Nah man. DeAngelo made mistakes, too but at the same time was often misunderstood and treated unfairly. He's also no European and therefore never had to adjust his game to North American hockey...which is what Andersson failed to do and caused him to run away instead of trying harder and battle it out in the minors. Also, DeAngelo may have had all sorts of problems, but effort was never one of them.
Andersson's problems as a player are kind of a side issue at this point. If he's failed to adjust to the North American game, he may have a long road to hoe in terms of turning himself into a useful NHL player, but at this point he and the organization have such a breaking point that the relationship needs to be repaired first. Even if it's Andersson's fault, you can maintain your stance and insist on the righteousness of it, and lose him, or, you can bury your pride and bend your principals and try to salvage something.
The latter is smarter.
Also, how do you know if Andersson has been misunderstood or treated unfairly? You don't know all the details here.
And again, this is shouldn't be about what the player wants.
Why shouldn't it be about that?
You try to stay at home instead of going to work and then not pick up the phone when your bosses call you for a few weeks.
If I don't report to work my boss will find someone else to replace me, and can do so with an exhaustive search where he can pay whatever he wants to do so.
The Rangers are constrained when searching for replacements in terms of what they can pay to replace Andersson (there's a salary cap), the worldwide talent pool of would-be professional hockey players on his level (even as a so-far bust, he's among the most talented players in the world and there's not another former 7th overall pick they can just call up), and also the available resources to even attract a replacement (draft pick - especially high ones - used to select replacement players are measured out to teams on a very limited and per-year basis).
So it's not at all like my job or your job.
Nobody is gonna give a damn about what you want after that and nobody is gonna seriously believe that you want to work for this company at any point.
It's not about what Andersson deserves in the context of an ordinary job. Athletes in pro sports leagues have special rules, as do the employers (the teams). This makes the behavior code quite different. Pro Sports players -- see Tony DeAngelo -- hold out all the time when normally doing so in a regular job would result in termination and a black mark in your file. That's just not the case in sports so the machismo "It's the team's way or the highway" simply isn't valid or rational. The team acts way differently towards it's employees too, much differently than your boss does to you.
The only reason why the Rangers didn't terminate his contract is because they're trying to get some sort of compensation for their first round pick. That won't happen as long as he's playing in Sweden. I can guarantee you that. So they shouldn't have let him. Period.
Maybe the only way to get him to eventually come back is allowing a cool down period where he plays for Sweden for a bit? And then maybe he comes back to the US and can be traded.
Holding the hard line maybe he just sits and sits and sits. Sure, he cuts off his own nose to spite his face, but by allowing him to do so, we are doing the same thing and also losing an asset.
It's just not smart.
On top of that, as I cited before, the rules and expectations of the employer-employee contract are just different in pro sports. Not saying Andersson is in the right, but again, players hold out when simply not reporting for a real world job would be grounds for termination.
Taking his ball and going home is egregious, but way less egregious than it would be in the "real world" where it would almost always result in termination.
