Jonathan Drouin And Tampa Bay Lightning Attempt To Be First Couple To Successfully "Go On A Break"
Last player on the ice, first player off the ice. Or at least that’s how I think the saying goes. And just like that, Jonathan Drouin is back playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning organization. It still may only be with the Syracuse Crunch, but it’s more than just sitting around at home skating with his midgets team in Montreal.
I was beyond shocked when Jonathan Drouin wasn’t dealt at the trade deadline the other week. Leading up to the deadline, all we heard was quotes from Steve Yzerman that he was looking to move Drouin “sooner than later”. There were reports that Tampa had at least 5-6 legitimate offers on the table for him. Yet that 3pm deadline on February 29 came and gone, and Jonathan Drouin was still a member of the Lightning. And up until yesterday, it looked like the kid was going to stick to his guns and continue to refuse to play until he was moved. But that’s obviously not the case anymore.
We’ve all seen this exact story go down at least once in our life. Maybe some of us have even been a part of it. You see a couple get into a heated alcohol-fueled argument at the bar or at a party. Things are said that can’t be taken back. It kills the entire mood at the party and when they sober up the next morning, they decide that maybe it’s time to “go on a break”. Now a “break” is an automatic death sentence to nearly 99% of all relationships. That is proven and backed up by science. Breaks work just as well as every Sunday morning when you say you’re never drinking alcohol again, then Friday night rolls around and you’re ready to go make the same mistakes all over again. When you go on a break, it’s probably because one of the people in the relationship already has somebody else in mind that they want to fuck. But they don’t want to call it an actual break-up so they have a fail safe to fall back on just in case that person doesn’t work out for them either. But for some reason, it would appear that Jonathan Drouin and the Tampa Bay Lightning are one of those crazy kids who think they can actually make this thing work.
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Let’s actually think about this for a second. Jonathan Drouin is a 20-year-old kid. I get that’s not a valid excuse for the actions he took this year but it’s important to remember that he’s a kid. He would be a sophomore in college right now if he wasn’t a professional hockey player. Show me one college sophomore who hasn’t made a poor decision in his life. He’s a kid who has never had to really fight for a spot on any team he’s ever played for before. Then he shows up to Tampa and all of a sudden, he’s not the #1 guy anymore. I think Yzerman can understand where the frustration was coming from and this situation is drastically different than if a guy who has already been in the league for a while made the same decision. That’s reason #1 for why I think this relationship could actually be salvaged.
#2 is that Drouin is ridiculously talented. I don’t know the full details on what offers were made to Yzerman at the deadline, but I have to imagine there were a lot of really good players involved. Yzerman still said no to all of them because that’s how much he values Drouin’s talent. If the Lightning lose Stamkos to free agency this summer, Yzerman will have to value Drouin’s talent even more. I know that you want to have good locker room guys on your team and Jonathan Drouin appears to be more of a cancer than anything at this point. But as much as locker room guys are great, talent guys put the puck in the back of the net. And that’s what is most important (hot take, I know). And then reason #3 why I think Drouin and Yzerman can actually salvage this relationship is because they need each other in order for anything to happen here. The longer Drouin stays out of hockey, the more his value drops. The more his value drops, the less likely it will be for Yzerman to trade him. The less likely it is for Yzerman to trade him, the more futile the entire scenario becomes. So now I guess they both just have to swallow a little bit of pride and pretend like that drunken fight at the bar a couple months ago never happened. It’ll be awkward at first. They’re both scared to get hurt again. But they are young and in love and they want to make this thing work. That is, of course, until the next time they get drunk at the bar and start fighting with each other again only to realize this will never work out.
P.S. – Tampa Bay wins the Stanley Cup this year, game 7 overtime, Stamkos from Drouin. Just want this down on the record so I can say I told you so.