The Forsberg Flop

Hey! Ho! Let's Go!! Let the speculation begin.

Apparently, it only takes two months of having a player on your team before you're able to accurately assuage his future career plans. Nashville Predators GM David Poile believes that Peter Forsberg will not return to the NHL next season. According to pieces on tsn.ca and espn.com, Poile gleaned this information from the physical beating Forsberg has taken over the years, not through any conversations the GM and player have had since his acquisition in February.

In a bit of dramatic irony, I'll bet the house that fans in Denver and Philadelphia must be humming The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" after reading the above paragraph.

How can this hockey lifer rush to judgment based on nothing, and fooled so easily as to take that information to the press? Poile can even cite precedent on the issue, as, back in 1986 when he was GM in Washington, longtime forward Bengt Gustafsson went home to Sweden on indefinite leave after a seven-year NHL career. That indefinite time period happened to be only the 1986-87 season, and Gustafsson played two more years before quitting the league for good.

Rule Number Two of the European Hockey Player's Ethos states that threatening to return to one's native country to either retire or to play a shorter international season is either 1) a bargaining tool during contract negotiations (as in Detroit's Niklas Lidstrom's repeated threats to take his kids back to Sweden to be educated in his native land), or 2) a way to deflect organizational or media pressure on the issue of returning to play in the NHL (see Forsberg with Flyers).

Poile even goes on to say that he was sure Forsberg would not come back, because he surely wouldn't exclude Nashville if he were thinking of a return. Gotcha!!

Forsberg did reveal to the Swedish press that he's opting out of playing for the Tre Kronor in the upcoming Worlds. No brainer there. Twenty years ago, it might have been a big deal for a superstar to duck any post-NHL tourney, but everyone, Forsberg included, takes a beating over the course of an 82-game schedule plus playoffs. Still, that refusal should merely be taken as a chance for Foppa to take a deserved rest, and not as a prelude to an impending retirement.

You've gotta figure that Our Hamlet will take every possible second he needs to make a proper decision. With God-given and practice-honed talents on his side in the prime of his career, it is a blessing that he can delay so long and then come back in full charge without a full off-season's worth of preparation.

The Flyers situation being what it is, it will drive a certain passionate and desperate portion of the fan base to distraction in the maniacal fantasy that Forsberg really will return to the team for One Last Shot at the Cup. I've stated here before that it won't really be in the club's best interest to woo him back with so many choice free agents who are younger and healthier.

Still, his final decision will have a definite ripple effect over a vast portion of the league. He's only been with three teams in his career - there's nothing set in stone that he won't seriously consider the other 27. Then again, there's nothing set in stone that he even considers anything but his own needs.

That's what makes the whole thing so beautiful and so frustrating at the same time.