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Originally Posted by JayP
Exactly. Targeting players solely from winning organizations is a recipe for disaster - it severely limits your pool of prospective players you want to add and that's never a good thing. This is especially concerning when you start talking about drafting and developing "winners" - you can easily end up with guys riding coattails on successful teams. I guess it means we can't draft Monahan then - that bum played amazing, but his team lost 50+ games so he's damaged goods and has a losing attitude. Too bad though since he would've been a winner the year before when his team was in the conference finals.
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Do you suggest targeting players solely from losing organizations instead? Of course there's an evaluation process involved. On winning teams you want to identify players who are reasons for their team's success and on losing teams you want to identify guys who are not the reasons for their team's failures. But targeting players from winning organizations is more often a recipe for success than targeting players who are good players on losing organizations. Take a guy like Rob Scuderi. He won in college, went to the finals in the AHL, won a Cup with the Pens, and LA gave him what many thought to be an overpayment at the time. But Scuderi was worth every penny for the Kings in their Cup run. I do believe that success breeds success and playoff experience matters. Guys from winning environments come in confident and expect to win. That inspires guys.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JayP
There are guys who are okay with losing - they just get weeded out well before the NHL. Pro sports is ultra-competitive and full of ultra-competitive people. Unless the guy is head and shoulders more talented than the rest of his peers I find it hard to believe that they find their way in best league in the world if they just don't care that much. And you can count the number of guys that so talented they just don't have to care on two hands.
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We know that's not true. There are plenty of guys with the talent to crack the NHL but whose work ethic prevents them from reaching their potential. There are guys who only care about easy goals and money. There are guys who constantly lose one on one battles and avoid physical play of any kind. There are plenty of floaters in the NHL. Then you have guys who are not okay with losing and are as competitive as they come but aren't willing to put in the hard work required to help the team get to the next level (e.g. Ovechkin).