Absolutely. Now we all saw the vid where Connor supposedly said "f*** off kass" for being a bit of a chicken or just not knowing the angles and was way off on a shot block attempt that led to a goal against. How can your captain and leader demand better play from his players when he himself is not playing up to standards as far as consistent effort/urgency level and responsible play?
Now I'm going to speculate as well. This general poor leadership and culture we've had for a decade now speaks partly to the players obviously but also to the higher ups who allow it to fester. The likes of Katz and Lowe etc have been a constant here. I think there's a culture of those guys who run the show and have been here for a long time to protect and pamper and allow too long a leash for their superstars or star players (ie connor, leon etc) and there is certainly a double standard. They keep doing so until it's too late. They basically want to make these stars feel good /comfortable and to want to stay in Edmonton. Understandable but what happens is you actually allow these players to potentially not be complete players who have good habits and are winners. We hear about other orgs who are very hard and demanding on their top players even when they put up great numbers. There's just that extra/higher level of standards that transcends point production. Leadership and effort level and attention to details/defence is equally as important for those organizations and they don't give a cr** who they have to call out.
It really seems like this org is very adverse to calling out drai and connor and you can bet there have been many games where they really really needed to be called out for complete cr** efforts. Even when tippett does do it, it's very meek and vague and will always end with excuses for them. I get it, they're your horses and they carry the offence but at some point in time there needs to be way more from them as far as overall game and showing up with urgency as leaders.
I understand we dont know what happens behind closed doors and maybe they do get called out there... but if they do, they really don't seem to be learning all that quickly. It's always the same spiel after games. We just didn't come out ready, our urgency wasn't there, we weren't engaged or intense enough etc etc.
I spoke to 3 people today who aren't really hockey fans and don't watch much. All of them said almost exactly the same thing about the bits of the play in games they saw. "Oilers don't seem to try very hard. The hawks have so much space while Oilers just gliding around. I thought Connor and Leon were supposed to be really good?"