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I don’t understand this from Ship’s perspective. He was given the opportunity to make the most amount of money in his career. If you do it in Chicago part time so be it.
This is what no one seems to care about when they dish the same tired Vadim sob story as a vehicle to trash Vegas.
At the kind of money he was poised to get the guy should have been the first guy on the ice every day and the last guy off it doing whatever he could to make sure he earned his place. Instead because he wasn't on the top line on the first day of training camp like he though he was going to be, he stopped listening to the coaches, he half assed everything, threw a tantrum when he got sent to the AHL by first also refusing to listen to the coach in Chicago, then outright refusing to show up to practice, until both sides had enough and he went back to Russia.
What entitlement does any player really deserve? People seem to think that when players sign an NHL contract that all they're signing is a piece of paper with terms on how the team is going to make the player's life wonderful. That's not what it is at all.
A player signs away his talents for an agreed upon salary in exchange for agreeing to a team's terms. Terms like: show up to practice, listen to and execute a coach's demands, if the team requires you to make a media appearance you do it, if the team schedules community work and you are told to attend you be there, don't get shit faced and get into bar fights, etc. Being an NHL player is a job, a dream job, but one where you are still subject to those who have authority over you.
I guarantee anyone still weeping for poor Vadim that there isn't a single contract in the NHL that says that if you don't get the ice time and role you want that you can just f*** off and do whatever you want and not show up to practice or listen to what the team tells you to do.
Saying Vadim was mistreated is like saying an employee getting fired for taking three hour breaks to play angry birds and flirt with baristas at Starbucks cause they didn't get a promotion was mistreated. The fake sympathy for the guy is beyond ridiculous at this point.
Edit: and yes it was a dumb contract but you need to remember that at the time, they didn't really expect to have the kind of success they did which resulted in being able to sign guys like Stone to massive contracts. At the time they figured they'd be flush with cap space for a good long time.
