Modifié 29 août 2021 à 14 h 24
Quoting: DragonRaptorHybrid
Fair points and opinion DRH, but I still respectively disagree on many aspects here. Sorry for the long winded response, but some things can't be said 150 characters
I do not dislike KK,
the human being, for taking more money. As everyone likes to point out,
you would have done the same thing, right?. Well, actually that isn't always true. I've been offered more money at my current job and declined. More money usually means more responsibility and that isn't always welcome when you feel your being compensated well enough already that accepting a gross overpayment would only put a target on your back from a productivity POV but also from my peers opinion of me POV (assuming they could see what I was being paid like in the NHL). More money means more responsibility for KK and if he can't handle it, that severely hampers the teams ability to improve the team going forward. Regardless, to each their own on this subject but a blanket statement that someone will always take more just because they can, isn't true. The money has to be worth expectations on the player and responsibility that comes with it. There is a reason some players DO take less money to stay in better situations, etc. While this is a very small minority, the rule doesn't apply unanimously.
There is also the idea that the range of salary improved is equally scalable upwards. If I make 50K a year now and Im offered 150K a year, that changes my life in a way that is absolutely profound. Going from 2M to 6M means you get to go from a Benz to a Lambo. This tired opinion that players are struggling pay cheque to pay cheque needs to stop. Yes they deserve to make good money for what they do but in all fields, we cheer a person on when they've
earned the right to it. Not when they haven't. And may I also add, had MB been able to counter the OS if KK and his agent went back to MB before signing it, could have offered KK a longer term contract that pays him out more than his 1 year OS. Giving him longer term security. Since as you mentioned players need to make as much as possible as quickly as they can, mainly due to injury uncertainty, etc, right? Wouldn't it be more wise to accept a long term guaranteed contract then? In the event of a player not being able to play anymore next year due to sudden injury/illness, would pay him out more than this 1 year deal now. A deal, one can only assume would have been what KK and his agent were approximately pushing for BEFORE this OS, right? So If MB is offering 2M and the player is probably in the range of 4-5M based on his high end comparables that virtually all players agents base their offers on, the player would have secured more money and security over the long haul while negotiating directly with the manager in good faith. Something Im sure MB would have much preferred and the player himself wanted from the beginning.
IMHO the play here for KK, assuming he wanted to sign a long term deal as mentioned by Friedge, was to negotiate from a point of power with his new OS offer as
leverage. Forcing MB to come up in salary and term from his previous 2.5Mx2 offer, to something closer to what KK and his agent were asking for originally (~4.5x4 maybe? IDK). Heck, there was a case that it made more sense to sign KK to his original asking price in July, whatever that was (surely not 15M x 8 years), then this deal. Would have given the player EXACTLY what he wanted originally and given him long term stability while giving the team better control and flexibility. But more importantly IMO, good faith and negotiation that 99.9% of the time happens between a GM and player. That way, everyone's happy. Right now, only KK and the other team are happy. So you can see where the Habs feel they have been done dirty by this.
Now as for Arpon's article, the Habs are in no way, supposed to put a player in a position to better succeed
automatically if they have not given reason for it yet. And frankly the idea that KK wasn't given opportunity isn't entirely true either. There were times when KK was given time on better lines to show what he was capable of but never seized the moment. Apparently the Habs were supposed to just grant him the time and not make any changes? What message does that send to other players who played better than him? Danault or Suzuki for example. Habs did him dirty? Sounds like he felt
entitled more than anything. In this case, I agree with management and that's often a rare case. Aside from the past though, he was about to be given that very opportunity he clamored for to prove himself with automatic guarantee this very year, to show what he could do and to earn the next big contract but is focusing on how HE was mishandled and disrespected.
They benched ME.
They low balled ME.
They didn't give ME #1 line minutes.....
Well KK,
YOU also have played badly in the 3 years you been drafted.
YOU have been given opportunities to be a top end player and did nothing with it.
YOU are objectively asking for something you don't deserve.
Not all criticism should be on the team here.
If KK took MB's comments in such a bad light that he felt scolded by it, than I question his character as a player. He has done almost nothing to warrant top 2 line minutes yet and the Habs WERE about to give him it anyway. Scoring a few goals in the playoffs has inflated his head beyond belief and just like when a pending UFA player scores in a deep playoff run then goes in to cash on his next contract, it 99% of the time is a bad contract, no different here. Aside from that, the Habs WANT KK to succeed and be good, something that seems to glide over everyone's head here. They are not rooting for him to be bad, they want their team to be good. They HAVE given him time to grow and get better and yet he has struggled virtually every time aside from a few playoff games here and there when the spotlight was brightest. Inflating everyone's self worth frankly. Yes they benched him. Yes they didn't give him glowing remarks. YOU also didn't play well. YOU also didn't prove enough. That isn't a player being suppressed and unfairly judged by the oppressive big corporation, the Montreal Canadiens. If the relationship of the two was so badly deteriorated after being benched a couple games when he deserved it at age 20 and was offered a contract that was widely agreed upon as fair value (2-2.5M), than once again, I question KK's character. If he was in the mindset of "trolling", than not sure how anyone can disagree with his lack of character. The soon to be millionaire KK is being quite petty with the amazing opportunity he was given with the Habs and his punishing them unfairly. IMHO ciao bye, and good riddance. Well done Canes, you played that perfectly and I commend you for it, even though it pisses me as a Habs fan.
NOW.......I want to clarify many things here:
- My opinions on this situation do not endorse Marc Bergevin's involvement in the Chicago situation or the drafting of Mailloux. (Not sure if that was implied but in case it was, I want my opinion to be clear on it) I've hated MB since 2016 (Subban trade day) and my repeated comments on this site on it are numerous. This Hawks/Mailloux situations only solidified my hate for MB but that doesn't mean I therefore HAVE to side with the players on any issue affecting the team that arises because MB is a POS.
- There is an overwhelming opinion on the internet right now that if you don't side with the players in every monetary aspect, you are siding with the "billionaire owners" as a result..... This is getting out of hand. I do not give two pucks about Geoff Molson's margins and frankly I generally want the player to get
what they deserve for the job they do more than any compensation ownership deserves for their investment. The key aspect here is that I am not a fan of the owner nor the player
really, I am a fan of the hockey team, the thing that gets caught in between the rock and a hard place, and because of the constraints of the salary cap, one players greed to make as much as he possibly can, can have many negative impacts on the rest of the team that I cheer for as much as having a crappy owner such a Melnyk can negatively affect the team I cheer for.. KK was greedy here, and as a human being to another human being, good for him because money is important to all of us but that doesn't mean by not actively cheering the player on in this scenario, Im advocating for the other sides greediness in past transgressions also. Owners/management can be heartless monsters but so can a player for putting the team I cheer for in a precarious position as a result of their over zealous negotiation tactic.
- My over arching opinions on KK aren't a blanket opinion applied to all players in OS scenarios in the past or going forward. Just KK's, right now. As much as its hard for a fan of another team to put them selves in the shoes of another teams fan base, had I been a Canes fan when Aho signed his OS, I wouldn't have been mad at him. The player, deserving of 8.5M a year was being low balled by the billionaire owner. He deserved to get paid and the team that had the money and knew he was worth it, refused to pay it out. That's on the greedy OWNERS. The opposite has happened here with KK. The player is using the Canes revenge OS to GROSSLY overpay for his service not because the player was worth it, Canes wouldn't have done this if it weren't for the Aho OS, but to stick it to the Habs and KK is taking full advantage of that. That's his prerogative of course but having to support the player simply because the owners are billionaires is not a valid opinion here. Contrarily, we'd be scolding the team for them doing something similar to the player. I always hate when a GM takes a good player to arbitration to squeeze them for every penny. I'd be all in favor of the player, at that point (if they were able to), to do whatever in their means to "stick it the team" such as accept an outlandish OS. So my disapproval of KK himself is with they way he handled this situation more than the the situation/contract itself.
Kotkaniemi15 et A_Habs_fan a aimé ceci.
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