’t really have a lot of relevance to what is happening now medically. If you recall, Rutherford was horrified when a media member told him that Quinn Hughes had questioned what was happening with Pearson and was immediately meeting with everyone involved to sort. They clearly take this stuff very seriously.

Pettersson had 110 points in his first 82 games under Rick Tocchet. It was literally the most productive 82-game stretch of his career, playing this exact system.

I would agree that it looks like some friction has built between player and coach since Pettersson’s struggles but I think that is because of the struggles, not because of the system.

I don’t doubt for a second that Pettersson would magically instantly rebound if traded elsewhere and given a fresh start. The question is how to push those buttons here so we aren’t forced to trade him at a loss.

to your first point i think most nhl front offices are borderline incompetent. they're filled with people who have effectively no training and who spent the first 40 years of their lives 100% focused on athletic performance. these aren't professional managers. i don't think it's unthinkable that situations like this are regularly mismanaged even by the best nhl front offices. the bar is so so low

that rutherford heard from a media member that the team was concerned about pearson's medical treatment is already a massive indictment of management. this isn't a f500 with 100k employees. there's a core group of less than 100 employees who spend nearly every day together during the season. there's no excuse for a critical function like the medical staff's performance being a mystery to upper management

as for pettersson and tocchet and pettersson's prior success under him it's not like tocchet came in and everyone instantly knew how he wanted them to play. there was a ramp up. that pettersson's play declined as tocchet had more coaching time with him implies that coaching *could* be a significant factor in his decline. pettersson's best play was with andrei kuzmenko and tocchet clearly wasn't impressed with their performance together as kuzmenko was traded largely because tocchet deemed his play unacceptable

i'm not trying to absolve pettersson of all blame here. i definitely think he could do a better job of trying to fit into tocchet's expectations and an elite athlete should be able to make adjustments without struggling like pettersson has. i don't think he's the only problem here though and am just pushing back on the idea that this is entirely a problem with his motivation or confidence or whatever

 

[mriswith]

I think most people have decided he has some mental health issues.

'Not trying hard enough' sort of circulates around a mental health issue. But conflating that side of the argument to such simplistic terminology puts you in the same category of debate that you're criticizing.

Oh and I'm not putting words in anyones' mouth. The biggest dogmatic culprit literally posted that exact "simplistic terminology" - an all caps "EVEN IF HE IS HURT IT DOESNT MATTER" followed up by how he just needs to try harder.

The fact that you think I've overly simplified the argument when I actually put forth a direct quote makes my argument for me better than I ever could.

 

[supercanuck]

i think you give too much credit to management/coaching with regards to their agenda, their honesty and their expertise. this team has been a horror show of public pr and especially medical issues for the last decade

to me pettersson's problems are at least 50% coaching. he just isn't suited to the game tocchet wants him playing and he is struggling to be effective while playing within it. pettersson is at fault here too for being unable to adapt (and he is probably checked out a little which is deserving of cricitism) but i'm pretty confident if you put him in a different situation his performance would rebound

I recall going to the Vegas (4-1 loss) game in November(?) and the talk was already that EP needed to play better (he was clearly laboring from what I saw). That makes me worried on the injury front what is actually going on. I do really hate that a coach openly questions a player's injury in public. (Maybe it's due to the whole AV-Hodgson thing)

Agree about the coaching style as well. EP shouldn't be looking for hits on the forecheck, rather he should be analyzing where the play will go and making the correct read. I believe that EP started to question his play as the treatment of Kuz got more and more extreme (i.e. bench -> sat out -> traded at All Star Break).

 

[strattonius]

Oh and I'm not putting words in anyones' mouth. The biggest dogmatic culprit literally posted that exact "simplistic terminology" - an all caps "EVEN IF HE IS HURT IT DOESNT MATTER" followed up by how he just needs to try harder.

The fact that you think I've overly simplified the argument when I actually put forth a direct quote makes my argument for me better than I ever could.

You are talking about one poster. I am saying it is simplistic to deduce one side of the argument to 'not trying hard enough' when there are a myriad of reasons why that could be.

Stop taking the Pettersson criticism so personal. Why does it look like Pettersson isn't trying? Is it mental, an injury, a cold streak? To me the evidence with his play is simple- he doesn't skate anymore and it's incredibly worrisome.

 

[Jerry the great]

I don’t doubt for a second that Pettersson would magically instantly rebound if traded elsewhere and given a fresh start. The question is how to push those buttons here so we aren’t forced to trade him at a loss.

Regardless of whether it's coaching, mental or physical (or all three) this is a massive issue. There is a ton of risk regardless of the direction they choose to head and the window to figure it out slams shut in 128 days and gets boarded up on July 1st. If the current level of play persists, the results will almost certainly follow suit and heaven help him if the team starts skidding. If he hasn't found his game by the 1/4 mark, Rutherford's patience will be gone IMO.

 

[MS]

Oh and I'm not putting words in anyones' mouth. The biggest dogmatic culprit literally posted that exact "simplistic terminology" - an all caps "EVEN IF HE IS HURT IT DOESNT MATTER" followed up by how he just needs to try harder.

The fact that you think I've overly simplified the argument when I actually put forth a direct quote makes my argument for me better than I ever could.

Of course it doesn’t matter if he’s slightly hurt. Like, that fact that people don’t understand this is mindblowing.

This is the best league in the world with the best players in the world. They’re getting paid a fortune. There is a base expectation that you can play through minor injuries and compete and contribute. You *have* to be able to do this. It’s mandatory. Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser, and JT Miller have all done this in the past year. McDavid and Draisaitl destroyed us while injured in the playoffs. If you can’t do this, it’s a weakness and a character problem relative to the athletes at this level.

And again, nobody is saying that you have to be 100% of your best self all the time. But you have to show leadership, compete, find ways to contribute. Standards are f***ing high, especially for a top player in a top organization with Cup aspirations.

And the team obviously is of the exact same mindset I am and are making zero excuses for this player’s performance. But somehow people like you get on their high horse and mock people for stating it here. You can’t be slightly hurt and then deliver a 50-game run of play like this. It isn’t good enough. It isn’t acceptable.

These players don’t get judged to our beer league ‘real person’ standards. Like, I’m pretty sure every single person here would be absolutely terrified carrying the puck over the blueline at Jacob Trouba or whoever. But that doesn’t mean that Mitch Marner can bail on a play and turn the puck over if he sees Trouba coming and not be criticized for it. If every other star player in the NHL can suck it up and compete in that situation and you don’t, it’s a you problem.

 

[Vector]

Only 861 more posts until I can shut this thread down. Hopefully Pettersson has turned things around by then.