Kin
New member
crazyperfectdevil said:So a lot of the fan base that had to endure the late and post Sittler years were still happier about the state of things.
Well, you'll notice that in what I said about Sundin I didn't say word one about the fans. I was talking about how he dealt with the media and the media's job ultimately is the same regardless of how good the team is, they want to drive conversation and sell papers and the easy way to do that is to criticize the club.
I actually think being on a losing team insulates Kessel to a degree. Phaneuf too. What's, by far, the most common defense of Phaneuf? "Who else is going to play those minutes? Who else should be the #1 defenseman?". Same thing with Kessel. Most people will say, rightfully, that Kessel isn't the problem with this team but in a situation like the Leafs were in for most of Sundin's tenure(and let's not forget that Sundin had quite a few years on bad teams too) Sundin did face a lot of questions as to whether or not he was a good enough captain/best player to take the team where they needed to go.
But, again, that didn't tend to go anywhere because Mats just never went for the bait. He didn't give interesting copy. He was honest but not overly insightful and didn't give the impression that he was overly annoyed by that aspect of the job.