Who gets the "A" - Some Team Leadership - What about Neil?
Posted 10:24 AM ET | Comments 0
So here's something that really gets to me.. Yea I’m not liking what Heatley’s doing, but what was management thinking when they gave him the “A”, permanently?! I remember watching the first or second game since he'd been promoted; with that fancy letter on his jersey he started it off with an undisciplined 10 minute misconduct cross-check to a player the opposing team... In a close loss if I remember correctly..
That being said, up till a few days ago I loved Heater! Didn't think he was ever much of a team player, but still thought he carried some sort of loyalty. If he really wanted it, personally I think he would've given it more time, or a little more devotion instead of pretty much saying "Maybe I can't score 50 goals again under this new system so…”. Considering the Sens pretty much gave him new life after asking for a trade after what happened in Atlanta… You’d think he’d value them enough to honour his contract.
Anyways, that's it for my rant.. And that's my opinion and my opinion only.. I don't wanna judge on something probably blown out of proportion enough thanks to the media but still from what’s out there I'm pretty P!ssed off..
Anyways, I'm asking who get's the "A" next year. When Alfie retires I dunno who's our next Captain.. Spezza? Phillips? Fisher? I dunno... Hard to believe Heater had it, that's why I kinda want Neil back at least to add some of that team leadership.
I really don’t like talking about who to trade, or who to sign or whatever, but If I'm Murray I'm looking at what kind of player brings dedication, leadership, respect & professionalism, and a great work ethic to the team. Bottom line is he's the type of guy this organisation needs on and off the ice. Never once has he gone on the ice and given less than %100. If he can add up some of the numbers he had a few years ago (15 goals - 17 assists) then he's for sure worth the 1.5 - 2.5Mil “as a player”!!
But for what he brings to the team, is he not worth around 2Mil anyways, whatever he's producing?? Compare him to others and good arguments can be made. My thoughts on this were different a few days ago before any of this Heatley stuff started showing up, I dunno I just personally think the organisation can't loose with a player like him.
Volchenkov looks like a good candidate too, we've lost a lot of our core players in the last few years (Schaefer, Havlat, Smolinski, Vermette, Eaves, Corvo, Preissing, Mesjaros, etc..), trying to build around the young core we have going now might take a few old faces.
Here's the roster we had going in the cup finals:
Dany Heatley - Jason Spezza - Daniel Alfredsson
Mike Fisher - Peter Schaefer - Mike Comrie
Antoine Vermette - Chris Kelly - Oleg Saprykin
Patrick Eaves - Dean McAmmond - Chris Neil
Brian McGrattan
Andrej Meszaros - Wade Redden
Joe Corvo - Tom Preissing
Chris Phillips - Anton Volchenkov
Christoph Schubert
Emery - Gerber
And here's what we had going last year:
Daniel Alfredsson "C" - Jason Spezza - Dany Heatley "A"
Mike Fisher - Nick Foligno - Ryan Shannon
Chris Kelly - (Chris Neil) - (Mike Comrie)
Jesse Winchester - Jarkko Ruutu - Shean Donovan
Christoph Schubert - Cody Bass **
Filip Kuba - Chris Campoli
Chris Phillips "A" - Anton Volchenkov
Jason Smith - (Brendan Bell)
Alexandre Picard - Brian Lee
Alex Auld - Brian Elliott - Pascal Leclaire **
Big changes.. still that's not a bad team, with Karlsson coming up and Leclair coming in I'm looking forward to next year! Nothing a little tweaking can't do (But wait, 10 Defensmen!! - include Schubert/Karlsson). Most still beleive Ottawa comes out strong next year and contends for a top spot in the East. Can't wait!!
Interesting to hear some thoughts, there’s so many questions that need to be dealt with come draft day. My previous articles goes more into detail on current team issues, but now do we bring in Comrie/Neil or do we get new faces?? Can Bass fill in the spot?? What about all those defensemen, there was talk of Smith retiring too?? And what do we do with Bell/Elliot/Auld??
Should be an interesting few weeks…
That being said, up till a few days ago I loved Heater! Didn't think he was ever much of a team player, but still thought he carried some sort of loyalty. If he really wanted it, personally I think he would've given it more time, or a little more devotion instead of pretty much saying "Maybe I can't score 50 goals again under this new system so…”. Considering the Sens pretty much gave him new life after asking for a trade after what happened in Atlanta… You’d think he’d value them enough to honour his contract.
Anyways, that's it for my rant.. And that's my opinion and my opinion only.. I don't wanna judge on something probably blown out of proportion enough thanks to the media but still from what’s out there I'm pretty P!ssed off..
Anyways, I'm asking who get's the "A" next year. When Alfie retires I dunno who's our next Captain.. Spezza? Phillips? Fisher? I dunno... Hard to believe Heater had it, that's why I kinda want Neil back at least to add some of that team leadership.
I really don’t like talking about who to trade, or who to sign or whatever, but If I'm Murray I'm looking at what kind of player brings dedication, leadership, respect & professionalism, and a great work ethic to the team. Bottom line is he's the type of guy this organisation needs on and off the ice. Never once has he gone on the ice and given less than %100. If he can add up some of the numbers he had a few years ago (15 goals - 17 assists) then he's for sure worth the 1.5 - 2.5Mil “as a player”!!
But for what he brings to the team, is he not worth around 2Mil anyways, whatever he's producing?? Compare him to others and good arguments can be made. My thoughts on this were different a few days ago before any of this Heatley stuff started showing up, I dunno I just personally think the organisation can't loose with a player like him.
Volchenkov looks like a good candidate too, we've lost a lot of our core players in the last few years (Schaefer, Havlat, Smolinski, Vermette, Eaves, Corvo, Preissing, Mesjaros, etc..), trying to build around the young core we have going now might take a few old faces.
Here's the roster we had going in the cup finals:
Dany Heatley - Jason Spezza - Daniel Alfredsson
Mike Fisher - Peter Schaefer - Mike Comrie
Antoine Vermette - Chris Kelly - Oleg Saprykin
Patrick Eaves - Dean McAmmond - Chris Neil
Brian McGrattan
Andrej Meszaros - Wade Redden
Joe Corvo - Tom Preissing
Chris Phillips - Anton Volchenkov
Christoph Schubert
Emery - Gerber
And here's what we had going last year:
Daniel Alfredsson "C" - Jason Spezza - Dany Heatley "A"
Mike Fisher - Nick Foligno - Ryan Shannon
Chris Kelly - (Chris Neil) - (Mike Comrie)
Jesse Winchester - Jarkko Ruutu - Shean Donovan
Christoph Schubert - Cody Bass **
Filip Kuba - Chris Campoli
Chris Phillips "A" - Anton Volchenkov
Jason Smith - (Brendan Bell)
Alexandre Picard - Brian Lee
Alex Auld - Brian Elliott - Pascal Leclaire **
Big changes.. still that's not a bad team, with Karlsson coming up and Leclair coming in I'm looking forward to next year! Nothing a little tweaking can't do (But wait, 10 Defensmen!! - include Schubert/Karlsson). Most still beleive Ottawa comes out strong next year and contends for a top spot in the East. Can't wait!!
Interesting to hear some thoughts, there’s so many questions that need to be dealt with come draft day. My previous articles goes more into detail on current team issues, but now do we bring in Comrie/Neil or do we get new faces?? Can Bass fill in the spot?? What about all those defensemen, there was talk of Smith retiring too?? And what do we do with Bell/Elliot/Auld??
Should be an interesting few weeks…