As for me, I am not emotionally attached to any player on the King. I do like Fiala but I don’t care about anyone else. If I have blinders for any player it’s Fiala. The only reason I care right now is because I am fed up with this organization as a whole and it angers me we are letting prospects go without giving them a legitimate shot at reaching their potential. My issue is with the principle of the situation. And it’s just surprising people don’t seem to really give a shit about what’s going on with Kaliyev. Ziggy just said “take away his shot, what does he have?” Which is wrong way to approach the situation. Teams alone will seek out a player just for his shot, and the thing is Kaliyev is just another player on a list of prospects who has gotten shafted by this organization. My original point of contention with this matter is that no one is covering what’s going on with Kaliyev and that bothers me. How many young potential talent do the Kings plan on squandering due to their archaic methodology?
The organisation has clearly made some mistakes and like many of us I include the handling of Kaliyev to a point. So my opinion on his situation is this:
He’s a decent sniper but not good enough to bring nothing else to the table. He therefore needs as minimal level of defensive game and effort on a consistent basis. He needs to work the wall,and maintain his fitness and conditioning. There are few players that play without doing those things in todays game.
I interpreted much of what they were trying to get out of him were those things, and needed that from him to see better situational deployment. We can agree or disagree with the approach but it is what it is.
My subsequent read though is that when he was moved back to the 4th line the reaction wasn’t as it should have been - no idea if he perhaps pouted/sulked/coasted, but add that to the supposed trade request his subsequent handling by the org would be understandable. A guy in his situation should be simply getting their head down and getting on with it and if he hasn’t done that then I’d had little sympathy. He’s got talent but has not yet proven anything, as he’s not a 40 goal guy with leverage. Let’s be clear, I hope my opinion is wrong but given he was available for a mid to low pick and nobody has taken a chance, that tells me a lot. We may not know the details but other teams will.
Yes my interpretation is purely subjective and has plenty of conjecture but it fits what we know and the few quotes we have from the organisation. Not everything that goes wrong with be on
BLuc, even if they should have been jettisoned by now. I’d love nothing more to be proven wrong and for Arty to score for fun next season.