Scapegoat Kreider all you want. Someone needs to be the focus of your dislike. I am an unabashed CK fan. What he has meant to this team is incalculable. But he is 33 years old and likely playing with a sore back. Nothing is more debilitating than a sore back. Does he need to have his minutes and role reduced? Yes...certainly. Age comes to all athletes, some sooner than later. Very, very few players, in any sport, go out at the top. For all, it must be a frightening and depressing process when your body can't do what once could do so easily (especially when you are only in your early thirties, in real life that's still young, certainly not "old.". And face it....this guy has overachieved during his career...,made himself into something special.
Alone, he is not the problem. To expect him to be "the answer" and to turn into the player he was a few years ago is unrealistic. To say he doesn't care is beyond absurd. His deteriorating play is a part of the problem, certainly. That the team as a whole is self-destructing has magnified his decline and is not allowing him to age gracefully.
I know it is normal for younger fans to condemn older players and want them gone. Well, I am an older fan but I too want younger players to play more. As much as I think he has been a fantastic player, I have no issue with trading him as long as it's for future talent.
But to say he is anything but part of our larger issue is just not realistic. To say that he doesn't care is not looking at reality. To think that what is happening to this team doesn't eat at him, is ridiculous.
His time here might be near an end, but what he has accomplished, has made him one of my all-time favorite Rangers (and I go back to Camile Henry, whose PP record Kreider is still chasing).
As a fan, it hurts to see favorite players age. I can't imagine what it is like to be that player. If his time is up...so be it. But until that day comes, I will continue to give him the benefit of the doubt. To expect him to lift the team on his shoulders, is not going to happen. None of us knows what truly goes on in the locker room, at practice, at team meals, on the plane. For all we know, he might be trying to encourage younger players, he has always been a mentor, to have them keep the heads high. You don't know. I don't know. No problem with him on the 4th line. If he can no longer do the job, that might be where he belongs. But I will not disparage him. He's meant to much to the team and me as a fan.
