- With the exception of a game or two and a shift here or there, Craig Conroy has mostly played with Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay at even-strength this year. That's why it's so bloody hard to explain his measely 3 ES points and (even more baffling) his -1 rating (Iginla and Tanguay are a +8 and +5 respectively). That is a an incredible and unique kind of sucking right there. Just to pile on, his GA/60 rate is an abysmal 3.06, versus the 2.58 and 2.48 rates of his linemates. Talk about an anchor. One can't but wonder what kind of stats Iginla and Tanguay would have with a capable pivot in between them.
- Guess who is currently 5th in league in terms of plus/minus? None other than former Flame Charles Kobasew III. What's even more galling is he has more goals than Nolan, Primeau, Conroy, Moss, Yelle and Nilson combined.
- Word on the radio is that Phaneuf aggravated a leg injury against Detroit and it's been bothering him during the last few games, which goes a little ways to explain his drop-off in play. What's truly concerning is the fact that he's questionable to play against Vancouver tomorrow night. Take a gander at the Flames defensive depth Sans Dion:
Regehr - Sarich
Warrener - Aucoin
Eriksson - Hale
(Ramholt?)
Fugly. The only bright side is the fact that the Canucks own back-end is more beat up and thererfore about as questionable as Calgary's at the moment:
Ohlund - Mitchell
Miller - Weaver
Edler - Bourdon
(Coloumbe?)
If the Flames forwards can't exploit that blueline at home, well then we're in more trouble than I thought.
- Rant time:
I think I've had enough of the "leadership" explanation that many fans traditionally give for a struggling team. You know the one bandied about the water-coolers and messageboards when the home squad isn't winning as much as people think they ought to be:
"This team doesn't have enough leadership."
"The leaders aren't leading."
"We need to get more leadership into the dressing room."
etc.
And here's why...
Firstly, it's a fuzzy, ill-defined concept. What, precisely, constitutes a good leader? I know I have a sort of general idea of what I personally consider "good leadership", but it may not even resemble the one held by other hockey fans. So, is the guy who kicks garbage cans in the lockerroom during losses a leader? The guy who gives a rousing "let's win one for Gipper" speeches at intermission? How about the strong, silent type that "leads by example" on the ice? How about the selfless shot-blocker or the player that will drop the gloves to "give his club a lift"? Is it the guy who gives the best sound bites to the press? Is it the affable centerman who keeps things light in the dressing room? How about the guy who excels in key situations? Was Claude Lemieux a good leader? Should we just assume the guys who seem to always be on winning teams are good leaders?
I dont know if it's any one of these things or a combination of them. I have no idea if it's some magical mix of the above qualities that defines a good leader and I especially don't know how or why these values would fluctuate within a given player or player(s) so as to come to the conclusion that "the leaders on this team aren't leading right now."
A corollary issue is the fact that leadership is unquantifiable and therefore unmeasurable. How does one know if a team "needs more leadership"? Can it be accumulated on a roster, like, say, scoring? Does a team need a certain amount of leadership before it becomes effective? How do you know when you have enough? Can there be too much?
The other problem is, assuming a great deal of "leading" occurs behind the scenes, most fans can't directly observe the locker-room dynamics of a given team and therefore can't make any kind of educated guess about the quality or nature of the leadership in place. As such, a fan besmirching a given club's leadership is typically making a baseless assertion that can't be backed by anything more than a shoddy record or a recent losing streak.
In conclusion, player leadership is an ill-defined concept that is unquantifiable and unknowable from an average fan's perspective. I suspect the "lack of leadership" trope is trotted out as an ad hoc explanation when other interpretations for a club's struggles seem lacking: a sort of "one size fits all" derisive statement that can employed when you think that your team should be playing better than it is.
Unfortunately, there are probably a whole host of other, far more salient reasons a team is losing at any given time: poor coaching strategy, injuries, general lack of skill, superior opponents, lack of discipline, etc. Its these sorts of factors that actually have a direct, causal effect on a team's win record as opposed to the quality and degree of "leadership" on a squad. Hitler could be giving the most rousing, charismatic speeches in between every intermission, but if a roster is filled with a bunch of unskilled scrubs, they're probably going to get killed 99 times out of 100 anyways. As such, I urge any fan who is tempted to give voice to the "lack of leadership" complaint in the future, to stop and take a more critical look at the team in question and they're own premises when it comes to evaluating them. It's possible your favorite squad doesn't have good leadership, but it's far more probable (and, in addition, far more discoverable) that they just aren't as good as you thought they were.
**I should add that I don't think that leadership (as I conceive of it, anyways) is wholly worthless. In a game between two evenly matched opponents (with all other things being equal), there is likely some value to having a well-respected player that can motivate and/or focus the rest of his teammates.
