Most people who have known me for any length of time know my position on this, but with all the Sakic fellatio going on in anticipation that he might finally shove off, I feel compelled to write this up for posterity.
Joe Sakic is commonly seen as one of the best captains in NHL history. Why? Because he is commonly seen as one of the best captains in NHL history. Nobody can point to any actual leadership traits that he possesses; their arguments simply revolve around Sakic's achievements, with the argument that everyone else thinks he's great and his teammates think he's great, so I am obviously wrong.
There's an old saying that is so true that I have repeated it enough times for it to be considered my personal motto - "The plural of 'opinion' is NOT 'fact.'" To put it another way, I don't give a rat's ass what everyone else believes. Nobody has ever accomplished anything meaningful in life by going with what everyone else says. Think about it.
Sakic doesn't have any fire. Never has. He's always been a good performer, one of the best players in hockey history, but he's never really been able to inspire others to the extent that it elevates their level of play. And I've never heard of anyone who was afraid to look Sakic in the eye after they put out a poor effort for fear of what Sakic would say. As a matter of fact, everything I have seen, heard and read states that Sakic is a quiet person in all aspects of his life. That's not leadership.
When confronted with the facts on this particular issue, Sakic-lovers always revert to the "well, he's a lead-by-example type of leader." In other words, he doesn't exhibit any sort of leadership traits, but he plays well and is well respected, so he's a good leader. Sorry, but that's a bullshit argument. There are tons of well-respected players who play well and aren't seen as leaders. Milan Hejduk, for example. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are two more.
"But he's been the captain for ten years." And? He was named captain of a team that had no other logical options. It's extremely rare for an NHL player to be stripped of the captaincy, so it would have basically required a trade for Sakic to have lost the C. That doesn't mean he's a leader, it means that the Avs didn't want to offend him.
"He led Team Canadia to their first gold medal in blah blah blah." He wasn't the captain of that team. He played well as a cog. The next Olympics, he was named captain of Team Canadia, and despite being the heavy favorite for the Gold, Team Canadia finished seventh. Coincidence? I think not.
Joe Sakic was a great player. If anything, he was a lead-by-example type, and that only works when you have a team of self-motivated players (which, other than in 95-96, 98-99 and 00-01, they have never had). More realistically, he was a lethargic, lame-duck captain to whom the other (better) team leaders always deferred to out of respect to Joe and to the detriment of the team.
Yes, I hope the predictions are true and Joe finally hangs 'em up after this season. I will miss Sakic for the player he used to be. But I am downright giddy at the idea of the Avs possibly having a captain who will hold players accountable for poor efforts. Because we all know damn well that with this team, we're going to see a whole hell of a lot of poor efforts.
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4 comments:
So who's the next Captain then?
Granted, Sakic's not a big-time fiery guy as a captain but damn, who is? More to the point, if Sakic sucks as a captain, who were the good ones? You probably think he stunk as a leader, but Yzerman was a similarly laid-back character who had maybe four documented outbursts of ire directed at his team in 20 years. Lidstrom's an even more laid back guy, and the Wings have been in the WCFs twice the two years he's worn the 'C' so far.
In other words, if a team has to depend on the emotional leadership of one guy in order to reamin competitive there are tons of other problems with that organization.
Look, when the last three seasons have been as disappointing as the Avs' last three have been it's easy to start placing blame and pointing fingers. I'll probably do the same when Detroit's eventual downturn comes. But trying to run Sakic out of town is as poorly thought out as your anti-Roy comments were when you were in an all-fired hurry to show him the door.
Sakic may not be a great captain, and his skills are obviously in decline, but that doesn't mean he won't be nigh impossible to replace.
The point you seemed to have missed, and you'd think you had heard it enough times over the years to have gleaned it by now, is that Joe Sakic's leadership style would only be effective on a team of self-motivated players. The Avs are not a team of self-motivated players.
Lidstrom works for the Wings because not only are a majority of players on the team self-motivated, but they also have a barking dog head coach. Babcock looks like he's just one bad day away from heading to a Chuck E Cheese and murdering every man woman and child in the place. You don't want to go out there and dick around for fear of what he might do to you. Sakic? Quenneville? I'd be more afraid of a bed-ridden 90-year old woman than either of those two.
Yes, the Avs have more problems than just Sakic. I've already addressed some, and I will address the others as the off-season wears on.
Sakic wouldn't be impossible to replace. A good offensive, slightly above-average defensive forward is not exactly like trying to replace Bobby Orr.
HD has a point here. I'm not really a big Sakic fan as far as his leadership goes, as there has simply been too many instances of this team underperforming, and a leader with some fire would sure go a long way.
But, it also can't be laid at the feet of one guy. There are simply other problems within the team/organization, starting with:
- The fact that the team has a bunch of good players on the ice, but very few great ones. And if there are great ones, they're all at one position.
- The coach has no patience, no system, no concept of hockey team concepts like positioning, passing, chemistry, etc, and has this silly Canadian neanderthal notion that slow tough guys are better than faster skilled guys (Finger over Leopold, McCormick over Richardson, Parker over Svatos last year), because the latter don't drop the gloves or something.
- The makeup of the team (plagiarizing one of Eric's posts from months back that has merit) is kind of....wierd. They have a bunch of skilled, quick forwards who don't bang very much; and a bunch of slower, non-puck-moving defensive defensemen who can't get the former the puck.
- The goaltending still isn't great. Yes, Theodore knocked it out of the park during the 2nd half, and you were right about that. But still, the team doesn't have great goaltending right now.
- Finally, the team simply doesn't have the prospects to come in right now and help, except at forward. There are a few of those, but where are the Avs' goaltending and defense prospects who can help?
In the end, the team is a good team, but not a contending team, and short of spending big money on UFAs, where are the players going to come from to push the team to the contending stage, especially considering the age of a few of the main performers - Forsberg, Sakic, Brunette, Foote, etc? Are the young guys going to really get it done? Svatos and Leopold simply cannot stay healthy. Wolski hasn't taken is game to the next level (I have a feeling Q has something to do with this). Ditto for Budaj. Hensick is a nice looking young player, but there's no telling just yet.
Stastny is a stud, and he's a great player for the Avs to build around. But after him, what then?
-AB
Again, Chris, I never said that Sakic was solely to blame. Quite the contrary.
Goaltending isn't a problem for us. Theodore is one of the better goalies in the NHL, and Budaj is a capable backup.
Before the season and before the trade deadline, everyone was yammering about getting big, tough, defensive defensemen. The Avs went out and did that, and now the media-fed garbage is that the Avs need faster, puck-moving defensemen. They'll go out and do that, and they will sacrifice defensive ability to get that done and everyone will be yammering about getting big tough defensive defensemen again.
The only solution there is to get big, tough, fast, skilled, offensively minded defensive defensemen. If they could get six in-his-prime Rob Blakes, they'd be set. Not gonna happen.
Our defense was just fine for Minnesota or any of the other teams we could have faced in the playoffs. The only team that would expose us there was Detroit (and possibly Pittsburgh). So basically, do you want to gear the defense for beating Detroit, or do you want to gear it for beating everyone else?
As for the young guys in the system and the coaching, I will cover that in greater detail later.
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