[ad_1]
When news came out ahead of the start of the season that center Pierre-Luc Dubois wanted to leave Columbus, the Blue Jackets presented themselves as disappointed but unfazed, insisting they would handle things the same way they did. did their business in 2018-2019 when the whole world knew that Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky were planning to leave.
It didn’t work that way. The Blue Jackets only have one win in five games, a rocky start that is made worse by the short season and each game being intra-divisional. Dubois himself has just one point in five games, and that’s hardly the worst. He was visibly disengaged on the ice, with head coach John Tortorella hitting his boiling point after that lackluster change on Thursday. Dubois did not see any ice the rest of the night.
Bigger implications aside, Tortorella was right to bench Dubois. It is an objectively horrible “effort” and it is not even about being accountable or leading by example. Tortorella needed to ice a roster that would optimize his team’s chances of winning the game and he couldn’t risk more damaging changes from a cross.
Nor is it to celebrate or even necessarily to forgive Dubois’ ice apathy. Regardless of what happens between him and management, his poor performance has collateral damage. It hurts his teammates and it’s a shame for the fans.
Dubois’ handling of the situation is cynical and outrageous. It is also really the only avenue at his disposal to influence his own destiny.
Teams unilaterally draft players at 17 or 18, then have more or less full control over that player for the next eight years until they become unrestricted free agents. Dubois, 22, is one of the most capable and desirable players in the world. Yet when he was out of contract this summer, he had little leverage in negotiations with the Blue Jackets, let alone seeking other opportunities.
Columbus would have had the chance to match any contract Dubois signed with any other team and ink under those exact conditions. If they had refused to match and let him go, the signing team would have owed draft compensation. Leaving Columbus would have forced another team to offer him a contract that they believed him and the loss of draft selection to be worth it, but also high enough that Columbus did not match him. It is a difficult needle to thread. Only two offer cards have been signed in the past decade, both being matched by the team holding their rights. Dustin Penner’s departure from Anaheim to Edmonton in 2007 is the only time in the salary cap era that a player has changed teams via an offer sheet. Difficult logistics mean teams rarely care.
Dubois also had no right of arbitration, which effectively meant that he was indebted to whatever Columbus was willing to offer him. His only leverage was to refuse to sign a deal, make himself unavailable for the start of the session, and demand a trade. It certainly wouldn’t have been ideal for Columbus, he would be out of sight and they would still have one-sided leverage on the situation. They would still hold his rights until 2024 and they could wait as long as they wanted to move him. When would it be? Columbus CEO Jarmo Kekäläinen would have been more than happy to take his time on this matter.
Suddenly, Dubois took the path of least resistance, which is to sign a two-year contract, to show up for the season and to force the case into disarray. He was such a handicap on the ice that his head coach had to bench him. Tortorella and the other players are forced to answer questions about the situation almost daily at this point. Local and national media attention is hyper-focused on the organization for all the wrong reasons. It became a distraction, and one that Athletic’s Aaron Portzline has now judged “untenable.” The longer this goes on, the bigger the problem will become.
The situation is ugly but it is not Dubois’ fault. If you’re a Columbus fan or teammate who is upset with the way this is going, blame a system that left Dubois with little room to make his own employment decisions.
The fact that a player like Dubois has so little influence over the most valuable part of his hockey career is an intentional design by hockey owners to keep wages low and reduce competition. To some extent, also blame the players’ union, which voluntarily signed the ABC. A two-year, $ 10 million contract wouldn’t even come close to cutting it off for Dubois in a true free market. The mechanisms in place to artificially and severely limit the player’s influence allow Columbus to sign him well below his true worth.
No one is asking you to feel bad for Dubois. If his biggest complaint is that he receives a salary of $ 10 million to eat, travel and sleep in first-class accommodation and play sports, then he is luckier than 99% of the world’s population under these circumstances. normal, not to mention a pandemic. – induced recession.
We can still recognize that Dubois’ fight is always beneficial for a bigger cause. Pitting the working classes against each other is a very useful tool for the wealthy, and while millionaire hockey players aren’t exactly 1900s coal miners, a ebbing tide lowers all boats. The best players in the league are the anchor by which all the players below are compared. If a player like Dubois is ashamed to accept all the circumstances in which he has been coerced, then what chance for much lesser players – right down to the Minor Leaguers – to cringe to negotiate their worth and exert some control over their career ? It only benefits league ownership.
Say what you like about Dubois’ actions, but they worked. The Blue Jackets, who a few days ago were willing to bide their time looking for the exact deal they wanted, quickly reconsidered and appear about to grant Dubois his exchange request. NHL owners have fought tooth and nail for a system that gives players like Dubois a small agency and challenges them to break with a hockey culture that stigmatizes becoming a problem and pushing one’s needs through. before those of the team. Dubois called their bluff. If they don’t like it, the NHL franchises are free to loosen their control on young players and provide them with more conventional means to dictate the terms of their employment.
[ad_2]
Source link