When news emerged, before the start of the season, that the Pierre-Luc Dubois center wanted to leave Columbus, the Blue Jackets were disappointed but unwavering, insisting that they would deal with the situation in the same way that they acted in their business in 2018. -19, when the whole world knew that Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky intended to leave.
It didn’t work that way. The Blue Jackets have only one victory in five games, a difficult start that is compounded by the short season and with all games being intra-divisions. Dubois himself has only one point in five games, and that is hardly the worst of all. He has been visibly disengaged on ice, with coach John Tortorella reaching his boiling point after this lackluster change on Thursday. Dubois saw no ice for the rest of the night.
Leaving aside the bigger implications, Tortorella was right to put Dubois on the bench. This is an objectively horrendous “effort” and it is not about accountability or setting an example. Tortorella needed ice in a lineup that would optimize his team’s chances of winning the game and he couldn’t risk any more damaging changes from a center.
This is also not to celebrate or even necessarily excuse Dubois’ apathy on the ice. Regardless of what is happening between him and the administration, his poor performance has collateral damage. It hurts your teammates and it is a pity for the fans.
Dubois’ handling of the situation is cynical and unworthy. It is also really the only way available for him to influence his own destiny.
Teams unilaterally recruit players as young people aged 17 or 18 and then have more or less complete control over that player for the next eight years until they become unrestricted free agents. Dubois, 22, is one of the most capable and desirable players in the world. However, when he was out of contract this summer, he had little influence in negotiations with the Blue Jackets, let alone in looking for other opportunities.
Columbus would have had a chance to match any contract Dubois had signed with another team and the contractor under those exact terms. If they had refused to agree and let him out, the hiring team would have to pay compensation for choosing the draft. Leaving Columbus would require another team to offer him a contract that they believed he and the defeat of the draft choice were worth, but also high enough that Columbus would not match him. It is a difficult needle to thread. Only two offer sheets have been signed in the past decade, with both being matched by the team that holds their rights. Dustin Penner’s departure from Anaheim to Edmonton in 2007 was the only time in the age of the salary cap when a player changed teams through an offer. Difficult logistics mean that teams rarely care.
Dubois also had no arbitration rights, which effectively meant that he was indebted to everything Colombo was willing to offer him. His only advantage was that he refused to sign an agreement, was unavailable for the start of the session and demanded a negotiation. This certainly would not have been ideal for Colombo, he would have been out of sight and they would still have a unilateral influence on the situation. They would still have their rights until 2024 and could wait as long as they wanted to move it. When would that be? Columbus’s general manager, Jarmo Kekäläinen, was more than happy to dedicate his time to this issue.
So, Dubois chose the path of least resistance, which is to sign a two-year contract, show up for the season and force disorder. He has been a handicap on the ice to the point that his head coach has to put him on the bench. Tortorella and other players are forced to answer almost daily questions about the situation at the moment. There is attention from the local and national media hyperfocused in the organization for all the wrong reasons. It became a distraction, and Aaron Portzline of The Athletic now considered “unsustainable.” The longer it lasts, the bigger the problem.
The situation is ugly, but this is not Dubois’ fault. If you are a Columbus supporter or teammate who is upset about how this unfolds, blame a system that gave Dubois little room to make his own decisions on the job.
The fact that a player like Dubois has so little influence in the most valuable part of his hockey career is an intentional project by hockey owners to keep wages low and reduce competition. To some extent, blame the players’ union too, which voluntarily signed the CBA. A $ 10 million two-year contract would not come close to being cut for Dubois in a true free market. The mechanisms to artificially and severely limit the player’s advantage are what allows Columbus to hire him well below his true value.
Nobody is asking you to feel bad for Dubois. If his biggest complaint is that he is getting a $ 10 million salary to eat, travel and sleep in first class accommodation and play a sport, then he is luckier than 99% of the world population under normal circumstances, not to mention in a pandemic -induced recession.
It can still be recognized that Dubois’ struggle is still beneficial for a greater cause. Pitting the working classes against each other is a very useful tool for the super-rich, and while millionaire hockey players are not exactly coal miners of the 1900s, low tide lowers all boats. The best players in the league are the anchor point by which all lower players are compared. If a player like Dubois is successfully embarrassed to accept any circumstances in which he has been forced, then what chance do the very inferior players – from the minor leagues – have to risk their necks to negotiate their value and exercise some control over their careers? This only benefits general ownership.
Say what you want about Dubois’ actions, but they worked. The Blue Jackets, who days ago were ready to wait for the right moment in search of the exact deal they wanted, quickly reconsidered and seem about to fulfill Dubois’s commercial order. The NHL owners have fought tooth and nail for a system that gives players like Dubois little agency and challenges them to break with the hockey culture that stigmatizes becoming a problem and putting someone’s needs ahead of those of the team. Dubois called his bluff. If they don’t like it, NHL franchises are free to loosen control over young players and provide them with more conventional means of dictating the terms of their employment.