Quote:
Originally Posted by GravesFan9
Hey, visiting Ranger fan here...I was wondering if someone could elaborate on this locker room issue, I'm not too familiar with it, and am curious.
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Nobody is really sure of what it is, either. Sometime during the season, around January, or so, the Kings team just collapsed (starting, imo, with the 10-1 loss to Buffalo).
There was a lot of speculation as to what was going on inside the locker room, and a lot of people believe it centered around Sean Avery and the coaching staff. As far as some fans can tell, there was a divisive rift in the locker room between two or more camps of players that supported Sean Avery or hated Sean Avery and supported Andy Murray and Co. or wanted to see him go. Other names that have been tossed around that may have been involved: Jeremy Roenick, Eric Belanger.
Essentially, Andy Murray lost control of the team, the players really just kind of gave up, and they were never the same after that. A lot of people criticise Matty Norstrom as not being a good vocal leader because, while he was always touted as being a good leader-by-example, he couldn't seem to hold the team together in a vocal manner.
The fallout of all of this has been the firings of Murray and GM Dave Taylor, the hiring of Dean Lombardi, and Lombardi's off-season plan of building a team with good character veteran guys (Scott Thornton, Alyn McCauley, Dan Cloutier, etc.) so that the Kings will learn to win as a team and so the younger players receive quality mentoring.
