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Drouin leaves his AHL team, suspended indefinitely


Commandant

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Weird shit going on with Drouin tonight.

He's not playing for Syracuse against Toronto.

Pierre Lebrun tweets he's been suspended without pay for not showing up to the game.

Elliotte Freidman tweets he's in the building sitting with the Syracuse healthy scratches.

Bob McKenzie says the relationship between player and team has gone nuclear.

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I don't care who he is listening to, have some pride for your career, and be a professional, this is not how to conduct yourself in a pro league. At the end of the day he is in charge of his life, what he is told to do is ultimately just advice, they have no hold over him. If he fired the people he thought were giving him bad advice and did his own thing in this matter because it is what his principles compel him to do, there would be 3 more managers sprouting up for the job.

this whole thing is rubbing me the wrong way, and I would be much more comfortable with staying away at this point than taking the chance on acquiring the NHL's next Mariah Carey

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See I'm curious if there are underlying problems in Tampa Bay as an organization.

The Martin St. Louis issues, Stamkos strangeness, Drouin hold out.

I mean we did experience the Gauthier regime here in Montreal.

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Maybe that's just it, looks like Yzerman has a mess on his hands, and has had with more than one player, who's fault is that? Maybe he is just a d

1ck?

Maybe this kid is just fiery, and is not taking any sh!t.

He is still better than all but about 5 of our forwards, and may need to be coddled by the French environment, to make him reach his potential.

We aren't going to trade Price, Patch, Subban or Galchenyuk for him, so why not take a chance on playmaker with vision and skills like this kid has, and that's just it, he's still a kid...

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Maybe that's just it, looks like Yzerman has a mess on his hands, and has had with more than one player, who's fault is that? Maybe he is just a d

1ck?

Maybe this kid is just fiery, and is not taking any sh!t.

He is still better than all but about 5 of our forwards, and may need to be coddled by the French environment, to make him reach his potential.

We aren't going to trade Price, Patch, Subban or Galchenyuk for him, so why not take a chance on playmaker with vision and skills like this kid has, and that's just it, he's still a kid...

I would feel more confidant acquiring him if we some more solid vets.

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Wow, that escalated quickly. This will definitely diminish his trade value and possibly his career if T-Bay just lets him rot on suspension. I bet they wish they picked Seth Jones now :rolleyes:

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Scuzzy. He's playing Drouin like a fiddle. When's the last time someone held out for a trade in the salary cap era. This kid is either a colossal asshole, or listening to the wrong people. I'll take the latter.

It's both - like I said before, Allan Walsh is a sleazebag of an agent who some teams try to avoid dealing with - remember Price vs Halak on Twitter? He started it. Drouin also has a sense of entitlement and he shouldn't be rewarded for his actions. Instead of sucking it up and trying to improve down there, he wants to go pout. You're 20 years old and the indignity of playing in the minors is too much for your liking? Boo freaking hoo. He's not too good of a player to be down there - his performance with Syracuse thus far hasn't exactly been electrifying...and if he's dogging it down there, he's even more of an idiot.

I hope Tampa holds on to him for even longer now.

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It's both - like I said before, Allan Walsh is a sleazebag of an agent who some teams try to avoid dealing with - remember Price vs Halak on Twitter? He started it. Drouin also has a sense of entitlement and he shouldn't be rewarded for his actions. Instead of sucking it up and trying to improve down there, he wants to go pout. You're 20 years old and the indignity of playing in the minors is too much for your liking? Boo freaking hoo. He's not too good of a player to be down there - his performance with Syracuse thus far hasn't exactly been electrifying...and if he's dogging it down there, he's even more of an idiot.

I hope Tampa holds on to him for even longer now.

This is a young players league, I can respect players that want to take their career in their own hands. I used to respect contracts, but really, owners can trade your contract without a second thought, so if you think you're getting a shitty end of the deal, speak up for yourself. The NHL is stuck in this 'sit down rookie do as your told' bullcrap, I'm glad he's taking it to the bolts. The bolts are dumb if they refused his request to not play, you can hate his agents methods but sitting out and not playing for an organization that you will have no part of in the future is smart business. We as fans forget that this is a business, and rookies get paid like dirt (I mean not compared to us, they make tons, but to other players in the league), and if he got hurt, you think the bolts would 'support' him for the rest of his career? Nah, they'd dump him on the side of the road like orgs do with all players they don't want anymore.

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This is a young players league, I can respect players that want to take their career in their own hands. I used to respect contracts, but really, owners can trade your contract without a second thought, so if you think you're getting a shitty end of the deal, speak up for yourself. The NHL is stuck in this 'sit down rookie do as your told' bullcrap, I'm glad he's taking it to the bolts. The bolts are dumb if they refused his request to not play, you can hate his agents methods but sitting out and not playing for an organization that you will have no part of in the future is smart business. We as fans forget that this is a business, and rookies get paid like dirt (I mean not compared to us, they make tons, but to other players in the league), and if he got hurt, you think the bolts would 'support' him for the rest of his career? Nah, they'd dump him on the side of the road like orgs do with all players they don't want anymore.

You make some fair points. But what does it say about Drouin that he's pulling this at the first sign of adversity? Do you think other teams are praising him for what's happening; are teams saying to themselves that they need to up the ante to get him since he's a gamer or are they rethinking things realizing that this could just as well happen to them?

Tampa Bay is under no obligation to trade him and I don't think he realizes that. He may not want to play to ensure he stays healthy for his new team - should he get one - but Tampa doesn't have to oblige that demand. They're well within their right to ask him to play. He's still a prospect that can benefit from development in the AHL. So them wanting him to play is a fair and realistic request. And he if refuses to, they're also well within their right to attempt to toll his contract. You can suggest Drouin owes Tampa nothing but the same can be said the other way too.

There are times where I could support a player asking out. Someone with less than one season under his belt isn't one of those, no matter how aggrieved he may feel. I have no issues with a player speaking up - but that should be in discussions with the coaches if you're not happy with your role. What's the number one solution to playing more? Play better, not pack your bags and go home.

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how much better do you have to play than leading your entire team in p/60.

Ya, doesn't even make sense that they are not playing him in the NHL anyway... Wreaks of Stevie Y playing "politics for dollars/total control no matter what" game to me.

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Tampa just lost their backup plan if Stamkos goes to the free market, all because they'd rather play Cedric Paquette and Jon Marchesseault over their third overall pick.

To an extent, but he's been outshined (or overshadowed) by all of the great young talent there. The triplets, Namestnikov, Hedman, Vasilievskiy. They probably prefer to have some grittier players in the bottom six. JT Brown is a young guy who's won a spot there. I don't think that he's better than Drouin, but he's a better fit on the fourth line with Brian Boyle. Maybe if they demand Marc Staal for St Louis instead of Callahan they have Drouin scoring 20/50 on the first line with Stamkos.

This thing has really taken on a life of it's on, and it's making Drouin look bad.

Yzerman should just deal the guy. He's not going get a return like Seth Jones or Aaron Ekblad for him, so cut your losses. Take N8 and a prospect, or Shea Theodore and a pick out in Anaheim and avoid the team distraction.

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He's only been outshone by those guys cause they get more minutes

In terms of pts/60... not one player on tampa was better than drouin last year, not one... not stamkos, not johnson, no one.

So with that in mind, it seems a silly coaching decision to staple him to the bench and to the AHL. Every time you play him he produces.

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Drouin looks bad from this, and the kid plain looks dumb, but I'd still take him. We'd have to believe in the cohesion and character of our young core - Patch, Subban, Gallagher and Galchenyuk - that we could integrate him and maximize his talent, which there's no reason to doubt (any more than Galchenyuk, for instance). The quality and character of our organization has always been praised and has to be considered a strong point for us under Bergevin. The biggest sticker is that he's a local boy and thus will have to deal with the ridiculousness times ten, which is a good argument to not have any French guys at all. But we NEED this type of top-end offensive talent.

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how much better do you have to play than leading your entire team in p/60.

There's more to hockey than just p/60. There's playing in your own end as well, something that Drouin has been unwilling to do on a consistent basis. If all Tampa cared about from him was point production, he'd have played more, no doubt. But they want him to be a better overall player, hence the lower ice time (to try to use as a motivator) or outright benching in the playoffs. Drouin just doesn't seem to take well to criticism and thinks a little too highly of himself (or his agent has way too much say in this...which is certainly a possibility).

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There's more to hockey than just p/60. There's playing in your own end as well, something that Drouin has been unwilling to do on a consistent basis. If all Tampa cared about from him was point production, he'd have played more, no doubt. But they want him to be a better overall player, hence the lower ice time (to try to use as a motivator) or outright benching in the playoffs. Drouin just doesn't seem to take well to criticism and thinks a little too highly of himself (or his agent has way too much say in this...which is certainly a possibility).

Even if he's garbage in his own end, he's still more valuable to the overall club than Cedric Paquette. You bench him when he blows his defensive assignments, you don't send him to the AHL and keep him there.

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