Quote:
Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger
Defence wins championships but so does skill and we left skill at home. That has nothing to do with anyone thinking they’re the smartest guy in the room. It’s basic coaching philosophy.
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This is a very bad take.
The "smartest guy in the room" thing is the standard "200 hockey men" bull#### that Hockey Canada (and USA men's hockey a lot of the time) have done intermittently for decades. That is, instead of taking the best players, they try to meticulously curate a team of guys designed to fit certain roles, because you see it's an art form and you can't just "take the best players". We're very experienced hockey men, you see, and we know better because we have experience! It's the scouting meeting from Moneyball over and over again and people have rightly called out the emperor for having no clothes.
This isn't rocket science. You take the best hockey players, period. When you get to the last 20% of the roster and it's not clear if player B is substantially better than player A, then you can bring your judgment to bear. But this type of "we're going to have a gritty team" nonsense is how you get embarrassed. It happened in '98 with Shayne Corson and Rob Zamuner, it happened in '06 with Shane Doan and Kris Draper, and it's happened numerous times at the WJHC level too.