Note: The following blog is meant to be screamed aloud in your best Jim Cramer from Mad Money impersonation.
P.K Subban
P.K Subban is one of the most exciting players in the NHL, he's one of the bests players in the NHL, and he is the best personality and if there is a player in the NHL that people should make into a role-model or look up to, it's him.
One of the stupidest things we do in hockey is parse the character of the players, make illogical, uninformed judgments about things we have no idea about. You don't know what happens in a dressing room and you don't know who's a good leader, it's all just rumours and hearsay.
I've never met Subban, but I've seen him on TV, smiling, talking honestly, having fun with the fact that he's a young millionaire playing a game for a living. I've seen him take time out to talk to kids, heard about events he hosts and his charitable donations.
In a league where people speak in cliches and where not rocking the boat is one of the most important things a guy can do, Subban stands out, in a good way.
If it's true players in the dressing room don't like him, get new players.
If you didn't look at the names on the top, you'd never trade the player on the left for the player on the right, especially when the player on the right has a worse, longer contract, is four years older and also plays a game that suggests he'd age worse and be injured more often.
It's a garbage trade made by a bad GM, by a team in a league that has no idea how to treat people who don't act like their at a funeral 24/7.
This trade is pathetic, the Canadiens might have well just have folded as trade Subban.
And worst of all, is how many people try to justify it by pretending Shea Weber is still playing like it's 2010.
"Well Shea Weber is on team Canada."
Yeah that is true, but team Canada made stupid roster decisions. The fact that PK isn't on team Canada probably has to do with the same stupid reasons the Canadiens felt they had to trade him - namely he acts like a guy having fun with his life and not being a boring dud.
He gave ten million dollars to a children's hospital. What are other NHL players doing? They're all millionaires, they should do more.
P.K absolutely should be enshrined as a saint for doing what should be an automatic for rich people. The fact the Canadiens traded him is an insult to anyone in their fanbase who isn't stuck with a 1920s mentality.
It is always sad when teams' make it all about the guys who run them and not the players.
There is not one positive thing you can say about this trade. It's incompetent, lazy and stupid.
How do you not get more for this player?
Doan Rumours:
People in Arizona, perhaps too in love with a veteran replacement player, are worried that Shane Doan hasn't yet signed with the team.
Rumour has it the team and Doan are up to two million dollars apart.
But who knows anything about rumours? I somehow just don't see it as realistic that Doan and the team are in a feud.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll bet you Doan signs pretty soon and plays one more year.
Jim Offers Free P.R Advice to the Coyotes
I think the Coyotes should do a promotion where disgruntled Canadiens and Oilers fans can trade in their Jersey for a brand new Coyotes one.
It is hilarious in the month since the NHL world made it clear how 'grandma-like' they think about anything new or interesting with their reaction to the Coyotes hiring a 27 year old to be their GM, a number of GMs have proven just how stupid that reaction was.
Think about it: Why not give a guy with a new way of doing things a chance when the guys who do it old-style are absolute crap?
Since 'making a crazy move' and hiring a John Chayka, here is a list of things established GMs who aren't 27 have done:
1 Jim Benning Peter Chiarelli
2. Randy Carlye was hired to replace Bruce Boudreau in a move so bad explaining why seems like you're exaggerating to make a point. Why bother trying to seriously compare Sharknado 2 and Citizen Kane anyways?
3. Chayka himself schools overrated Detroit GM with a million dollar savings and the ability to select the massively undervalued Jakub Chychrun.
5. Marc Bergevin trades his Porsche for a Chrysler Le Baron.
6. Don Sweeney continued to fail to identify where other teams rank players and piss away value by selecting players way ahead of their rankings instead of trading down.
So, in a league where Don Sweeney, Marc Bergevin, Jim Benning, Bob Murray, Tim Murray, Joe Sakic, Peter Chiarelli, Jarmo Keikalainen, and Brian Burke all run hockey teams, do people really need to worry if a team makes an unusual choice like John Chayka?
I could include Cheveldayoff, Fletcher and a few others on that list, but I think it's telling that those guys don't even get listed as among the worst.
Who would have thought that objectively speaking, Garth Snow is one of the better GMs in the league?
It is bizarre to see how many GM's actively make their teams worse on purpose and I think it proves that the Coyotes were right to take a different path in the hiring of their GM. I mean, fully one-third of the guys picked the 'proper' way are terrible. You seem to have a 33% chance of hiring a complete dud to run your team, so why not take a chance on a bright young kid intent on doing things differently?
The Oilers
Dear Peter Chiarelli,
Thanks for giving credit to all fake internet trade proposals everywhere.
You guys rock! Maybe you'll do Connor Murphy for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins? (asking for a friend).
Thanks,
- JT