Mark Messier Leadership Award finalists named

[Lovin Jiri Fischer 147]

No Niedermayer???

[Wings_Fan_In_Exile 3]

I've always taken this "award" as a bit of a joke since it is picked by one dude (a player I've never liked to boot). Do I care who Messier thinks is the best leader? Nope.

One thing I've always found funny about leadership discussions is this; without being in the locker room, on the bench, at the practices, the training sessions, on the road, team dinners, meetings, game film, etc... how do outsiders have much room to judge leadership beyond the on ice performance? This almost seems more like a popularity contest.

[Guest micah]

Still masquerading as a Wings fan?

I don't understand the question. Do you still beat tyour wife?

Crosby has ten times the help Yzerman had in his first ten years - there is simply no comparison to this penguins team and the Wings' teams of the 80s. No captain can do it alone, though I agree it is usually a mistake to hand over a captaincy to such young players.

There is also little comparison to the NHL of today to the 80s, when numerous players smoked and drank regularly and training and nutrition regimens were largely unheard of.

Many NHL players still drink regularly, less smoke, and some still play with recreational drugs. Training and nutrition are given a higher priority now than they were when Yzerman became Captain, but to say that training and nutrition regimens were unheard of is simply not true.

Drunk driving accidents, drinking in bars until the AM hours the night before a playoff game, smuggling cocaine accross the border, missing practices routinely, and superstars playing hard when they felt like it and only when they felt like it are all examples of activities that were unacceptable in 1988 and still are today. If you're Captain of a team that is plagued by issues like these, some (though certainly not all) of the blame for ongoing issues like these has to fall on your shoulders. Agree or disagree?

Crosby has been uniformly recognizd by his peers as the biggest whiner in the league,

Yes, he seems rather whiney.

and I have a feeling he played a large part (equal with Therrien) in the free agent penguins exodus during the last off-season.

Your "feeling" doesn't do much to convince me that this is the case. Is your feeling based on anything anyone involved has said?

Messier had a lot of success, but was easily the worst and most self-absorbed and greedy captain in Canucks history.

I agree.

That chapter is a huge blight in measuring Messier as a captain and alone renders him out of the discussion with other great contemporary captains of the time (Yzerman, Sakic, Lemiuex).

I disagree. Any fan could give you 10 legitimate reasons why any one of Mess, Lemieux, Sakic and Yzerman don't deserve to be mentioned with the others. All of them were great captains. All made mistakes, especially in their younger years. I don't think any of them did anything so awful as to remove them from the discussion, but that's just, like, my oppinion, man.

[gentex 0]

Listening to Messier talk about this award during the second intermission convinced me of one thing: The NHL ginned up an award to give to Crosby this year. Messier spent all his time talking about how wonderful Cindy is and actually compared him to Gretzky. Not only is he not Gretzky, he's not even the best player on his team. He's a 30-40 goal scorer who only plays half the game -- Zetterberg or Datsyuk without the defense. The whole thing's a sham. I only wonder what Mess is getting for putting his name on this charade.

FWIW, of the three candidates, Iginla should win.

[egroen 384]

I don't understand the question. Do you still beat tyour wife?

Cute. Of all the posters on this site, and all the Wings' fans I know, you continue to have the worst things to say about this team - from top to bottom. Even worse than Mindfly.

Many NHL players still drink regularly, less smoke, and some still play with recreational drugs. Training and nutrition are given a higher priority now than they were when Yzerman became Captain, but to say that training and nutrition regimens were unheard of is simply not true.

Ah, you ignored the biggest difference - the teams these two players had to work with. There is no comparison.

Drunk driving accidents, drinking in bars until the AM hours the night before a playoff game, smuggling cocaine accross the border, missing practices routinely, and superstars playing hard when they felt like it and only when they felt like it are all examples of activities that were unacceptable in 1988 and still are today. If you're Captain of a team that is plagued by issues like these, some (though certainly not all) of the blame for ongoing issues like these has to fall on your shoulders. Agree or disagree?

Probert was a mess (the focus of your little rant here) - with some deep-seated psychological problems and demons. I am of the opinion Yzerman was able to get the best of him, while in many other circumstances Probert could have easily become another Bryan Fogarty (with a tenth of the talent). You may see it differently, and that Probert was not an unusual case.

Your "feeling" doesn't do much to convince me that this is the case. Is your feeling based on anything anyone involved has said?

I said "feeling" because that is what it was. Should I have also included and "IMO" as well?

Crosby as a captain seems to elicit more negative opinions across the league, than he does positive. Obviously he did not receive nearly as many votes for "best leader" as he did for "biggest whiner" - depite being one of the premier talents in the NHL and taking his team to the playoffs last year. Must all be jealous.

I disagree. Any fan could give you 10 legitimate reasons why any one of Mess, Lemieux, Sakic and Yzerman don't deserve to be mentioned with the others. All of them were great captains. All made mistakes, especially in their younger years. I don't think any of them did anything so awful as to remove them from the discussion, but that's just, like, my oppinion, man.

Go ahead and list some legitimate reasons that compare with Messier demanding Vancouver hand over the captaincy to him (from Trevor Linden, who was very popular with the team and fans) and unretiring the number of a Canucks player who had died an early death. You do not even have to make it ten examples each - only a couple will do.

[Guest micah]

Ah, you ignored the biggest difference - the teams these two players had to work with. There is no comparison.

The Wings had some good players back then - Gallant, Snepts, Oates. They certainly weren't in competition for the Cup, but they weren't as awful on paper as they were in the standing. Olay, they were, but still, they were better than som elike to paint them as.

Probert was a mess (the focus of your little rant here) - with some deep-seated psychological problems and demons. I am of the opinion Yzerman was able to get the best of him, while in many other circumstances Probert could have easily become another Bryan Fogarty (with a tenth of the talent). You may see it differently, and that Probert was not an unusual case.

Probert was an unusual case - I did not intend to focus more than his share of attention on him. Just about anything you say about Probert you can say about Klima - he prefered drinking and drugs to hockey and never seemed to have the motivation to reach his potential. Fedorov played hard when he felt like it (like with Probert and Klima, I can't say for certain that a better captain when he was young could have fixed this - only that it might have. Joey Kocur beat up a chick in a car IIRC. Caught rinking late the nioght before a playoff game were Bob Probert, Petr Klima, John Chabot, Joe Kocur, Darren Veitch and Darren Eliot - not just one or two "unusual" cases. 6 players is a lot. You have to question the leadership of a team that has that sort of thing going on in the playoffs.

Go ahead and list some legitimate reasons that compare with Messier demanding Vancouver hand over the captaincy to him (from Trevor Linden, who was very popular with the team and fans) and unretiring the number of a Canucks player who had died an early death. You do not even have to make it ten examples each - only a couple will do.

The Vancouver thing was a fiasco and it reflects negatively Mess, I certainly agree. I can't thaink of anything any of the other 3 did that compares to it.

[TCbrizz 2]

Edited June 3, 2009 by TCbrizz

[gentex 0]

[Guest Shoreline]

Crosby should probably win this if you go off of recent success. Chara hasn't won s*** as a leader and regular season doesn't count for much. Iginla has got to the dance once but not won. Crosby isn't a gloater so his accomplishments off ice tend to go unknown. On the ice he's obviously a brilliant captain and his team has been winning ever since he joined. Whatever it is he's doing it's working. I wouldn't ever rank him above Yzerman (whoever did this isn't very smart) -- can't compare a few years to 20 -- but he's certainly a good leader. At any rate it really is insignificant who wins as they all deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments. People whining about Crosby are clueless.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Shoreline