Cowhide and Rubber

When you pick up a book, do you finish it? To me, there are several stages to reading a book. The first few pages and chapters have to pull you in. The middle of the book has to hold interest and be moving toward something. The final chapters are the most entertaining; the build up to the finale…all of which leaves you wanting more. Or so you hope. Most writers go to great lengths to make sure the cover, inside flap and foreword are well designed, intriguing and flattering. It’s all with the intention of getting you to dive right in to the book and never put it down. But despite the usual quality of the beginning of the book, sometimes after the first few pages and chapters, you lose your focus. A couple days go by before you pick up the book again, and before you know it, it’s back on the shelf collecting dust. Did you give the book a fair shake or was it just a dud?

 

And so it is with young hockey players. Some come in to the league full of credentials and full of themselves. Sometimes they’re even right to be supremely confident. Remember when Carey Price played his first game as a Hab? I saw someone with poise and oodles of confidence, someone who was riding high on all of his recent accomplishments. Young kids flood the NHL every year, all coming from different backgrounds and developmental leagues. The hype for some is deafening, while others build their resume slowly and quietly. Some respond, and some don’t. That’s the way it is.

 

In the case of our book, there sometimes comes a point where you decide that this book is no longer worth your time. You can watch the movie, or read some reviews on the internet if you really want to see how it ends. Usually though, you’d just as soon forget it and find better ways to spend your time.

 

How does one know when to give up on a young hockey player? In the case of the Canadiens, recent years have shown that a player will burst on to the scene, only to burn out really quickly. Remember Matt D’Agostini? I don’t recall the exact stat, but it seemed that he was scoring a goal every second game when he first joined the Canadiens. Songs were being sung about him on Montreal sports radio. A saviour was born! However, as quickly as he arrived, he regressed, and eventually wore out his welcome, making it clear that he was not going to fulfill his promise. To this point, nobody disputes having shipped D’Agostini away for Aaron Palushaj, another promising youngster who Habs fans hope cracks the lineup someday. Other players who in the past few years have had roller coaster seasons go by the names of Higgins, Pacioretty, O’Byrne, Pouliot, Kostitsyn, Ryder, Latendresse, Chipchura, Kostitsyn, Lapierre…the list goes on, but you get the idea. All of these guys have cracked the roster and made splashes of various sizes; from Michael Ryder with a calder nomination, to Benoit Pouliot with a single month of solid play as a Hab. Similarly, each of these players has polarized fans. Canadiens fans are notorious for running their young players out of town at break-neck speeds. The apparent prevailing mentality is that you’ve had your time to develop in the minors, now it’s time to produce in the bigs. Fail at your own peril.

 

But like any fanbase of maniacs, the opinions are far from homogenous on each player. As mentioned, most shrugged when D’Agostini was dealt. Not so with Sergei Kostitsyn. Opinions ranged from outrage that such a talent be sent packing, to sentiments of good riddance. Without picking apart each player’s situation, the question I’m getting at is when do YOU feel like it’s ok to throw in the towel on a player? Some people are willing to hang on to an Andrei Kostitsyn or a Carey Price for all eternity, come hell or high water. Others would like both traded out of Montreal yesterday. The reality is somewhere in the middle, as it is with most things. Canadiens fans would do well to be more forgiving and patient with some of their younger players instead of expecting all star numbers right off the bat. Go-down-with-the-ship fans would do well to remove their blinders when the signs are clear that a player is not going to fulfill his potential here.

 

If one spends a little bit of time listening to Montreal sports radio, or hanging out on twitter, this team would not consist of Carey Price or Andrei Kostitsyn today. Pouliot would be on the very hot seat, and Pacioretty would be staring his future in the face. Do these fans know something that the more patient, more lenient fans don’t? Of course they don’t. On the flip side, yes, there is a time when you have to cut ties with a youngster, regardless of potential. A team can’t wait forever for a player to realize his potential, not if said team has aspirations to win and be in the playoffs every year. A young player that comes to Montreal should, in my opinion, be given 4-5 full years to get it right before the option of moving them is explored. Finding their groove at the NHL level and to become a meaningful contributor to a team takes a lot of time.

 

Higgins and Ryder lost their way. So did D’Agostini. Chipchura became expendable. Pacioretty was smartly and mercifully sent back to Hamilton before he was lost forever (I still don’t know why that took so long). Many would blame the inconsistency, disappointment or outright failure of some of the kids on the coaching carousel, and coaching quality over the past few years. There is some merit to these beliefs, but those arguments also have their limits; not every team is coached by a Mike Babcock, Joel Quenneville or Guy Boucher. It’s up to each player to get their act together for themselves and prove what they can do. Past triumphs in the juniors and minors only buy you so much time.

Nobody credits Michel Therrien with Crosby’s early success. On the other hand, we’ve seen how Stamkos is now thriving once he was saved from Barry Melrose. At the end of the day, players will forge their own legacies.

There are currently some players on the Habs aged 25 and under that, fairly or not, have their head in the noose. They can get a stay of execution if they perform, or the trap door will open if they don’t.

 

So that’s what’s on my mind this week. I’ve seen and heard a lot of chatter about how unfair and stupid it is to give up on certain kids, while giving up on others is met with ambivalence. Clearly, a lot of this comes from emotional attachments and playing favorites. I don’t really have favorites in the sense that I would hang on to a player forever-and-ever-amen. I have a colder, more calculating approach in that I want the Canadiens to always be improving. I won’t wait for a player to “hit his prime years” before giving up on him, but I am willing to wait and ensure that the player has had a fair shake. In the Canadiens most pressing case, while many want Price moved immediately, I hope the Canadiens play him all season long. If he has a subpar season, I hope they bring him back again next year. If there’s no improvement again, then perhaps you start to think about the future. If healthy, he will have had more than 250 NHL games under his belt. That in my opinion is long enough to know whether or not you can continue to bank on him.

I want to know from you where you think the line is? When is it ok to cut ties with a kid who still has potential, and when does potential lose all meaning?