«I am never going to be a guy that looks at great players and talks about effort because I played the game where I used 80 percent brain power and 20 percent physical labor. I thought the game and I could do things without wasting all that energy out there. You see some guys, and it's just like, ‘Oh boy, he's working hard, but he accomplished zero.' Then you get some players who look like they're not working as hard as that other guy, but they're getting 10 times more accomplished.
«So I'll never look at a guy like that. But I look at numbers and skill levels, and I love Vladi and I think he's a great player, but to me, he's a 50-, 60-goal scorer. He should be a 50-, 60-goal scorer, like (Washington's Alex) Ovechkin. He's got that skill set like an Ovechkin. The major problem is, I think the organization and the fans, they see the same thing I see — that he's a 50-, 60-goal scorer.»
