Has there ever been a 4th line player that left one team and finally signed with another late in the summer that has garnered as much attention as Matt Hendricks, or Hendgrits as he's being known by in Winnipeg?
It's utterly amazing how many people know so much about his character and leadership and how much of an effect it has. Whether it be the media in Edmonton or the media in Winnipeg, the tale of the tape with Hendricks is that he is basically a walking talking intangible.
What set off the latest Hendricks media storm is a tweet from Chris Nichols quoting Darren Dreger:
Those "deeply involved" w/ #Oilers "recognize that perhaps allowing Matt Hendricks to walk away" was a mistake. #GlueGuy #NHLJets https://t.co/Q0rddMYjCt
— Chris Nichols (@NicholsOnHockey) November 30, 2017
The term used in a hashtag as #glueguy is what set twitter ablaze in comments some serious, others not and then a whole lot of commentary.
The issue with Hendricks is simply that he's not quite the player that most progressive hockey thinkers feel has much value on the ice. Slower and less skilled with lots of evidence over time to support both those claims. For those that care I agree with that belief about his on-ice skills. I'd rather have Jack Roslovic or Nic Petan flying around with Perreault and Armia but I'm also not the coach.
I'm also not away from the ice with the rest of the team.
Blake Wheeler made an interesting comment that was aired during a broadcast where he talked about Hendricks and how he brought some liveliness to the locker room and how 'we don't have the most vocal room'.
Leadership is a vastly underrated quality and one that is also misunderstood by many. There are more books, case studies, corporate promotions on leadership than anyone can possible imagine. However in my 26 years of business and sports experience one adage always rings true, in an organization void of appointed leadership a leader will always rise.
Hendricks might be that type of guy. One who has been around the league, had his ups and downs with his career but always found away. He's earned his stripes and stories the hard way right? That's what we're meant to believe when some one says about a particular player 'he's great in the room'?
Anyone can be great in a room, boardroom, locker room, washroom, whatever but it takes a different and perhaps special kind of person to be a leader in a room. Not every person has the qualities that allow you to speak and act in a way that people enjoy, support and will follow. It's probably a fairly common experience for many readers to have been in a situation with poor leadership or a dysfunctional one. I've been there, it kills souls. It affects morale and most importantly it can ruin production and success.
Very few are born leaders, for many it comes with experience. Experience is the result of the equation action over time= experience. It looks like a learning curve in some fashion.
Hendricks has probably has reach his pinnacle in regards to hockey teams and players. In fact one could probably make a funny Venn type diagram about it, or simply X/Y axis graph.
Here's the issue. What happens off the ice, away from the 6-9 minutes a game any player such as Hendricks might get, has a value, positive or negative. What that value is will be hard to determine but it exists. What becomes the crucial factor in this kind of balance is does the experience and wisdom that comes with it compensate for what happens on the ice?
For fans, and media alike, we can see and measure the on-ice portion but we're left to anecdotal attestations from fellow players, coaches and maybe the GM for the other side.
I'm not going to opine on whether Matt Hendricks, or in this case his absence, has upset the Edmonton Oilers. There's no way to determine that. To the contrary I would suggest that for a team like the Jets, that has had interesting dynamics within the locker room in the past, an experienced temperament and voice might be something that has more value than anyone could know.
Making a case about the what kind of influence a player is as it relates to adhesives is silly. That being said dismissing it out right is also silly. If players like Hendricks didn't count against the cap, and didn't have to take up roster spots I would imagine every GM would have a few #glueguys on teams.
It's bit like line juggling to find the right chemistry with certain players. There guessing, there's using data and combining the two. I just don't think there's no value to #glueguys but I wouldn't go around attributing too much value to them. Again it's a bit like chemistry, get it right and you're happy, get it too far the other way and out might as well be sniffing glue.