Do I dare bring up the speculation that over this long of a period, maybe no matter what group of players takes the ice, THE SYSTEM and THE MESSAGE has become far too stagnant?? The passion that I heard coming from the team's "advisor" after being embarrased by the oils on home ice last week just doesn't seem to be coming from the team's head coach. I think a HUGE link that became missing from this team over the past horific summer was a Coach Brent Peterson.
I don't know if Coach Peterson had anything to do with it or not. But I do think that at some point, Trotz' message has started fallen on deaf ears. He says that the stuff he preaches is "timeless", but I don't know.
I think at some point the "veterans" on this group have to finally start acting like pros: that's you Legwand, Erat, Fisher, Hornqvist, Tootoo, SK, etc. Their effort just hasn't been consistent.
Do you think Zetterberg and Datsyuk have to be given a "message" all the time from Babcock? No. They're professionals and they know what type of effort they have to bring to win, and they bring it not just because they want to win, but because they are competitors and it's their obligation.