What can be done to create a winning culture?

[ricardodw]

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.

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.

The big problem is that people mistake different personalities for a lack of passion. Look at the Selke race - Toews, Datsyuk, and Bergeron. Toews is clearly the hothead of the group, but it's pretty evident from the other two quieter guys play that they want to win just as badly. They just don't need to throw fits to prove it.

The divider is not outward competitiveness.... It is personal versus team success.


Everyone pays lip service to team success but there are going to be a lot of players who feel pretty good about themselves even when the team loses.

There are guys that have to be playing on the scoring line and putting up the stats and getting the bigger contracts.....

Tanguay for example seems be a person that is more focussed on individual success than team success. He asked to be traded when Keenan tried to use him to make the team better.

It is really difficult to find players that are more focused on team success and not their personal success.. They get paid huge $ for personal success/stats.

Bouwmeester got paid so much more than Warrener and Yelle.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Lots of assumptions there, several of them unfair IMO.

Feaster's been in hockey longer than some people on this board have been alive. He is a hockey guy now even if he wasn't when he first started working in Hershey decades ago. Methinks you vastly overrate the importance of having played. I haven't played and I can evaluate hockey sense just fine.

Terrible post IMO

i would disagree

[Tinordi]

It's already been said and it seems trite but the only way to create a culture of winning is to start winning.

The only way to do that is to draft a core that can win. There are really no other alternatives to it. Alot of it is luck when it comes to player picks and chemistry. Some of it can be assisted by organizational consistency, a clear organizational philoshophy that nobody is bigger than (think NE Patriots), and accountability throughout the entire roster. These are things that the Flames have lacked in spades over the past 8 years.

Further, the organizational philoshophy needs to be much more flexible with respect to winning now vs. winning then.

But ultimately, we need to draft elite talent to win. No amount of 'effort' or sports psychology will lug us into a perpetual winner.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

The divider is not outward competitiveness.... It is personal versus team success.


Everyone pays lip service to team success but there are going to be a lot of players who feel pretty good about themselves even when the team loses.

There are guys that have to be playing on the scoring line and putting up the stats and getting the bigger contracts.....

Tanguay for example seems be a person that is more focussed on individual success than team success. He asked to be traded when Keenan tried to use him to make the team better.

It is really difficult to find players that are more focused on team success and not their personal success.. They get paid huge $ for personal success/stats.

Bouwmeester got paid so much more than Warrener and Yelle.

The fact that you brought up Bouwmeester means you're talking BS. The guy was allowed to jump into the rush at will with Florida and put up big numbers because of it. He comes to Calgary and Brent Sutter, realizing that he doesn't have much to work with defensively, changes his game into a stay-at-home type (for better or worse). J-Bouw never complained about it once and it will certainly affect the amount of his next contract, but apparently he's the dastardly type who only cares about himself and never the team. Like I said above, it's confusing different personality types with the will to win. It's completely arbitrary and, as you just displayed, is most often used to slander/highlight players to make an argument.

[dissentowner]

Actually, the best GM's in hockey never played the game.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Actually, the best GM's in hockey never played the game.

can anybody actually provide a list here?

Ray Shero - played collage hockey, NHL drafted
Dean Lombardi - played Jr hockey
Stan Bowman - not sure? but son of Scotty Bowman, so I'm sure he at least played pond hockey
Ken Holland - played minors, NHL drafted
Peter Chiarelli - played collage/pro hockey

who am i missing?

[metroneck]

How many of the worst GM's actually played at the NHL level?

How about the most boneheaded broadcast color guys?

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by metroneck

How many of the worst GM's actually played at the NHL level?

How about the most boneheaded broadcast color guys?

Most of them from what I can tell.

Lou Lamoriello has been a great GM for most of his career, but hasn't played
Nonis never played professionally

I can't find a record of Greg Sherman playing in the NHL

Looking through the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...neral_managers, there doesn't appear to be any correlation between NHL playing time, professional hockey games played, and ability as a General Manager. Some of the best and worst teams have former star players. On the other hand, some of the best and worst teams also have GM's who never played professionally.

[iggyoi]

Based on jaromes effort level tonight, trading him was step 1.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

Lou Lamoriello has been a great GM for most of his career, but hasn't played
Nonis never played professionally
.

But Lou has played hockey at some level.... so has Nonis (jr)... I didn't say you have to play at a high level, I'm saying you had to play at least at some level...

[metroneck]

My point being that even playing hockey at the highest level, and some even hoisting a few cups, does not seem to help many of the worst GM's in history.

The fact that Feaster did not play hockey has ZERO to do with his shortcomings as a GM. He has been in the biz for over 20 years, I think he has a handle on the game and the concept of a team.

[FAN]

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.

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.

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.

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).

[FAN]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Actually, the best GM's in hockey never played the game.

That's BS. Name them.

Originally Posted by sworkhard

Most of them from what I can tell.

Lou Lamoriello has been a great GM for most of his career, but hasn't played
Nonis never played professionally

I can't find a record of Greg Sherman playing in the NHL

Looking through the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...neral_managers, there doesn't appear to be any correlation between NHL playing time, professional hockey games played, and ability as a General Manager. Some of the best and worst teams have former star players. On the other hand, some of the best and worst teams also have GM's who never played professionally.

Lou played college hockey, was a college coach (talent evaluation and recruiting was part of his job), and athletic director. Nonis grew up playing hockey, played professionally in Europe, and have assistant coaching experience.

I don't think Sherman played the game, but most Avs fan think he was a puppet and that he sucks so I'm not sure how relevant using Sherman as an example to back up Feaster would be.

I have said this many times. It's about talent evaluation. Almost every GM in the league grew up playing hockey, have coached the game, worked as a scout, worked as a player agent, or did all of that. Feaster's background was that of a hockey fan. If there's nothing wrong with that then there's nothing wrong with Ken King making the decisions. Ken King has been in the hockey business for years. He's watched a ton of hockey games. He can delegate and listen to the advice of his staff.

[DeluxeMoustache]

The Flames need help at C. Top line and 3rd line (checking). Last year, Backlund and Stajan were servicable likely as second line C men. There is a big difference between identifying a player's ability and acquiring an appropriate player. Darryl did well to acquire Conroy, Langkow and Yelle. I am sure Feaster recognized the needs, but it takes two to dance. Guys like Bolland and Boston's logjam at C are not likely readily available. Hence the Cammalleri experiment (he has played C including in LA) and Cervenka (although Czech national philosophy does not seem to emphasize good NHL style two way play). Given the Flames glut of wingers last year, and in the end being unable to acquire appropriate C's, these were arguably reasonable gambles. Not great, but potentially better than they turned out to be. Colossal failures in the end. But going in to last off season pretty cap constrained, those were the flyers they took.

I think a problem is that somehow the coaches, the hockey guys that the GM trusts, saw the D as adequate. The lack of C and lack of D toughness and acumen worked horribly to compound awful results.

Not being able to get the pieces they knew they needed and hoping that coaching could make wingers in to big league centres killed them.

Darryl was a big gambler and a lot of his gambles paid off early on. Later, not so much. Feaster no longer has to work within as limited of a framework and now is where he gets the chance to prove himself. His gambles were around getting big league C talent. None came to fruition (perhaps thankfully, given the cost) but you have to at least give some credit for recognizing the obvious need.

[Stampede2TheCup]

Originally Posted by moon

Sure there are some guys like Nilsson, Kovalchuk, Yashin and other Euros that don't seem to care but for 99% of the players "hating to lose" or a "winning attitude" is trumped by skill.

Originally Posted by vilzeh

Are you related to Don Cherry?

I think the same age bracket.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by FAN

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.

No I suggest we target the best players to fit our needs. Who they play for and how well that team is doing is irrelevant. There are plenty of fine players who are on losing organizations because of the lack of talent around them. Conversely, there are plenty of over-rated players playing over their heads because the talent around them. It's the GM's job to identify which guys are which. Obviously better teams will have better players, but they also keep around the biggest contributors and discard the dead weight. It's a balancing act.

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).

Yes there are guys with NHL talent that don't crack the NHL because of their work ethic - that's kind of my whole point. Those guys get weeded out before they make the show. There are exceptions, but I'd say they are few and far between.

Again, the fact that you bring up one of the hardest workers in the league in Ovechkin simply proves this whole "winners" and "hates to lose" stuff is garbage. The guy has 61 points and 31 goals in only 58 playoff games, but he has one bad playoff (in which he had a 3.3% shooting percentage) and all of sudden he doesn't put in the effort required. It's basically a tool anyone can use to discredit someone in spite of an actual argument against them (which is pretty much one lazy backcheck against the Rangers - something a guy like Iginla has done many times in the past, but is quickly forgotten).

[FAN]

Originally Posted by JayP

No I suggest we target the best players to fit our needs. Who they play for and how well that team is doing is irrelevant.

It certainly is relevant. Playing on a winning team = playoff experience. Strong playoff performers = guys you want. Guys who were major contributors to a Stanley Cup victory often command respect in the locker room. Say the Flames kept Bouwmeester and the Flames made the playoffs this season. You're Brodie and he just had a bad first playoff game, who would you listen to? Sarich or Bouwmeester?

Originally Posted by JayP

There are plenty of fine players who are on losing organizations because of the lack of talent around them. Conversely, there are plenty of over-rated players playing over their heads because the talent around them. It's the GM's job to identify which guys are which. Obviously better teams will have better players, but they also keep around the biggest contributors and discard the dead weight. It's a balancing act.

I don't disagree. Like I said, 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.

Originally Posted by JayP

Yes there are guys with NHL talent that don't crack the NHL because of their work ethic - that's kind of my whole point. Those guys get weeded out before they make the show. There are exceptions, but I'd say they are few and far between.

You missed my point. I said "there are plenty of guys with the talent to crack the NHL but whose work ethic prevents them from reaching their potential." The point is those guys do make it to the NHL. They just don't become the players they are capable of being. An example would be someone like Semin.

Originally Posted by JayP

Again, the fact that you bring up one of the hardest workers in the league in Ovechkin simply proves this whole "winners" and "hates to lose" stuff is garbage. The guy has 61 points and 31 goals in only 58 playoff games, but he has one bad playoff (in which he had a 3.3% shooting percentage) and all of sudden he doesn't put in the effort required. It's basically a tool anyone can use to discredit someone in spite of an actual argument against them (which is pretty much one lazy backcheck against the Rangers - something a guy like Iginla has done many times in the past, but is quickly forgotten).

I would argue that Ovechkin WAS one of the hardest workers in the league. His work ethic has come into question precisely because he doesn't work as hard as he used to. http://http://www.sportingnews.com/n...layoff-chances

Iginla has indeed been a floater in recent years and is nothing like he was in terms of work ethic, but that can be attributed to old age as his body simply can't take the type of punishment he took when he was in his prime and stay healthy.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by FAN

It certainly is relevant. Playing on a winning team = playoff experience. Strong playoff performers = guys you want. Guys who were major contributors to a Stanley Cup victory often command respect in the locker room. Say the Flames kept Bouwmeester and the Flames made the playoffs this season. You're Brodie and he just had a bad first playoff game, who would you listen to? Sarich or Bouwmeester?

Strong playoff performers can also mean unsustainable performance over a small sample size (Bryan Bickell is this year's candidate). Like I said, it's a balancing act.

You missed my point. I said "there are plenty of guys with the talent to crack the NHL but whose work ethic prevents them from reaching their potential." The point is those guys do make it to the NHL. They just don't become the players they are capable of being. An example would be someone like Semin.

And I say that there's only a handful of these guys in the league. There are certainly examples, but I wouldn't say they're prevalent. You'd have to be a pretty special player to not really care, but be talented enough that NHL scouts overlook that in such an ultra-competitive marketplace.

I would argue that Ovechkin WAS one of the hardest workers in the league. His work ethic has come into question precisely because he doesn't work as hard as he used to. http://http://www.sportingnews.com/n...layoff-chances

Iginla has indeed been a floater in recent years and is nothing like he was in terms of work ethic, but that can be attributed to old age as his body simply can't take the type of punishment he took when he was in his prime and stay healthy.

That's why it's so hard to get guys who "hate to lose". How do you predict a change in effort like you've suggested happened with Ovi? Is it possible to be lose that "hate to lose" mentality?

[FAN]

Originally Posted by JayP

Strong playoff performers can also mean unsustainable performance over a small sample size (Bryan Bickell is this year's candidate). Like I said, it's a balancing act.

Umm... I didn't say target one year wonders. I also won't call Bickell a winner just yet, although the odds are that Bickell is a decent playoff performer. In the last three playoffs he had 2 goals in 5 games, 2 goals in 6 games, and currently 6 goals in 15 games. Sounds like you can expect him to score two goals in every series. I don't consider Bickell to be a 1st line scorer so 2 goals in a playoff series seems like a pretty good production to me.

Originally Posted by JayP

And I say that there's only a handful of these guys in the league. There are certainly examples, but I wouldn't say they're prevalent. You'd have to be a pretty special player to not really care, but be talented enough that NHL scouts overlook that in such an ultra-competitive marketplace.

How many skilled Russians have cracked the NHL based on their skills and talent alone? More than a handful. Not really sure why you think there are so few guys who managed to crack the NHL despite subpar compete level. Tons of first round picks have questionable work ethics and compete level. It's entirely possible to be a star in juniors without being hardworking.

[Pointman]

Flames should abandon "asset management" approach and turn to "building the team" approach instead. With "asset management" you manage the team as "portfolio of assets", trade based on value, and end up with a collection of players, who are good on paper, but altogether form an ecletic, shapeless and tasteless bunch of players without identity. The result is literally a portfolio of assets, rather than a capable well-built hockey team. This is exactly what happened in post-lockout Calgary. With "building the team" approach you manage the team as whole, you create an indentity and trade for a better fit, not for a better value, and end up with a well-built team of lackluster yet tastefully collected players. It should be like this, if you traded away a bad player who fit with the team for a good player who doesn't fit, it's a bad trade (Ference for Stuart). If you traded good player who doesn't fit for a bad player who does fit, it's a good trade (Drury for Warrener).