Bruins overpaid Marty LaPointe to mentor Bergeron and Bergeron speaks very highly of the experience.
More teams with young studs should be doing this sort of thing. Just having *some vets* around isn’t it. Get the right ones and pay for it.
edit: They signed LaPointe BEFORE Bergeron was drafted, but the point still stands that Bergeron had a quality grown up to lean on... he even lived with him.
The real trick to this is...finding "the right vets" who are actually
willing to burn their last few years of NHL hockey puttering around as a mentor or glorified "on ice coach" for a really really bad team. There's a fine line between "mercenary" just in it for the money vs someone who actually takes real pride in that mentorship aspect and embraces the role.
Most of the time, if you even
can find the right guys for it, you're going to get a combination of "completely over the hill" combined with "massively overpaid" to compensate them for wasting any last kicks at a Stanley Cup.
That's why it's ideal if you've actually got some veteran "Culture Carriers" in house, who have spent a long time with the organization and take some pride in the sweater. Even if they're just "role players", if they play the right way, and can set a great example for work ethic and how to operate as a "professional", that's worth having. Often worth more in the end than whatever mid-round pick you might be able to "sell" them for at some deadline in the end. Just to keep that "loyalty".
Though Chicago's decline just flew off a cliff, and guys like Toews just retired prematurely. So they're stuck with "improvising". Which looks like this. Which has also clearly been a "mixed bag" with their various swings on Veteran Mentors.
Anyway...good for Foligno taking the role seriously, and realizing that strong Intangibles never expire. Apparently.
