I wouldn't put anything past this org. But I am more leaning towards them just making a mistake by even letting Hronek return for the final four games.
Again, I'm not disagreeing that there have been issues in the past with the Canucks trainers/medical personnel. However, you really need to explain what the 'mistake' is.
Simply letting a player, play, isn't in and of itself a mistake. There are literal thousands of examples of players who do things like:
- join the opening warmups before a game to see how they're feeling
- engage in a soft practice
- play a shift after a potential injury to see how they're feeling
The weird thing with sports injuries is that there are instances where you might feel great and then one small bump cocks everything up. Or your injury is pretty bad, but you feel okay.
There was a pretty infamous moment last year with a professional wrestler, Cody Rhodes, tore his pectoral. It looked
gruesome but he competed a bit longer before rehabbing because there wasn't really any further damage that could be done, again, despite how bad the injury looked.
I really don't think that management forced him back into action to show off their new acquisition, which is how I'm interpreting your argument. (Otherwise, what is the reason for doing this?) It is incredibly short-sighted to a level that even Benning would have to aspire to reach.
This is significantly different from Pearson's situation because:
- There was some sort of misdiagnosis. Something happened that led to Pearson's significant setback. Whether it was bad luck in the rehab/healing process, a mistake on the Canucks end or something else, we won't know
- The Canucks medical staff/trainers were different. Again, Allvin and JR cleaned house last year, including removing Roger Takahashi (who had been with the team for like 20 years.) I'm curious if this was to try and insulate the Canucks from culpability for a potential NHLPA grievance/lawsuit from Pearson and/or if it came as a result of the brouhaha with Pearson's hand.
- There is nothing to indicate that Hronek has suffered any sort of significant setback. Rather, him coming back for a few games and then being put back on the shelf is routine SOP for all teams across the league. Soft tissue injuries are weird and it's hard to predict things.
I am getting flak because I dared to have the opinion that maybe the trade was a mistake and an overpayment to boot.
Well, that's a different argument and kettle of fish from what was being discussed, if you're pairing these arguments together, then yeah, people are gonna drag you over it, because...
I cited injury concerns as a leading factor for that
...this is why people are giving you grief. You haven't really done a great job of explaining what the 'injury concerns' are beyond this shoulder injury. Other posters have pointed out that the concussions are more of a concern, but you were talking about his shoulder while trying to portray the Canucks staff as ranging from incompetent to malicious. Again, the latter part is what I find unbelievable.
along with believing that the Canucks paid a huge price when they aren't far enough along in their competitive cycle.
There are arguments you can make about that. I'm still up in the air re: the price paid for Hronek, but the move itself is something I had been wanting to see for f***ing eons: trading for a player who has enough of a skillset and potential where they could blossom into being a useful player vs chasing players based on either draft pedigree (OEL, Gudbranson, Sutter, Sbisa, etc.) or veteran status (Roussel, Prust, et al.)
The competitive cycle thing, I personally disagree with, and the arguments re: we need to be doing something if we want to keep Hughes/EP/Demko are valid, IMO. Unless you're Shane Doan, not a lot of players want to stick around longterm with a team that's struggling.
I think Hughes/EP/Demko are worth building around, although I respect people who feel another course of action should be taken.
