coladin
Registered User
- Sep 18, 2009
- 11,993
- 4,750
The odd bit is the stark reversal in a short period of time. 12 months ago people in the room couldn't say enough good things about him in the room. After he's traded, we get conjecture about how he's bad in the room from people outside the room. It's possible the guys inside the room were lying, it's also possible that things changed. I could buy into the latter more so than the former given the personal struggles he had off the ice, but we're then looking at about 6 months with significant contributing circumstances outweighing 6 years of lauded leadership. Add that to the fact that this seems to always be the way it goes down with this team; trade rumours start and the character assassination begins, and you get people starting to doubt the veracity.
Of course people won't throw a current player under the bus, but they typically aren't heaping praise on him they reverse course the second he's out the door. And that's not even truly what's happening, because it's the interpretations not the actions that are extreme. People react emotionally to a sudden and unexpected waiving of Smith, but react more calmly to a drawn out ordeal with Karlsson, and we get some people speculating that the players didn't care as much about Karlsson. Think about that for a second and tell me there isn't a flaw in that logic.
I don't think it is realistic that anyone was going to badmouth Erik Karlsson, the captain, while he was still on the team.