Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
Maybe I should rephrase. A winning culture exists but I think it exists as a result of winning and not on the makeup of your team or coach.
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I still disagree with that. Winning is easy. The hard part is how you bounce back from defeats and failures. You want guys on the team who sees Iginla's departure and takes upon themselves to step up their game and take on more responsibility. You don't want guys who sees Iginla's departure as time to look for their own exits. It has to be management on down.
Culture can be changed when you have winners on board. When Scotty Bowman joined the Red Wings he wanted to put in a more defensive system and he didn't do it by buddying up with Yzerman. Bowman went straight after Yzerman to the point where Bowman apparently spread rumors that Yzerman was about to be traded so Yzerman would buy into his system along with others. Bowman was the proven winner who let everybody know he was running the ship and lackluster effort and defensive play won't cut it on his team whether you're a rookie or Steve Yzerman. Yzerman was a winner who didn't know how to win and he had to shape up or ship out. Yzerman shaped up.
People look at the Penguins and Blackhawks and think years of losing and high draft picks was all it was. It wasn't. Most of the guys who were there for the losing years were shipped out and along the way they added guys who were proven winners and had won the Cup before or been to the Finals. The Bruins did things a different way but they shipped out a lot of guys too and brought in a guy like Mark Recchi and coincidentally they are again in the Finals after bringing in a guy like Jagr.