Ryan Getzlaf bristled upon learning what Teemu Selanne wrote in his autobiography. In Teemu, which was released last month in Finland, Selanne ripped Anaheim Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau for limiting his ice time. Selanne also wrote that he wished Getzlaf, as team captain, should’ve pushed Boudreau to give Selanne more shifts.
“I was pissed off, to tell you the truth,” Getzlaf told The Jim Rome Show Thursday. “It wasn’t great. I thought it was kind of unnecessary for him to come out and say something like that.
“Teemu doesn’t know everything that goes on. He doesn’t know how many times I had conversations about him in the last two years, to help him, to try and get him to where he wanted to be.”
Selanne, who retired at the end of the 2013-14 season, wrote in his book that had Boudreau not been his coach, he would likely still be playing hockey.
Getzlaf defended his role as captain and explained that he’s not the coach. Although he gives input, he said, how players are used is the coach’s call.
“I’m the captain of the hockey team, not [the captain] of one player. I have to kind of weigh in where my voice is going to be heard and where it’s not. There are times where I have to step away and just let our coaches and GM make the decisions and go with it. It’s not really my job,” Getzlaf said.
“These last two years, dealing with some of that stuff was really hard. You’re talking about a Hall of Famer who has been around for a long time, someone who I looked up to when I was here, and to watch him kind of go through that was a little bit tough,” Getzlaf said. “There wasn’t a whole lot I could do.”
