#jtm8

‘‘Well, it's a sorry sight when the one you love is looking back at you from the arms of another.’’

i absolutely agree that galvanizing players are important! i feel like low morale is actually way more of a game-killer than people give it credit for. especially during the regular seasons when teams are on bad/losing streaks, keeping big personalities and aggressive playmaking presence in the locker room can be a huge help for getting out of slumps.

that being said, there's a fine line between being a hype man and just some asshole. both are crucial to team chemistry off the ice (getting the energy up) and on the ice (higher octane play, more entertaining checking/fights/chirps). optimally, they whip up the older players, inspire the younger ones, and generally act as the motivational glue.

the key difference is that the hype man never takes it too seriously. marchand is a prime example of this. he's an absolute menace on the ice; that man is pushing bitches and licking faces left and right. but nobody actually seems to hate him. one of my fav bits of evidence for this is the 2021 nhlpa poll that asked players who they least enjoy playing against but most want on their roster. the number one pick? rat man marchand. because he's a fucking great teammate. he gives everyone their flowers (and defends them even after they stop playing together), presents actually constructive criticism, and is genuinely beloved by the fans. even if players like marchand are hell to face off, opponents can still respect their ethic. ryan reaves and brandon duhamie also fit this archetype.

just some asshole, however, is always going to take it way too seriously. they use aggression and pain as a means of promoting stronger performance (i.e. they are trying to hurt others, either to get them to play better or to take them out of the game). instead of bringing their teammates together, they try to split them into separate camps and create competition. on an even deeper microlevel, they'll critique specific players and get others to join in on the scapegoating (uniting against a common "enemy" to artificially create cohesion). i feel like i don't need to rehash all the canucks drama last season to prove why jt miller fills this box lol. his hotheadedness and cheap digs are exactly what got him traded in the first place; it didn't bring the team any closer together and, in fact, made existing rifts worse.

matthew tkachuk is kind of hard for me to place firmly in either category. frankly, he's kind of cooled down since his first couple seasons in calgary (he actually seems pretty self-aware that he used to be way more off the rails), but he's still not the most well-liked in the league. like i don't think he counts as a hype man because other players don't respect him as a person, but he's not really just another asshole because his actual teammates sing his praises when it comes to locker room energy. ultimately he might truly just go down the middle of the spectrum.

Tkachuk was named in the first six a long time ago. He’s skating now so he’ll be back in a couple weeks probably. JT got on because he has the grittiness they want. Robo was absolutely robbed but it happens every Olympic cycle.

i guess the thought i keep coming back to is that the olympics are supposed to be best on best hockey. that's the magic of it; every country is sending their top performers, at the tops of their games, to represent their country. at this point, tkachuk does not fit that criteria. he got injured in four nations, lost out on the back half of the 24/25 season, and only came back for the playoff run. he has not played a game in seven months. he's only been skating in practice since november (not working out) and even then he's admitted it's still touch-and-go. therefore, at some point he's had to make the case that he is capable of getting surgery, fully recovering, and training back into his peak shape from almost a year ago in the span of three months. i dont doubt that tkachuk can physically be on the ice by february, but i just don't buy that he would be there at his best, which i believe defeats the purpose of being on the roster at all. but clearly bill guerin thinks differently and im not the gm of team usa hockey 🤷‍♀️ moreover, i honestly think that no one would have blamed guerin if he had put tkachuk in a reserved injury slot so he could still be an option for the lineup no matter what and honor his first six selection in some way.

as for jt miller, i can see where the "grit" factor has appeal. i just think its ill-suited for the olympics. the nhl has a lot of specific rules around fighting and the olympics only has one: you can't do it. that's not to say that having more physical players isn't still necessary-- nelson, larkin, and thompson could all be categorized as having rougher games and i don't think they're out of place on the roster-- but the strict no-fighting rule makes one of miller's defining talents in an international competition kind of obsolete. at four nations, he played four games during which he scored zero goals and factored zero assists. his current production in new york in also not encouraging (the three other physical players i just mentioned are all outpacing him in both goals and assists) and doesn't reflect any skills that you couldn't find at a higher level in other players already on the team.

you know who else is outpacing miller? jason robertson. by double digits. granted, no one's ever accused robo of being a fighter, but i would make the argument that his "grit" is way more valuable than miller's because you actually get bang for his buck. also not for nothing, but robo's not like a willowy guy either; he's taller than miller and only nine pounds lighter lmao. and he has proved more than capable of using that size.