[jt]

Originally Posted by King Blazer

Let me give you a scenario that unfolded in Lowell this season in Mid March:

Monarchs are playing in Lowell. Lowell has posession in the Monarchs zone. Puck is passed to a Lowell player in the corner to Hauser's right and that player is uncontested because Ryan blew his assignment. He was standing all alone between the circles. Weaver has to leave his man in front to defend against the Lowell player coming out of the corner. Weaver wins the puck and has to take an icing call so they can re-group. As they skate to the bench, Weaver was on Ryan about his missed assignment. Ryan basically tells Weaver to go F himself, flips his stick blade-up and strokes it while looking at Weaver. Weaver goes to the defenseman's end of the bench, Ryan to the forward's end all the while barking at each other. Weaver says something to Hughes on the bench and Ryan and Weaver start throwing f-bombs at one another from the ends of the bench. Weaver appears to be getting up to go beat on Ryan when Hughes grabs him and sits him back down.

I originally looked at this as a veteran pointing out a mistake to a rookie and the rookie having an extremely immature attitude regarding the veteran's feed-back. Yes, Weaver was way hot, visibly pissed and his dig your head out of your ass comment to Ryan might not have been the best way to commence dialogue BUT, bottom line is Ryan screwed-up, a vet pointed it out ,and Ryan didn't take the criticism well. In retrospect, I'm wondering if Ryan was feeling pressure and just snapped...

Thanks for the scenario and (as usual) I see your point. That may well be a sign that the Kings should have replaced Lehoux and it was a mistake not to...that it hurt Ryan's development...hurt the team...and also hurt their ability to win (thus hurting their overall development). But the flip side is that maybe that's precisely what Ryan needed...or what Cammy needed to see. Honestly, I don't know and at this point I'm just looking at all sides and all the possibilities. I've made it clear in the past...I have faith in DT and I think his decisions are well founded. I may not agree with all of them but they're almost always sensible and founded in good logic.