I think Wyshynski says it best why its Yak getting scratched and not, for example, Hall who we'd all agree is making the same selfish mistakes.
"He’s not Eberle, Hall or Nugent-Hopkins. He’s not a Canadian darling. He’s a brash young Russian star that Eakins can easily burn at the stake without catching hell from the media. It's assumed he has rough edges, and it's assumed that Eakins is doing the right thing for his game and his attitude."
To me its a joke. Its this whole idea of xenophobia that exists here in this country - that how dare we bench the good ol' Canadian boy when we have the evil Russian sitting there.
Come off it, man.
Yakupov has played half a season to Hall and Eberle's 3. He has zero points coming off a 30 point season, while those two have delivered point-a-game seasons. He's been with the team for less than a year and is still learning to be accountable in his own end, those two have proven to be good 3-zone players when they are operating at their average capacity.
The fact that he is sitting over them is NOT the issue. Hemsky and Perron are absolved as well because they have more completeness to their game and have operated well in Eakins' system. Joensuu drew in after injury and is a player type we desperately need in the line up. Smyth just turned back the clock ten years with a two goal game.
The issue should be with face punchers like Gazdic and Brown drawing in before him. There is no way you can convince me we have a better chance of winning with Brown getting 6 minutes of icetime to skate around hitting people and being useless than we would ith Yakupov getting those same 6 minutes and a set place on the PP. No way in Hell.
Stupid as I think that is, however, I'm willing to trust to Eakins on this one. As a coach lauded for his ability to develop players and generally loved by the people who have come up under him, I think he (as the person in the actual room talking to the actual players) probably knows what he's about.