JR pretty badly misrepresented the team's position over the summer. Army held a press conference (that JR attended) where he stated, "I'm not going to get into the nuances of the he-said, she-said things that have been reported. A lot of the the things that are coming out are so factually inaccurate, it's shocking, but I'm not going to get into that." JR tweeted that Army refused to comment on the trade request without including the second sentence, even though he sent about 20 tweets about the presser. He also didn't ask the follow up question, "what is inaccurate" or "then what was the reason for the trade request?" I'm sure the team froze him out for private interviews, but it is absurd that JR isn't asking basic follow up questions during press availability about the content he is reporting.
This article is literally nothing but his source venting frustrations about Army not trading Tarasenko combined with JR's speculation. There is zero information in there about what had been offered for Tarasenko and no indication that he getting info from sources on teams interested in Tarasenko. He literally cites one source "close to the situation" through the entire article and that source apparently knew which teams were interested, felt that Army's ask was too high, and also knew that Seattle was only interested if Tarasenko would waive his NTC once selected. It is painfully obvious that the source is coming from Tarasenko's camp and isn't a neutral source. Yet that source's opinion about Army's decision making is the bulk of the article and there is nothing but JR's speculation to support it. A reasonable journalist isn't printing that as a story without at least getting some info from the apparently-interested teams about what packages are being presented. There is simply no way to pass that piece of as anything but a favor to the source.
His mailbag about it was essentially nothing but his speculation.
I have zero issue with his initial reporting about what the source has told him. But the reporting since then has been atrocious. He has yet to include a single piece of information tied to a source from any NHL team. Every piece of info he's printed has been from "a source" with zero other information or "a source close to the situation" who then provides info that is clearly coming from Tarasenko's camp (reason for the trade request, how many teams he'd waive his NTC for, that Seattle wanted assurance that he's waive the NTC for anyone, etc). Not a single piece of information has come from a "league source" or a "source from an unnamed team." He's posted multiple stories about how the Blues' ask has been too high without presenting any information about what that ask is or showing that he's heard about the asking price from anyone other than his single unnamed source that is "close to the situation" and clearly coming from Tarasenko's camp. That is wildly speculative at best and intentionally misleading at worst.
Getting frozen out by the Blues isn't an excuse to not get any info from the multiple teams apparently trying to acquire Tarasenko. If Army was being as ridiculous as JR was claiming, it should have been ludicrously easy to get a couple quotes tied to "a source from a team who wished to remain anonymous."
