Tom, stop helping!

Last Tuesday Wayne Scanlan wrote in the Ottawa Citizen about the comments from the former neighbor of Dany Heatley’s parents in Calgary. The guys name is Tom Malloy. He is a development coach in Austria so clearly he has the type of resume you need to have solid opinions in this situation.
Let’s go through some of his comments and see if they helped Dany.

“His mother is very upset. And the attacks are all personal stuff, about his character. Nobody mentions that this is a guy who gives up a month of his summer every year to play for Team Canada."

I would expect his mother would be upset. She is a mother. Hard to imagine she is surprised that the attacks are about his character. Also hard to imagine the rest of Canada should be kissing Dany’s feet because he gives up a month of his summer to play for Team Canada. He has always said it was a privilege but I guess the country owes him. Also maybe Dany has played in too many of these events. Had his teams done better he wouldn’t be available.

Tom talked about how Redden was crucified despite all his charity work, Hossa was traded and he thinks Melnyk should ask Murray “why don’t guys want to play here anymore”.

Well Redden didn’t want to leave Ottawa; the Senators could not justify his salary based on his current level of play. The Rangers are finding out the same thing. Wade was and is admired for all his charity work, but the hockey part didn’t work. As for Marian Hossa, he was told that if he got the money he wanted he would be too expensive for Ottawa to keep. When he got the money he said he was surprised to be traded. He also wanted to stay in Ottawa.

“Dany wants to play on a team that believes in his abilities”.

I think its pretty clear the franchise believes in his abilities since they signed him to a 45 million dollar contract and paid him 10 million dollars last year for his 39 goals. I think the point here is Corey Clouston and the Senators have a different idea about how to maximize those abilities and it does not correspond with Dany’s views on how his abilities should be used. Questioning whether he has them is not the point.

"The new coach (Cory Clouston) has decided that Dany is a second- or third-line player, uses him on the second power play and plays him 14 minutes a game. Dany had many closed-door conversations with him and was told that the situation would improve, but it didn't in the two months they were together."

Translation. Clouston didn’t do what Dany told him the way that Hartsburg and Paddock had done. I can imagine Dany would be perturbed about a coach who wouldn’t do what he was told. It is also preposterous to call Heatley a second or third line player. He didn’t always play with Spezza but neither did Alfredsson. In fact neither do Zetterberg and Datsyuk. Those two don’t always play on the same power play either. Does that mean Datsyuk has been demoted or is the coach just trying to force the opposition to defend against 2 great power plays because both units have elite players on them? And the playing time issue. Yes there were a few games where Heatley played 15 minutes or less. Most games he played over 20 and sometimes 23 minutes. Please let’s not pretend Dany didn’t get enough ice time to produce more. That is just laughable.

"Two years ago, they looked like the old Montreal Canadiens," Molloy said, "but they haven't been able to right the ship since."

As a guy who makes 10 million a year and asked for and received a letter and more team responsibilities, wasn’t Dany supposed to be one of the key guys to stop that slide? Now the responsibility lies with “they” and Dany is just a bystander?

Malloy says that maybe the Senators wanted to force Heatley to move by making things hard for him.

What? Are you kidding? What part of this is good for the franchise? What GM would intentionally put himself in this situation? This may be the dumbest of all the dumb comments from the Austrian Hockey teacher.

"Alfie is a god," Molloy said of Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson, "and nobody wants Spezza in a trade."

Mr. Malloy really thinks he’s helping the Heatley’s here. I believe the average person would surmise this is an opinion from Heatley’s parents which was likely former after private comments to them from Dany himself. So Mr. Malloy has now helped Dany to smear the team captain and his best friend on the team. Nice. Really nice.

Mr. Malloy my advice to you is to stay in Austria developing hockey players. You have to be better at that than helping Dany Heatley and his parents repair their public image.
Don’t do the Heatley’s anymore favors.

See you at the rink.