Well, I've worked for companies where people become unmotivated because their friends left the company. Maybe players are sad that Bieksa left.
I've worked for companies where employees were not motivated because they had an outside addiction. Maybe some players have been partying too much.
Maybe some of the players aren't motivated because they are in the middle of a long contract and have little financial incentive.
Nobody has any idea, and the truth is it doesn't matter why players aren't playing well anymore.. just the results. Spinning it in an obscure way to blame management is pointless, unless your point is to blame management for everything and not hold people accountable for their own play.
I'm really not spinning anything.
What I was suggesting is there might have been a correlation between team success and individual player success with Higgins. The reason I was suggesting such a correlation was based on my observation of Higgins having a strong game versus the Coyotes and having lackluster games in most other games this season.
Higgins having a strong game versus the Coyote means Higgins was putting in that extra effort to drive play in the ozone. This extra effort was most definitely not present in most other games this season which means that Higgins wasn't motivated to put in that extra effort.
So two questions:
1. What was special about last night to motivate Higgins to put in that extra effort?
Here is Higgins production in every game he's played the Coyotes
Starting March 14, 2012, Higgins seems to consistently put in an extra effort against them. Last night Higgins didn't hit the scoreboard but the extra effort was quite apparent.
So I postulate the reason for Higgins extra effort last night was because it was against Shane Doan. Doan seems to be the most likely common denominator.
2. Why doesn't Higgins always play like this?
Well, based on my own general observation of Higgins play over the last few seasons, I've come to the conclusion that Higgins normally ISN'T an extra effort player. I don't really recall Higgins ever having a consistently high intensity to his game like Burr usually does.
I crunched the numbers on his point production over the last 5 years and looked at his even strength point production partitioned by linemates.
So the conclusions I extrapolate from this are:
- Higgins plays his best game when he's paired with a good center and it doesn't matter if that center is a playmaking one (Bonino) or a shooting one (Kesler).
- His numbers in 2012-13 and 2015-16 suggests that Higgins will not drive play (put in that extra effort) unless he's got a good center except when he's playing against Doan.
- The fact that he had a 0.5 PnTPG in the 2013-14 season of the Torts tire fire suggests that his production is linked to the quality of his linemates and not to fortunes of the team (so my correlation suggestion is wrong)
So what does this all mean?
It means that the only way we'll get some consistent production out of Higgins this season is to pair him with a good veteran center and that's Sutter. His performance last night suggests that there is nothing physically wrong with him anymore.
So it's Sutter or bust.
Too bad we traded Bonino. Having a traditional playmaking center would be of real benefit to the Canucks.