Is Hendricks partly responsible for improved jets this year? Is his locker room presence that big a deal?
I think he may be 10% responsible along with 70% goaltending and improved defensive play for 20%.
That's exceedingly generous. Goaltending is definitely the major contributor to our overall record (though I wonder how much better we're actually playing). But you're forgetting about all our young players maturing (that's probably 20% of our improvement, I don't see a massive improvement in defensive play), and the big addition by subtraction by getting rid of Thorburn and Stuart. Adding Kulikov, and Poolman's rise also means Chariot gets bumped down the chart. The schedule is vastly better this year, and injuries are way less. I'm sure I'm even missing more factors that have greater impact than locker room presence.
A guy like Schiefele will have a greater effect on the locker room than any 4th liner because in addition to his "intangibles" & great personality he actually has tangible positives. If you want someone that's funny in the locker room, I'd rather add someone like Ovechkin than Thorburn... if you want someone with leadership presence Wheeler will impact the team far more than Stuart.
Maybe 1% of the Jets' improvement is due to any sort of morale boost across the board.
Maurice said that "Hendricks says all the right things on the bench" - great, he can be an assistant coach or the stick boy and have greater impact (since we'll have a better player on the ice).