I was referring more chronologically closer to when JT first signed. But yah the water had already been poisoned in his rookie season by Babs with the psycho mindgames shit. His "nature" seems largely influenced by his dad who, from all evidence seems like a very spiteful person.
Management definitely failed in surrounding 16/34/88 with the right kind of veterans, in addition to all the playoff rentals that haven't lived up to expectations. JT obviously didn't teach Mitch anything about hometown passion, dude's heart was already in Vegas the last 2 playoff runs.
I...
I love how the fringe player that couldn't make the roster is doing this media tour, and of course because he's talking about the Leafs in a negative way it's getting more attention than it should. In fact he should be kissing Tre's ass for the $4M.
Prominent player on the last true clutch Leaf playoff team (2002) that unfortunately just got too injured and ran out of gas. Voted the 22nd Most Hated Team All-Time by SI in 2010:
:ROFLMAO:
Mitch will have every opportunity to rack up points & rewrite the "playoff choker" narrative now that he's in the Pacific division. The same blanket of illusion that covers the Oilers.
Every PR move Mitch does ends up looking bad. I don't know if it's him or the people that surround him (likely both), but the messaging is usually terrible and if it isn't, Mitch's tone ends up souring the whole thing.
Dude had it all here and took every wrong fork in the road on his way out.
He's been checked out for at least two seasons now. Based on the rumours I'm sure the AM34 captaincy thing was some extra salt in the "wound". But yah Shanny is looking like a weak exec who lost track of the big picture, gotta identify the cancer early and cut it out.