McKenzie on salvaging Schultz, "toxicity" of Oilers' losing ways
/Bob McKenzie was on Toronto’s TSN 1050 on Thursday afternoon.
On if anything larger should be read into the Oilers making Justin Schultz a healthy scratch tonight:
“Well, he hasn’t played very well. What you can read into it is he does not deserve to be in the lineup...
“And let’s make one thing perfectly clear here. There were 30 teams in the National Hockey League that were beating down Justin Schultz’s door to get him when he decided he didn’t want to play for Anaheim. And he had the unique window or unique loophole in the CBA to declare himself a free agent, and he did so. There were 30 teams in the NHL – yeah, I’ll say 30 because Anaheim wanted him too and he didn’t want to be there. So it wasn’t like this guy was perceived as damaged goods. This guy was perceived to be a Top-4 defenceman in the National Hockey League who might have an upside that would lead you to believe he could be a Top-2 defenceman. Potentially an elite offensive player.
“Nobody ever confused him for a defensive defenceman. But his overall game has taken so many steps back this year, that I guess the coaching staff feels like there is no other choice than to sit him in the press box. And I don’t think there’s any question in my mind that at various points this year the coaches probably wanted to do that earlier, and management was like, ‘No, we can’t devalue the asset. We’ve got to keep him trying to be positive. Continue to develop.’
“And maybe there’s been some thought to moving him and you don’t want to move a guy that’s sitting in the press box, but it’s just to the point where they’ve got to do something on that front.”
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On if all of the teams that wanted Schultz were wrong, or if the player can be salvaged:
“I think the player can still be salvaged. I think the problem they’re going to run into in Edmonton pretty soon, if they haven’t already, is that the toxicity of the eight years not in the playoffs and the losing and all of that that goes with it, that... the psyche starts to be damaged of the individuals that are there. Be it Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Jordan Eberle, Nail Yakupov, Justin Schultz. The kids that are going through this every night and all the drama that’s been associated with it, do they come out of this damaged and does their development get hindered by it? That’s going to be the question mark.”
Source: TSN 1050/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey