Is giving a contract to a guy with Mike Ribeiro's reputation a good idea?

“He’s a cancer.”

That’s what you hear about a certain type of athlete, the guy who’s a locker room dissident, who’s a gossiper, a black cloud, and a cynic. Misery loves company, after all. They manage to infect the dressing room with their negativity, which poisons the well for new players and sucks the general energy reserves dry.

It’s reckless to paint all them all with the same brush. There are the partiers who drag roommates and teammates out late, the ones who campaign against the coach behind closed doors, and the guys that are just too cool or too good to do what everyone else has to do. There are guys who are just plain trouble.

I don’t believe they outwardly attempt to drag the group down, but they do prioritize their own success and happiness over that of the team. Maybe you work with someone like this at your own job - negative people can infect others and decrease effectiveness through action and attitude.

I don’t know if Mike Ribeiro is a locker room cancer. He went through a separation during last season, he was no longer with his kids, and perhaps he lost focus as a result. But the reputation that followed his departure from Arizona certainly left a wake of people with less than positive feelings about his time there. It’s also not the first time rumblings of poor off-ice behavior followed his name.

Since the Coyotes showed him the door he signed a one-year contract with the Nashville Predators worth $1.05 million dollars - a heck of a deal for a proven talent like Ribeiro - which prompted this quote from Predators GM David Poile: "There is no tolerance for off-ice issues. This clearly is really his last chance."

He’s on notice before he even walks in the door, which might be just about the only way to deal with a player with his reputation.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three players I shared a dressing room with that fit the description outlined above, all of which make me skeptical of Mike Ribeiro’s ability to change. I’ve seen endless chances given to the same people, and time and time again I watched them disappoint. Those players ended in the hospital (teammate punched him), cut, and traded, respectively. 

Everyone can straighten up and fly right for awhile, and no @$$hole is an @$$hole all the time, so it's important to remember that reputations are built on long-term patterns.

That isn’t to say Mike Ribeiro can’t change. That isn’t to say that the Predators were wrong for giving a chance to a guy with some personal issues who can help their hockey team. There’s no doubt he can play, and everyone deserves chances. But it is to say that I don’t know a whole lot of people who’ve undergone significant, lasting personality changes in their mid-30s, particularly those of the confident athletic variety.

The Predators get help at center in the short term by picking up a talented hockey player, but if he’s having a draining effect on the group behind the scenes, it’s just not worth the 40ish points he might get you. Yes, they can probably get rid of him fairly easily at that cap hit if things go off the rails, but negative environments lead to fragile teams, and I personally wouldn't want to risk getting there before it becomes clear that there's a problem.

So while the signing is pretty low risk on the ice, it might not be off it. The best thing Nashville did was make it a one-year deal so there's behavioral incentives immediately visible, a carrot on a stick that he can actually get to.

Here’s to hoping Ribeiro can put himself in rare company among the pro ranks and change his ways. It’s his only hope to avoid seeing his last big league paycheck in 2015.