Anton Babchuk
Registered User
It's obvious that Semin is perhaps the most clutch player on the team. When the team needs a goal, it's always Semin who delivers, while Staal is busy floating on the backcheck or in the penalty box. While Semin plays on the shutdown line with Jordan and excels, Eric (with a helping hand from Jeff Skinner) provides nothing but a nonstop stream of scoring chances/goals against.
Having already established that Semin is a better player who shows up far more often, let's take a look at what Brad Richards had to say about the departure of Ryan Callahan.
We've had 16 years of Canadian captains here and mostly North American teams and five playoff appearances to show for it. Time for a culture change. It's clear that Canadian/American players are able to float and constantly under perform with zero criticism from the media, zero repercussion from the GM, and very little flack from fans. Having a European captain and team is the only way for players to be held accountable, because guys who speak fluent English and talk to the media regularly will *never* be criticized, even if they make $9M while being on pace for 60 points combined with horrid defense and nonexistent effort.
Having already established that Semin is a better player who shows up far more often, let's take a look at what Brad Richards had to say about the departure of Ryan Callahan.
Now, we know from interviews with players on this very team (Liles, Malhotra) that the "leadership" here isn't exactly the most vocal. We also know that Staal repeatedly mails in games. If we are going to have a non-vocal captain like Staal, then why not have someone who actually shows up like Semin does?“Things that have to be said will still get said,” Richards said. “I’m not taking anything away from Cally, but he was pretty young and not that vocal.
“It’s not like he was 38 and had been in the league for 18 years, so everybody was looking to him to listen to what he had to say,” Richards said of the 28-year-old Callahan, a seven-year veteran who was in his third season as captain. “We have other guys here who know what to say and when to say it.
“I don’t want to make it sound like we don’t miss him. What he did on the ice, you can’t replace. It’s just that nothing is really going to change in the way we approach things in the room.”
We've had 16 years of Canadian captains here and mostly North American teams and five playoff appearances to show for it. Time for a culture change. It's clear that Canadian/American players are able to float and constantly under perform with zero criticism from the media, zero repercussion from the GM, and very little flack from fans. Having a European captain and team is the only way for players to be held accountable, because guys who speak fluent English and talk to the media regularly will *never* be criticized, even if they make $9M while being on pace for 60 points combined with horrid defense and nonexistent effort.
