Well 5 games in and Elias Pettersson got exactly what I said he was going to get - a trip to the hospital.
I feel really badly for him.
I was incensed that the Vancouver Canucks would put a 160 pound kid in harm's way like that. But there's nothing that can be done.
I understand the Canucks thinking - they need to market and Elias Pettersson is an adult - making decisions for himself with his agent.
If I had been Pettersson's agent I would have told him wait at least 2 more years. Because what happened in Florida when 1st Round pick, Mike Matheson, hit him against the boards and then pushed him to the ice is totally normal and expected from a NHL defenseman.
Maybe it's been a long time since Vancouver has had an actual defenseman that does hit and play aggressively - people have forgotten that's what they're paid to do.
Matheson did his job. And if you watch again you'll see Matheson didn't expect Pettersson to just simply stand there and take it. I think Matheson expected what every other player has done to him in his career and that's to push back. You've seen it 1000 x - Matheson pushes Pettersson. Pettersson pushes back. They crosscheck each other. They skate up the ice slashing each other. Crowd cheers. They go to their benches. It's show business. It's the ENTERTAINMENT business. It's part of the job. I'm pretty sure Matheson was giving Pettersson an opportunity to look good. Nothing more. Again, it's a job. He's not there to hurt him.
But Pettersson has never seen this before.
He missed junior hockey.
He certainly didn't see this in Sweden at any level.
NHL defensemen, especially Canadian defensemen on a third pairing, are paid to be nasty.
That's Matheson's job. Nothing more.
Simply doing his job.
I don't blame anyone on the Vancouver Canucks roster for not challenging Matheson to a fight. From their point of view I'm sure they've seen that play 100 times. I think they were probably as surprised as Matheson that Pettersson just stood there like a rag doll.
I mean, what do you say to Matheson? I'm sorry you did your job? Now I have to punch you in the head because our kid hasn't played hockey?
It's a violent rough game. They're really large violent men. They get paid millions of dollars to initiate contact in a contact sport.
That's the reality.
If you want to blame someone for Pettersson's trip down concussion road - blame management or ownership or whoever made the decision to play a 6'3" 160 pound kid.
It's their job to assess things clearly.
And if an idiot at a keyboard like me could clearly and easily predict that Pettersson was going to end up in a hospital - I have to ask, why couldn't they see that?
I don't know. And hindsight is always 20/20 isn't it? And certainly they get paid to make the right decisions and I'm 100% sure they never believed this would happen. And they certainly know more about hockey than I do, I would expect. And so maybe it was just a freak accident. And there's no question Pettersson is good on the Power Play. He's a PP specialist - no question about it. How much better is he on the PP than Jake Virtanen? We'll never know though. I would suggest he's not much better. But it is what it is.
I don't know what the thinking was because I'm not in the room. If I was in the room I would have screamed blue bloody murder not to put the kid into the NHL before time in Utica or even junior if that was possible and if it wasn't I would have left him in Sweden for another year, or even two years.
I'd need to see his weight up to a steady 185 pounds and his ability to keep it on before I would dare put him on an NHL ice surface.
But the reality is it's a business. And I certainly don't own the team. I don't have any skin in the game so I'm not sure what all goes into these decisions. Perhaps they made an honest mistake. Or perhaps they say this could have happened to anyone - regardless of his size. And that's certainly possible. We don't know the unknowns. It could go down as simply a freak accident. And that's entirely possible.
But in my opinion being strong enough to play in the NHL is important. That's my opinion. You do require a certain amount of strength and you need the ability to survive physical contact. And you need to have a general understanding that it's a violent and rough game and to expect to defend yourself at all times. Never let your guard down or expect the opponent to ease up - that's when you get hurt.
One of my concerns from the get go here was that Elias Pettersson hadn't seen contact before. Not like the NHL. Not like the CHL. I doubt he's seen a single fight in the Swedish Hockey League.
It's a completely different hockey game in the NHL.
At the World Championships he got injured. And a TSN commentator said he fell on the ice a lot before that.
And I saw Pettersson and I saw him take some wallops in his previous 4 games. One nasty one in Calgary that I thought for sure broke his ribs. And I said then, publicly, he doesn't know how to avoid hits and for someone his size - that's a critical thing to learn. And I said after the Calgary game - this is a real problem and it's not going to end well. He's getting hit and at 160 pounds he should not be getting hit. Like he has to really avoid the corners and the boards here. He has to be really careful.
Somehow the Canucks have to teach this kid how to play the NHL game and avoid contact. It's critical that he avoid contact at all costs. He has to become like Wayne Gretzky and have eyes in the back of his head.
But at the age of 20 I'm not sure you can teach Pettersson how to avoid contact. He has to fundamentally change his game in order to continue his career.
I don't have the foggiest idea on how to teach this. It's usually learned in minor league hockey as you get older, year after year, you learn to avoid if you're small. I don't know if there is a physical contact in Sweden. I do know it's introduced much later. And it's not as rough or violent a sport in Sweden as it is in Canada - I think that's fair comment. Canadians play the game at a much higher physical tempo than anyone else on Earth.
And as I said Pettersson got nailed in two previous games and that should have been a warning sign to someone - this can't continue. This isn't going to end well. But on the other hand, how else is he going to learn to play the game? Other than to get clocked a few times and hope he learns from it and moves on.
As for the nonsense about "getting Matheson" that's just sick bullshit. It's a guy doing his job. Everyone needs to back right off.
We don't need another Bertuzzi incident.
If Pettersson wants to solve his issues he can start by challenging Matheson to a fight. And I guarantee that Matheson will let Pettersson get a few punches in and he won't hurt him because he's Canadian and he'll do the right thing.
So if I were a teammate of Pettersson I would tell him, look, you have to take care of yourself out there. No one can fight your battles for you. It's every man for yourself. If you let Matheson do that to you - the whole league is going to do it to you. IF you want to earn respect - then you challenge Matheson to a fight. You deal with it. Get a punch in, hold on. He'll be fine.
Or you can find another place for Pettersson to play until he gets bigger. Either way if you didn't expect this - then you really don't get hockey.
You didn't see Thomas Gradin have a stick broken over his head by Mark Messier. You didn't see Markus Naslund get elbowed in the head. You didn't see Daniel Sedin get punched in the face by Brad Marchand (which was very funny) or Duncan Keith take a flying elbow at Daniel Sedin (not so funny but expected after Daniel took a run at Keith's head).
The definition of insanity is to keep drafting Swedish hockey players and hoping they're going to turn into rugged players like Nick Lidstrom or Peter Forsberg. They were pretty unique players.
Most Swedes simply turn the other cheek.
Pettersson has to decide if he wants to be like Forsberg or like Sedin.
Because I can almost guarantee if Matheson tried that to Forsberg - Forsberg would have speed bagged him. But then again, Forsberg was 210 pounds.
And that's why the comparisons of Pettersson to Forsberg were laughable.
Pettersson is a very talented young hockey player. But boy, he's missing a lot of hockey IQ at the NHL level. He's got to learn quickly or he's going to get drummed right out of it by people just doing their jobs.
And I'm sorry you don't like that. But if it was easy to play in the NHL we all could, right?
It's not.
IF the Canucks insist on playing young Pettersson in a man's league then I would strongly suggest a new helmet, different helmet. I would like to see him in a Mark Messier type of helmet that is more rigid. I think I would attach foam to the outside of the helmet to lessen any impact. And I would probably put him in a full cage. I'm not being sarcastic I'm being serious. That's a very dangerous work environment and you've got 160 pounds of young man there that protecting has to be priority one and screw how he looks. If he looks like a dork - so what? If he's safer that's the important thing. I would almost consider using a full metal helmet, a football type of helmet for him just to be on the safe side. As for his body - I'm not sure what can be done. But I'd investigate everything INCLUDING full length old-style hockey gloves that go right up to the elbow pad. You can't be too safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment