OT: The gamut of emotions with players

[RabidBadger]

Last week, The Ticket had an interesting round-table discussion about players and where you stand on them by categorical emotions they inspire. The subsets were; a player you defend more than you should, a player you loathe for no good reason, and a player you have unabashed adulation for. It can be for any era or any team...think, we all love Gordie, but I doubt more than a few people on this board ever saw him play.

Defend: Ericsson. He was the last player drafted his draft year. I thought he was a good bottom pair guy who could step up and give second line minutes when needed. We all know the reasons he's hated; the dude was thrust into a spot he shouldn't have been.

Despise: Tavares. I don't know why, but I couldn't stand the sight of him from the word go. It's not like he's burned any team I root for because he's not a clutch performer. The Isles sure didn't suffer when pajama boy left.

Man crush: I'm going to dial back a few years and go with Saku Koivu. I loved his feisty style of play, his triumph over cancer was awesome, and he never took a shift off. I loved watching he and Selanne play together. They tore it up on the national team. I wish they could have played in the NHL together in their prime.

Click to read more...

 

[Bench]

Defend: Ericsson.

 

[MBH]

Ericsson earned his criticism when he signed his deal.
Doesn't matter. He made a lot more dough than most of us ever will.

 

[Cyborg Yzerberg]

Never liked Big Rig.

Love John Tavares though.

Always defended Franzen.

 

[Squirrel in the Hole]

Defend - McCarty. His heart was always in the right place and he never took a shift off.
Despise - Crosby. Duh. Just the very sight of him makes me angry. If he wasn't so damn good...
Man Crush - Larkin. His motor is always going and he has the exuberance of youth.

Call for aid/Answer - Cleary. I always have a soft spot for comeback stories. I almost walked straight into him outside Comerica Park before the Alumni game in 2013.

 

[GMR]

Ericsson was the only Red Wing who scored in game 7 of the 2009 Finals. Nobody else showed up that night in the biggest game of their lives.

 

[FabricDetails]

Defend: Filppula (Before he left for Tampa Bay)
Loathe irrationally: I remember back in the day not liking Larionov all that much. But again, I don't know why.
Man crush: Zetterberg. He's also the guy who received my toughest criticisms but that's just how I am with my favorite players.

 

[Gniwder]

Ericsson earned his criticism when he signed his deal.
Doesn't matter. He made a lot more dough than most of us ever will.

The deal wouldn't have been a problem if he stayed healthy. There's some evidence his hip issue started before he inked the deal, so that bothers me. But injuries happen, it is what it is.

My biggest criticism is that he'll fight to protect himself but not his teammates. He could have made himself much more useful as a bottom pair D if he was willing to throw a few for his teammates instead of letting Mantha break his hands.

 

[MBH]

The deal wouldn't have been a problem if he stayed healthy. There's some evidence his hip issue started before he inked the deal, so that bothers me. But injuries happen, it is what it is.

My biggest criticism is that he'll fight to protect himself but not his teammates. He could have made himself much more useful as a bottom pair D if he was willing to throw a few for his teammates instead of letting Mantha break his hands.

He was never, ever, ever worth $4.25M a year.
Not on the day he signed it. Not ever.
And Ericsson was never a fighter. Never a defensive defenseman.
He was a converted forward who lacked defensive positioning/IQ.
He actually had a pretty decent first pass and had a hard slapper.
Babcock saw a 6'5 defenseman and wanted him to be Hal Gill.

Maybe, if given the license to develop as a two-way guy, Ericsson could have been the kind of defenseman you pay $4M a year for.
But Babcock wouldn't give him that license.

I don't know if Ericsson, Smith and Kindl all sucked.
But I don't think so.
All 3 showed me enough at various times to make believe they should have been more than they were.

Maybe Babcock just sucks at developing defensemen.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

He was never, ever, ever worth $4.25M a year.
Not on the day he signed it. Not ever.
And Ericsson was never a fighter. Never a defensive defenseman.
He was a converted forward who lacked defensive positioning/IQ.
He actually had a pretty decent first pass and had a hard slapper.
Babcock saw a 6'5 defenseman and wanted him to be Hal Gill.

Maybe, if given the license to develop as a two-way guy, Ericsson could have been the kind of defenseman you pay $4M a year for.
But Babcock wouldn't give him that license.

I don't know if Ericsson, Smith and Kindl all sucked.
But I don't think so.
All 3 showed me enough at various times to make believe they should have been more than they were.

Maybe Babcock just sucks at developing defensemen.

At some point the player has to take some responsibility.

Kindl sucked because he played like a kitten. The one time he played with any assertiveness, he earned a 4x2.4 contract and looked like a top 4 D. He played like he was scared to get hurt, which is crazy because he wasn't a small guy.

Smith sucked because he thought too much. When the playoffs came and he had to just operate off instinct, he was a very good player. He just took the defensive positioning lessons and was thinking them during the game. That delay between thinking about what he had to do before he did it vs. being able to react instinctively made him suck. Like against Boston, he was a legitimately good fourth D. He didn't trust his reactions.

Ericsson was actually an acceptable pairing for Kronwall. He was optimally a top 4D at the time he signed the 6x4.25, which is right in that ballpark. He wasn't a great top pairing D by any far cry... but Kronwall-Ericsson was actually not a bad top pairing. Probably because Kronwall was a far better D than he is usually given credit for though. Jonathan Ericsson should not have gotten 6x4.25 when he did. But I could see the gamble that they took and why they did. When Kronner-Ericsson was the top pairing, Ericsson wasn't worth much less than 4.25 if you don't want to admit that he was worth that much. He was a top 4 defensive D.

It's not 7x4.5 for Abdelkader, though. That one was a broken piece of crap before the ink even dried on the paper. Ericsson at least had injuries that badly sapped his vigor and nasty streak. Abdelkader just sucked.

I mean, isn't "they showed enough at various times to make it seem like they should have been more" the story of 85% of NHLers? Andreas Athanasiou should probably be the best player on most rosters he'd play on. But he wasn't. Teemu Pulkkinen should have been a top 6 forward, but he wasn't. Tomas Jurco, Tomas Tatar, and Gustav Nyquist should have been the next cogs in the Wings Euro-centric core,but they weren't. Even on the 2019-2020 team, there are certainly a good number of players who individually are more skilled than they showed.

 

[newfy]

He was never, ever, ever worth $4.25M a year.
Not on the day he signed it. Not ever.
And Ericsson was never a fighter. Never a defensive defenseman.
He was a converted forward who lacked defensive positioning/IQ.
He actually had a pretty decent first pass and had a hard slapper.
Babcock saw a 6'5 defenseman and wanted him to be Hal Gill.

Maybe, if given the license to develop as a two-way guy, Ericsson could have been the kind of defenseman you pay $4M a year for.
But Babcock wouldn't give him that license.

I don't know if Ericsson, Smith and Kindl all sucked.
But I don't think so.
All 3 showed me enough at various times to make believe they should have been more than they were.

Maybe Babcock just sucks at developing defensemen.

Posts like this are what make people have to defend Ericsson. Before his hip gave out he was a legit, top 4 dman that was playing up on the first pairing a little bit out of his depth. He still did alright paired with Kronwall though. He could step up and fight just about anyone in the league if he had to and he was the only Dman on Detroit that played mean infront of the net. No one was hacking at the goalie if he was out there. If the wings have a stud number one dman or Ericsson was able to play on the second pair no one on here would ever mention about him sucking. Ericsson shouldnt be compared to Smith or Kindl at all.

The same thing happened with Cleary, he was a really solid player but when his knees gave out people piled on.

For me

Defend Ericsson
Despise Drew Miller/Joakim Andersson/Cory Emmerton
Man Crush Mantha when hes on, Bertuzzi and Larkin all the time

 

[RedWingsDad]

Ericsson was the only Red Wing who scored in game 7 of the 2009 Finals. Nobody else showed up that night in the biggest game of their lives.

On the flip side, in game 7 didn't Ericsson also slap it wide of the net in the Pens zone late in the 3rd causing the puck to zip around the boards towards the Wings zone leading to the Pens game-winning goal?

 

[Gniwder]

And Ericsson was never a fighter.

I know, that's the issue I have with him. He had potential to be a fighter, an NHL player (don't remember who) said Ericsson had one of the hardest punches in the league. He rarely used it though, and once his hip got worse, that was really his best asset. Note that he's won a majority of his bouts.

Babcock saw a 6'5 defenseman and wanted him to be Hal Gill.

Brad Stuart, I think. Either way he was missing the mean streak.

Sweeney already responded to the rest of your post, so I'm gonna leave it at that.​

 

[Frk It]

Kindl sucked because he played like a kitten. The one time he played with any assertiveness, he earned a 4x2.4 contract and looked like a top 4 D. He played like he was scared to get hurt, which is crazy because he wasn't a small guy.

I have never seen anybody coach a young defenseman the way that Babcock did with Kindl. It came across as incredibly petty to me. The guy would make 1 mistake, and he would get sat for the rest of that period, if not the rest of the game.

Kindl flashed lots of ability, I don't know how anyone can get better as a player when they have absolutely no leniency like that towards taking risks. I have heard he shied away from physical battles during practices, and I could see that bothering a coach, but I don't think it justified at all the way Babcock handled that.

 

[GMR]

On the flip side, in game 7 didn't Ericsson also slap it wide of the net in the Pens zone late in the 3rd causing the puck to zip around the boards towards the Wings zone leading to the Pens game-winning goal?

The game winning goal was scored in the second period. Pittsburgh didn't score in the third period. I don't remember whether Ericsson was involved or not. I thought Stuart was the main culprit on both goals.

 

[MBH]

Posts like this are what make people have to defend Ericsson. Before his hip gave out he was a legit, top 4 dman that was playing up on the first pairing a little bit out of his depth. He still did alright paired with Kronwall though. He could step up and fight just about anyone in the league if he had to and he was the only Dman on Detroit that played mean infront of the net. No one was hacking at the goalie if he was out there. If the wings have a stud number one dman or Ericsson was able to play on the second pair no one on here would ever mention about him sucking. Ericsson shouldnt be compared to Smith or Kindl at all.

The same thing happened with Cleary, he was a really solid player but when his knees gave out people piled on.

For me

Defend Ericsson
Despise Drew Miller/Joakim Andersson/Cory Emmerton
Man Crush Mantha when hes on, Bertuzzi and Larkin all the time

Couldn't disagree more.
In a salary cap world, Jonathan Ericsson NEVER should have been making more than $2M to $2.5M. We gave him the Abdelkader luxury deal.
Career high of 15 points. So he didn't provide offense.
Couldn't block shots to save his life. Wasn't strong positionally. Wasn't naturally physical.
Wasn't a good goal suppressor. Wasn't a shot suppressor.
Wasn't very good on the PK.

Ericsson was never the defensive guy Babcock tried to mold him into.
He might have been an OK top 4 defenseman if developed properly.
But he wasn't.

If Ericsson had been paid what he was worth - 3-year, $2.5M deals - nobody would have had any reason to bitch.

You can't blame players for taking generous contracts from bad GMs.
But in a salary cap world, you certainly should judge them against it.

As for Cleary - he was a solid top niner. Sure. But he was never going to be worth his salary in the cap era.
Cleary's contract, to my eyes, is the contract that forced Holland to choose between Franzen and Hossa.
The beauty of Cleary was that he came to Detroit for next to nothing.
A smart GM let's him walk and tries to find the next guy you plug in and play until he earns more than you can afford to pay.
Eaves, or someone like that, could have been our Cleary.

 

[MBH]

I have never seen anybody coach a young defenseman the way that Babcock did with Kindl. It came across as incredibly petty to me. The guy would make 1 mistake, and he would get sat for the rest of that period, if not the rest of the game.

Kindl flashed lots of ability, I don't know how anyone can get better as a player when they have absolutely no leniency like that towards taking risks. I have heard he shied away from physical battles during practices, and I could see that bothering a coach, but I don't think it justified at all the way Babcock handled that.

Yeah.
Even if Kindl was a p***y cat, so what?
Lots of players are p***y cats. Lidstrom wasn't a mean SOB and wasn't physical.
Not that Kindl was ever Lidstrom. I doubt he could have ever been more than a decent two-way defenseman who helped the 2nd powerplay unit.

I think Babcock blew it with Smith, too.
He was an offensive defenseman with great skating ability and just a bit of a nasty streak. He could have been ideal for this era of hockey.
Instead, he spent all his time on the PK.
But that's a lot more he turned out to be.

 

[MBH]

At some point the player has to take some responsibility.

Kindl sucked because he played like a kitten. The one time he played with any assertiveness, he earned a 4x2.4 contract and looked like a top 4 D. He played like he was scared to get hurt, which is crazy because he wasn't a small guy.

Smith sucked because he thought too much. When the playoffs came and he had to just operate off instinct, he was a very good player. He just took the defensive positioning lessons and was thinking them during the game. That delay between thinking about what he had to do before he did it vs. being able to react instinctively made him suck. Like against Boston, he was a legitimately good fourth D. He didn't trust his reactions.

Ericsson was actually an acceptable pairing for Kronwall. He was optimally a top 4D at the time he signed the 6x4.25, which is right in that ballpark. He wasn't a great top pairing D by any far cry... but Kronwall-Ericsson was actually not a bad top pairing. Probably because Kronwall was a far better D than he is usually given credit for though. Jonathan Ericsson should not have gotten 6x4.25 when he did. But I could see the gamble that they took and why they did. When Kronner-Ericsson was the top pairing, Ericsson wasn't worth much less than 4.25 if you don't want to admit that he was worth that much. He was a top 4 defensive D.

It's not 7x4.5 for Abdelkader, though. That one was a broken piece of crap before the ink even dried on the paper. Ericsson at least had injuries that badly sapped his vigor and nasty streak. Abdelkader just sucked.

I mean, isn't "they showed enough at various times to make it seem like they should have been more" the story of 85% of NHLers? Andreas Athanasiou should probably be the best player on most rosters he'd play on. But he wasn't. Teemu Pulkkinen should have been a top 6 forward, but he wasn't. Tomas Jurco, Tomas Tatar, and Gustav Nyquist should have been the next cogs in the Wings Euro-centric core,but they weren't. Even on the 2019-2020 team, there are certainly a good number of players who individually are more skilled than they showed.

You're doing a lot of guessing.
Kindl sucked because he was scared?
Smith because he thought too much?

When Kindl was given icetime he played better. His best hockey came in 12-13 when Babcock lost Lidstrom and Stuart and had no options.
And instead of rewarding Kindl with more icetime, despite a solid season and solid playoffs, his icetime was cut, and continued to get cut.
Pretty dumb way to develop a first round pick, IMO.

 

[Bench]

Never liked Big Rig.

 

[Henkka]

On the flip side, in game 7 didn't Ericsson also slap it wide of the net in the Pens zone late in the 3rd causing the puck to zip around the boards towards the Wings zone leading to the Pens game-winning goal?

Who cares. It was the Bettman-rigged "NBC schedule" that took the Cup away from us. Just give healthier Datsyuk from series start, and we'll never lose it. The guys were done after game5. Just too many was injured and too exhausted. You win WCF in 5 games and get no rest... just ridiculous.

Funny thing how there was no hurry at 2019 SC finals to start them early. Boston did wait for what... 11 or 12 days ? STL got that rest we didn't at 2009.

 

[Hammettf2b]

He was never, ever, ever worth $4.25M a year.
Not on the day he signed it. Not ever.
And Ericsson was never a fighter. Never a defensive defenseman.
He was a converted forward who lacked defensive positioning/IQ.
He actually had a pretty decent first pass and had a hard slapper.
Babcock saw a 6'5 defenseman and wanted him to be Hal Gill.

Maybe, if given the license to develop as a two-way guy, Ericsson could have been the kind of defenseman you pay $4M a year for.
But Babcock wouldn't give him that license.

I don't know if Ericsson, Smith and Kindl all sucked.
But I don't think so.
All 3 showed me enough at various times to make believe they should have been more than they were.

Maybe Babcock just sucks at developing defensemen.

Wouldn't this hatred be more appropriate towards Holland than Big E then?

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

I know, that's the issue I have with him. He had potential to be a fighter, an NHL player (don't remember who) said Ericsson had one of the hardest punches in the league. He rarely used it though, and once his hip got worse, that was really his best asset. Note that he's won a majority of his bouts.

Brad Stuart, I think. Either way he was missing the mean streak.

Sweeney already responded to the rest of your post, so I'm gonna leave it at that.​

I don't remember Ericsson ever losing a fight...

I have a couple buddies that fought him the AHL when he was coming up, both said he was the worst fight they ever had. One was an AHL tough guy too, named several enforcers of brand name that he said didn't bring the power Ericsson brought. He didn't have a big wind up or anything but would just stick guys with a jab. My buddies exact words with two black eyes were "that big ******** Swede throws bombs, I have never been hit that ******* hard in my life."

 

[Gniwder]

I don't remember Ericsson ever losing a fight...

I have a couple buddies that fought him the AHL when he was coming up, both said he was the worst fight they ever had. One was an AHL tough guy too, named several enforcers of brand name that he said didn't bring the power Ericsson brought. He didn't have a big wind up or anything but would just stick guys with a jab. My buddies exact words with two black eyes were "that big ******** Swede throws bombs, I have never been hit that ******* hard in my life."

Lost to Simmonds
Jonathan Ericsson vs. Wayne Simmonds, November 08, 2016 - Detroit Red Wings vs. Philadelphia Flyers

Lost hugging matches to Getzlaf and Clarkson, but I'm not gonna count that. Plus there were a lot of times he'd throw a jab and the other guy would just back off, hockeyfights doesn't count those.

In any case, I wish he had used those fists more often, and stuck up for his teammates. Every video you see, he gets challenged to a fight. Never goes after anyone, except for the time he went after Nolan for boarding Helm.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Defend: I feel like Osgood is a guy I want to mention, I think he is a better goalie than he gets credit for and it actaully bums me out more over time that the 08-09 collapse(/NHL butt****** of the finals schedule and rules) cost him being a shoe-in HHOF. But people do generally like Ozzie, even those that don't want to champion him, I feel run him less over time, I think 07-08 and 08-09 silenced a lot of his larger detractors, though I certainly felt like I defended Osgood a lot to the fanbase for years.

Most controversial defend- I find I am generally defending Tom Wilson, he has certainly crossed the line, but I have found a few of his board meltdowns over on the main boards to be legal checks, vicious but technically within the rules.

Loathe - Wings wise I would go with Robert Lang, I hated the trade, I know he was having a career year but he never lived up to the billing for me. He was just such a frustrating player to watch, he was the enigmatic version people wrongly complained about Sergei Fedorov being. I just never felt like he fit in that much, I thought of him as an addition by subtraction when he left which is probably pretty harsh versus much of the fan-base.

League - Shane Doan - sometimes it felt fake, but the whole he doesn't swear thing doesn't matter much when he is a perpetual line crossing guy himself. He is a guy I have seen cross the line more often than Wilson, late hits, butt-ends and a lot of stupid boarding. Feel kind of similar about Subban in terms of I don't care how telegenic and nice the NHL brands them, these guys played some dirty hockey at times.

Man Crush, over the years I have had a few with varying results. Lidstrom was my second ever Wings jersey, I had a Kocur one up until that point but he had been traded and I begged my dad for Lidstrom early in the season, maybe end of pre-season of his rookie year. I was instantly a huge fan of his, I thought he was going to be good, but yeah nobody knew how good he was about to be. I was a big Franzen guy, my initial avatar on here was a Mule 93 logo.

Tvrdon and Smith are probably the worst ones of the bunch, also I really thought XO could find more in his skating a be a really important D-man and letter wearer.

Even going into both their drafts Kopitar and Draisaitl are two of my favorite guys of all-time. Just loved them as project players and the tools they were blessed with. I think both guys can be so dominant in a variety of different ways. Barkov is kind of similar as well. Pavel Bure and early Marian Gaborik were two guys I could watch skate along with Fedorov until the end of time. Especially in person watching the fluidity and speed amazed me, MacKinnon because I have not seen McDavid in person is the most I can offer currently in this regard though Mack's is angrier and more aggressive not as outright smooth as these guys. Now most of these guys are stars that earned it, but I will say in person the skating is what stands out to me most, it is exceptional how gifted of just plain skaters outside of the game itself some of these guys are.

So I guess a lot of thoughts with all this time to kill...

 

[MBH]

Wouldn't this hatred be more appropriate towards Holland than Big E then?

It ain't about hatred.
It's about the rational expectations that come with contracts in a salary cap world.

When you sign a guy and he's not living up to expectations, he's also taking away from your ability to find someone who could help your team.

If Justin Abdelkader made $2M a year for one more year, nobody would care.