You missed Langkow the other night, who couldn't hold a stick but with his season on the line he went in banging and crashing and sacrificed.
Mike Richards needs surgery on his shoulder and yet HE LED HIS TEAM IN SCORING!!!
You can play with an injured shoulder...separated, dislocated, torn ligaments. Sore tendons. You can skate. You can block shots. You can set an example and sacrifice. Lots of players do it. It's just about how badly you want it.
the flames were more worried about their rather scary/poor salary cap situation and needed to dump salary, on top of that they essentially replaced tanguay with mike cammileri who went on to score 36 goals for them so youre only partially correct about them not wanting a warm body back.. there needs were cap space and the want/need to replace tanguay with someone else to compliment their team in an attempt to "shake things up" after a poor playoff performance which they felt cammileri would do (they could not have acquired cammileri w/o trading tanguay first however if my memory serves me correctly). not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be.
Why didn't they ask for Kostitsyn, one of them or Higgins. AKost and Higgins both had over 50 points and with a different team and system, might of done even better.
This and from comments after his departure makes me think they just wanted to get rid of him because he didn't fit well over there. Too soft.
I think it's completly up to a player to decide whether he's healthy enough or not to play and I will never criticize a player that decides to sit and heal.
I will probably cheer at the player that will play despite an injury (if he's any use of course), but I will never fault a player that can't play through it.
This and from comments after his departure makes me think they just wanted to get rid of him because he didn't fit well over there. Too soft.
That might what they say to give themselves good conscience, and maybe he didn't fit with Keenan and was sick and tired of being miscast as a checking line forward because the Flames did not have any forwards that wouldn't get torched unless they played with Tanguay or Iginla. So Keenan made a scoring line with Iggy and cobbled together a second line of Tanguay, Conroy, and Nolan, which Tanguay essentially carried by himself. He was even used as a penalty-killer, which he did very effectively... but I can't imagine was what he imagined himself doing. So yeah, I think I see how he didn't fit that team...
The reality is that Tanguay was that team's second best forward, and trading him a salary dump, plain and simple. To reuse a phrase I really liked from a Flames blog, he was crowded out by the suck. (Incidentally, the Flames are in such a cap crunch again that they had to dress 16 guys for some of the late games this season.)
I think it's completly up to a player to decide whether he's healthy enough or not to play and I will never criticize a player that decides to sit and heal.
I will probably cheer at the player that will play despite an injury (if he's any use of course), but I will never fault a player that can't play through it.
Yeah that's a good attitude. Basically you're happy if a player can play with an injury to help his team, but you're not expecting and demanding it. After all, who are we to expect players to risk worsening their injuries for entertainment sake, while we sit behind our TV and computer screens nice and healthy?
This thread is just wrong. Tanguay played some games injured to help his team, but he didn't play ALL the games. French Fairy!!!!
Why didn't they ask for Kostitsyn, one of them or Higgins. AKost and Higgins both had over 50 points and with a different team and system, might of done even better.
This and from comments after his departure makes me think they just wanted to get rid of him because he didn't fit well over there. Too soft.
clearly they felt cammileri was a better fit for them and went with him instead?
As previously stated, we don't know the extent of his injury, when compared with the others mentioned. If you're gonna bring up Langenbrunner or Carter for that matter lets be sure that
A/ You understand they may have had different injuries
B/ You understand the circumstances which led to them playing (or not playing) were completely different.
In Tanguay case, he had an injury earlier in the season that looked like it was re-injured against TB, I was a bit shocked to see him in the playoffs, so I give him props for that. In order for him to be an effective player he needs to be able to control the puck/play to distribute the puck. Doing that was clearly impossible for him, and please don't tell me you don't think the Bruins were concentrating on his shoulder, they were, making it virtually impossible to play his type of game and contribute. We also had other players more suited to the physical nature of the series.
I doubt him playing hurt would have provided any extra motivation to our guys.
Carter and Langenbrunner are the captains of their clubs, and both play different offensive roles. Carter is a point getter, but plays a game where he is the one initiating contact and Pitts probably had no idea he was hurt, he also could clearly still handle the puck and shoot it. Langenbrunners was clearly a veteran move to inpire his club. He's been there before and his playoff grit is well known. He was in pain and should be commended, but he's at a different stage in his career and the series was not out of reach, he tried to pull a Messier type move and it almost worked.
I'd like to see Tangs back, I hope he doesn't read this crap.
Although I do think he is one of the softest players around, I dont think he would not play in a do or die game.I had heard on the radio, that he had problems lifting his arm.Even with cortisone shots , is Tanguay at 50% an effective player? Probably not.
What worries me more is the statement by his agent Bob Sauve saying Tanguay had questions he wanted answered before he would re-sign. That , to me looks like a way out of signing here.
Good one.
