Horcoff

[ericdaoust]

If not, then how valuable is leadership ability? An interesting discussion.

Well it is just one player. He can only do so much.

[metaldude26]

I forget, can teams move salary or cap hit in trades because if the Oilers agreed to absorb a good deal of Horcoff's cap hit in a move I'm sure he'd have some appeal. I'm still assuming a buyout is coming though.

[doulos]

Well it is just one player. He can only do so much.

I agree with you completely. Just trying to understand bigbabybuda's point.

[bigbabybuda]

I agree with you completely. Just trying to understand bigbabybuda's point.

My point is pretty obvious, I would think. That considering how much young talent this team has and how shit they have been year after year maybe all the veterans whom keep getting referred to as "leaders" are just the opposite. I could post five other threads with 5 other Edmonton players were there leadership qualities are referred to as intangibles that justify there salaries or make them worth so and so in this trade or another. I personally think that your teams biggest problem is an absolute void of leadership amongst your veterans.

[MXHockey]

My point is pretty obvious, I would think. That considering how much young talent this team has and how shit they have been year after year maybe all the veterans whom keep getting referred to as "leaders" are just the opposite. I could post five other threads with 5 other Edmonton players were there leadership qualities are referred to as intangibles that justify there salaries or make them worth so and so in this trade or another. I personally think that your teams biggest problem is an absolute void of leadership amongst your veterans.

I see your point. Younger players look up to players with accomplishments. The only thing accomplished by the older core (Horcoff/Hemsky/Smyth) is one cup run as a #8 seed sandwiched by years of not making the post-season.

Horcoff and Hemsky will be great role players somewhere else, and in Hemsky's case a solid offensive addition, but Mac-T is making the right play here.

[doulos]

My point is pretty obvious, I would think. That considering how much young talent this team has and how shit they have been year after year maybe all the veterans whom keep getting referred to as "leaders" are just the opposite. I could post five other threads with 5 other Edmonton players were there leadership qualities are referred to as intangibles that justify there salaries or make them worth so and so in this trade or another. I personally think that your teams biggest problem is an absolute void of leadership amongst your veterans.

So my question is if you replace Horcoff and Hemsky with equally talented Player A and Player B who are better "leaders" then they are suddenly a better team? How much better? Who would these players be?

I don't agree with you in any way but I am very wiling to hear some specifics on your end as to how this might work or look.

Personally, from watching 80% of the Oiler games over the past several years, their problem is not missing Mark Messier, but from being an absolute pile of steaming shit in every possible area on the ice.

[doulos]

This got me thinking though. Pittsburgh added Morrow and Iginla, I guess for some of the magical leadership that teams are looking for, and it did nothing for them either. I'm starting to wonder if the whole concept of leadership is slightly overrated.

[metaldude26]

This got me thinking though. Pittsburgh added Morrow and Iginla, I guess for some of the magical leadership that teams are looking for, and it did nothing for them either. I'm starting to wonder if the whole concept of leadership is slightly overrated.

I think leadership has a ton of value but I don't see how Morrow or Iginla could have had much of an impact in that department during their short stint in Pittsburgh. Leadership can come from anywhere, be it the head coach, a trainer, management, the captain or the backup goaltender. The point is that leadership is about getting people to develop the day to day habits that they need to develop into the players they need to be come game time.

I know a lot of people think about leadership in terms of that big rah-rah speech when the chips are down or leveling that big hit, or fight, etc. and that can be part of it. If a team is better than it is playing a needs something to snap them out then that sort of leadership is called for but I tend to think that leadership on a day to day basis is more crucial to building championships because anyone can work hard hard for a shift or a game or a day. Doing that every single day is what it takes to win it all. That's a culture, which is something you can't build at the trade deadline.

So Iginla and Morrow could be great leaders but there's only so much they could add to that room in that short amount of time.

But I'd also wonder how much respect those guys really had in that room. The Penguins were already a pretty veteran team. Not that they have a lot of over-30 guys but they have lots of guys still there from their Cup winning team. Iginla and Morrow are well respected around the league but their voices wouldn't carry near the same weight in Pittsburgh with faces like Crosby, Malkin in the room and a ton of other Cup winners than they would in say St. Louis where that team is still very young experience-wise.

I'd suggest that the Penguins added the guys they did not necessarily because of leadership but because they were known commodities that have proven capable of playoff scoring in the past and they were available and they were (relatively) cheap and they could do it and it was the year to do it since they had cap space and there was an arms race this year and so they got caught up in it.

But most of this is all about how embarrassing it must be for the Penguins to have been swept and because this season was really championship or bust for them. I'm not going to argue that they didn't look bad these playoffs because I thought they did and I'm certainly not going to argue that Boston wasn't the better team because they were but after three games I felt like the Penguins could have easily been up 2-1 in the series so they were still really close even though they wound up getting "embarrassed". Is that a failure of leadership or was their team just not good enough? I think it was the latter.

And so I've danced around the question quite a bit but I'd say that leadership can be both underrated and overrated. It's a lot like goaltending. When you have it you don't really notice it but when you don't have it by God do you ever notice it.

I don't think the Penguins were lacking in leadership and I don't think that Morrow/Iginla are to blame even if they were because there was only so much they could do from that stand-point. I just don't think the Penguins were good enough because they didn't add enough to their blueline.

[lucifer316]

the problem is that most equate playing in the league for X number of years to leadership

or being X years old makes you a leader

or being on a team that had some kind of run makes you a leader etc etc

what makes you a leader is being a leader it has nothing to do with how much hair is on your chin or what color it happens to be

the other misconception is the idea that a team that loses automatically is lacking in leadership

almost half of the teams every year miss the playoffs and 29 in total dont win the cup

not every one of those teams can be lacking in leadership realistically speaking

i think it is a word thrown around when people really have nothing else good they can say about a player but most dont really have a solid grasp on what it is supposed to be or do etc

leadership is more or less just an excuse

a lack of it is an excuse for losing

it is an excuse for overpaying on a contract

its also not an arms race having 'more' leadership doesnt automatically make one team better than another

bah enough rambling from me

[doulos]

I find that Leadership and Losing Culture (and other similar terms) are overused psychobabble that hold very little value.

Talented teams win games even if they are thin on traditional "leadership"

[Carcillo]

I forget, can teams move salary or cap hit in trades because if the Oilers agreed to absorb a good deal of Horcoff's cap hit in a move I'm sure he'd have some appeal. I'm still assuming a buyout is coming though.

Teams can absorb up to 50% of the salary/cap hit (equal % of both, so can't just keep some salary but move full cap hit or vice versa).

I hope Oilers buy out Horcoff. Would save me my amnesty buyout in UHL

[metaldude26]

Teams can absorb up to 50% of the salary/cap hit (equal % of both, so can't just keep some salary but move full cap hit or vice versa).

I hope Oilers buy out Horcoff. Would save me my amnesty buyout in UHL

Well that sort of manoeuver could make Horcoff appealing in a trade, won't help you in the UHL though.

[Carcillo]

Well that sort of manoeuver could make Horcoff appealing in a trade, won't help you in the UHL though.

The difference in keeping 50% of Horcoff's contract vs. using a compliance buyout on him is only $1.12 million. So I wonder what kind of return would make it worth for Oilers then to keep some of his salary instead of just buying him out?

Of course that's assuming they keep maximum amount allowed in a trade, they could also keep much lesser % too.

[metaldude26]

The difference in keeping 50% of Horcoff's contract vs. using a compliance buyout on him is only $1.12 million. So I wonder what kind of return would make it worth for Oilers then to keep some of his salary instead of just buying him out?

Of course that's assuming they keep maximum amount allowed in a trade, they could also keep much lesser % too.

I'm thinking that it would be less about the money and more about getting something in return. But based on the Jussi Jokinen deal that something might not be much.

[Carcillo]

I'm thinking that it would be less about the money and more about getting something in return. But based on the Jussi Jokinen deal that something might not be much.

Given that Horcoff is the captain, it surely would look better if they traded him than bought him out so you may be right here that it's more about getting something, no matter how little, in return.