Shark Circle™ · @SharkCircle
20th Jan 2016 from TwitLonger
@SNHockeyCentral @RealKyper @darenmillard @FriedgeHNIC Respectfully, I think you guys are missing the real story with fans voting John Scott to the all-star game. They are making fun of the GMs, not him. You're probably not plugged into the fan analytics community or reading the tweets because the people voting don't hide the reason why.
They're not laughing at Scott or laughing with Scott. They are laughing at the GMs. That's what this is about 1000%. Fans who rely on analytics to judge players see players like John Scott, Tanner Glass, and so on as completely worthless, and ruining the depth of their teams. What this John Scott thing is about is fans saying to GMs, "if you think these players are so good, good enough to keep better players who can actually skate and make plays off our roster, then we'll go ahead and make him an all-star for you."
To the analytics community, John Scott has become a symbol of the stupidity of NHL GMs, how behind the times fans see them as being. Fans see a player who can't skate, can't make plays, and tanks the possession of any line he's on, and yet GMs keep signing him, and keep giving $3M per year to players like Deryk Engelland.
That is what this is about, fans laughing about how obsessed GMs are with grit over skill. There are a couple players like this on every team and if you listen to the fan bases, fans of every team now basically hate them. Sharks fans don't like Mike Brown. Coyotes fans don't like Nicklas Grossman. If you read James Tanner's blog on hockeybuzz, his attitude to players like Nicklas Grossman is a perfect representation of the fans who voted for Scott. Ducks fans hate Clayton Stoner and Nate Thompson. Pens fans don't like Tanner Glass.
The list goes on. Many fans are fed up with seeing their teams ice slow, untalented players for reasons like "leadership," "grit," or "character" that don't show up on the stat sheets or the scoreboard, and since almost every GM still values these things on par with skill and fans have no control over it, they just started to laugh about it and make their own inside joke about it, voting John Scott to the ASG, because that's all they can do.
Big fan of the show!