Is Giroux's Captaincy the Problem?

[occultist goat]

DELETE THIS.

 

[Starat327]

I know this thread was on here a few weeks back, but Giroux has to be in the running for most under appreciated Philadelphia athlete of all time. Certainly the most under appreciated Flyer, no?

 

[usahockey22flyers]

Serious question. I know Lindros may have had his flaws, Richards/Carter too. Have any of us ever heard anything bad about Giroux off the ice? I can honestly say, not even once.

 

[Starat327]

Serious question. I know Lindros may have had his flaws, Richards/Carter too. Have any of us ever heard anything bad about Giroux off the ice? I can honestly say, not even once.

The whol grabbing the police officers butt thing, but i think that was it, and i think we can all understand being drunk in your 20s..

 

[ArchAngel55]

When did a guy lose the C and it worked out when he stayed on the team? I can only think of Marleau but it didn't really work out. If you take away the C, you need to trade him.

 

[Starat327]

When did a guy lose the C and it worked out when he stayed on the team? I can only think of Marleau but it didn't really work out. If you take away the C, you need to trade him.

thornton as well, thought i suppose that depends on how you define "worked out". Sharks are still pretty succesful, despite not winning a cup.

 

[AdamParrot]

If he is bad leader then he request a trade a long before because we are terrible f***ing organization since 2012 and he is one of the best players in hockey.

My long answer for question: NO.

 

[Rarename91]

Serious question. I know Lindros may have had his flaws, Richards/Carter too. Have any of us ever heard anything bad about Giroux off the ice? I can honestly say, not even once.

we never should have traded for lindros

 

[AdamParrot]

Serious question. I know Lindros may have had his flaws, Richards/Carter too. Have any of us ever heard anything bad about Giroux off the ice? I can honestly say, not even once.

Claude Giroux was reportedly arrested Tuesday and spent the night in an Ottawa jail after an alleged incident involving a police officer.

 

[YEM]

that backwards baseball hat [and do I see cargo shorts?] is more of a crime than whatever he did to the cop

 

[GKJ]

FWIW, I do think Vigneault will be Giroux's last coach with us. If it doesn't work, they will burn this down, and if it does work then he'll be here a long time.

 

[Starat327]

that backwards baseball hat [and do I see cargo shorts?] is more of a crime than whatever he did to the cop

his wife needs to eat a cheeseburger or two, as well. Her legs look like my thumbs.

 

[Laveuglette]

I'm not in the locker room, but I don't think so. The players seem to like Giroux as captain and he gives a good example on the ice. Off the ice too, as long as there aren't too many cops around.

 

[Beef Invictus]

And of course, it all circles back to the C being grotesquely overblown.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Claude Giroux was reportedly arrested Tuesday and spent the night in an Ottawa jail after an alleged incident involving a police officer.

My favorite part of that is the context. It's still daylight when he's being arrested. It's Canada Day. He's being arrested for repeatedly grabbing the buttocks of a male police officer despite being told to stop. He's 25. That morning was the first day of his $66 million contract, which began with a $5 million signing bonus.

If I was 25 and I woke up on the 4th of July to a $5 million direct deposit, I'd have probably done worse.

 

[deadhead]

My favorite part of that is the context. It's still daylight when he's being arrested. It's Canada Day. He's being arrested for repeatedly grabbing the buttocks of a male police officer despite being told to stop. He's 25. That morning was the first day of his $66 million contract, which began with a $5 million signing bonus.

If I was 25 and I woke up on the 4th of July to a $5 million direct deposit, I'd have probably done worse.

And you'd be able to afford a good lawyer to clean up your mess.

 

[Rebels57]

that backwards baseball hat [and do I see cargo shorts?] is more of a crime than whatever he did to the cop

Looks like a Phillies hat though.

 

[landsbergfan]

Damn...someone beat me to making this thread...I've been thinking this was the problem for a while now

 

[gertbfrobe16]

their will be no more fun, of any kind. in ottawa.

 

[TB87]

EDIT: ITL;DR -- the question really boils down to whether Giroux has been a bad captain, and is therefore partly responsible for our failures over the last few years. If you read on, I'm by no means saying he's the only problem, or that any of this is really his fault. I would really like to see someone argue for why he is a good captain (not meant to be combative, I'm genuinely curious, because I think saying "others are to blame" -- which I agree with -- does not mean he is not also partly to blame).

When you see a team like ours that consistently plays with such little hunger, you have to wonder whether the team lacks leadership. No doubt the coach is part of that leadership, and I think it's safe to say Hakstol was a failure. But a good captain should still get his team to show even a glimmer of heart. And he has not.

Let me start of by saying I don't think Giroux is the only problem we have, and there's a lot of blame to go around. I also want to say I have no problem with Giroux as a player, and have never wanted the Flyers to get rid of him. He's undoubtedly one of the best offensive players over the last ten years and nothing I'm saying here is meant to undercut those accomplishments.

But I think he has been a bad captain, and obviously no one really knows this, but I can't help but wonder if he isn't much of a leader in the locker room. And I think that in our appreciation of how great he has been as a player, we as fans have let him and the organization get away with how bad of a captain he's been. We have not won a single playoff series since he's worn the C. We haven't finished above 3rd in the division, and on average we've fallen between 4-5th, with three seasons in 6th. On the whole, I think we would agree that most of these seasons fell short of expectations and that we underperformed based on our roster. At what point do we question Giroux's role in this **** chapter in Flyers history?

No doubt there were other factors -- on a macro-scale, the consequences of Holmgren's bet the house policies took their toll and the replacement GM de-prioritized being competitive in the short term (leading to micro-scale problems like poor goaltending and rostering developing youths rather than veteran mercenaries, which we didn't used to do).

But no matter how you cut it, Giroux has not been a good enough leader to make this team overcome the challenges it faced (which he did not cause), or even win a single playoff series. In fact, we have won just 7 playoff games in 5 seasons with him as captain, and in the last two series we played -- 12 games -- Giroux scored just one goal and 4 points, which is pretty god-awful even accounting for good defenses game-planning around him as a result of our poor depth.

My sense is the organization did him a disservice by placing this burden on him. I felt at the time that we were drumming up the old Cold War with Pittsburgh by naming our star center captain just like their Crosby. (Sidebar, but ever wonder why we were always so good against Pittsburgh even when we sucked against everyone else? It's because we built our team to beat Pittsburgh specifically, because for years they were the only other threat in our division and the fanbase hated them so damn much. You can still see it: even as we've declined, the remnants of that system still allow us to inexplicably beat them more than you'd think we should). He was young (just 25) and he wasn't ready for it. They did the same thing with Richards and while I've still got nothing but love for him, his career in Philly (and in general) ended in a complete trainwreck.

Your captain doesn't have to be your best player (think Primeau, Desjardins, Hatcher) and Giroux never should have been captain. He's partly to blame for the lazy beer league performance we've watched for the last 5 years, and so is the organization that forced him into that role to begin with.

Food for thought, but I hope Vigneault strips him of the C and relieves him of this burden, when he's already carrying the weight of this offense on his shoulders.

You aren’t in the locker room so speculating that Giroux is a bad captain/leader is just that: speculation. The only way to truly know if he is a good or bad captain is to be around the locker room day-in, & day-out. Otherwise, its just throwing some spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks.

Steve Yzerman was considered a “bad captain” by DET fans and the media and that narrative disappeared once his team added a ton of talent and depth...and they started winning cups.

 

[kudymen]

12 hours later I am still triggered by this f***ing title

 

[Ghosts Beer]

Blaming the captain is a simplistic approach to a complex problem; in that way it’s similar to scapegoating the coach.

There are few natural captains who can exert a special influence on a team — Clarke, Messier, Pronger, Primeau for example.

There are times when a team captain doesn’t have the personality or desire to fill a leadership role, but is thrust into it as the best player — Lindros comes to mind. In these cases it might hurt the team a bit, but it’s still something a good team should be able to overcome.

In most cases, though, it’s neither a significantly positive nor negative factor. I’d put Giroux in this majority group. He’s not a commanding leader, but he’s not a bad one, either. He cares, he’s respected, he works hard. It might mean they need to surround him with a player or coach who is a little more intimidating & confrontational, to round out the leadership, but that’s no big deal. There aren’t many perfect leaders.

 

[David St Hubbins]

 

[GapToothedWonder]

Sure, thanks for engaging with me. I think a counter-point is his playoff performance. A very steep drop-off from his regular season production. Obviously other teams are game-planning around him because we lack depth, and Hakstol was bad at adjusting. But 4 points in the last 12 games -- and just 1 goal?! Don't you think that's kind of a no show by our captain when it really mattered?

He has other 12 game stretches on the playoffs where he was over 1.5ppg would that make him one of the greatest captains in NHL history during those times?

Who do you think is the right captain for this team? What tangible effects do you think we would see on the ice if this player were made captain? How would that player make these changes happen?

 

[mja]

He has other 12 game stretches on the playoffs where he was over 1.5ppg would that make him one of the greatest captains in NHL history during those times?

Who do you think is the right captain for this team? What tangible effects do you think we would see on the ice if this player were made captain? How would that player make these changes happen?

Clearly a real captain would have inspired Brandon Manning, Andrew MacDonald, Michael Del Zotto, Robert Hagg, Evegeny Medvedev, Nick Shultz, Luke Schenn, Nicklas Grossmann, etc. to be better at hockey.