Barry Trotz on Team Culture

[valkynax]

Here's an example: if a team works its butt off days in days out, and for 10 years they are never above bottom 5 of the league.

Does that team have a hard working culture? Sure.

Does anyone give even a quarter of a flying f***? In your dreams.

 

[FOurteenS inCisOr]

Clutch is far more important than culture.

Canucks should target more clutch players. Doesn’t matter the cost.

 

[me2]

Here on HFCanucks, we're watching a rebuilding team trying to establish themselves and their identity. The word "culture" gets used a lot.

Some people mock the idea of culture. But it's important on every team and in every organization that involves a lot of people. Not just sports teams.

My opinion is that many of the critics who dismiss culture and mock the idea of trying to establish it, just don't really understand what it is. Maybe most of the critics are younger people who don't understand it yet.

Here's a quote from Islanders Coach Barry Trotz on what team culture is, after the Islanders went from allowing the most goals last season, to the fewest goals this season, something no other team has done in the last 100 years. They also lost Tavares:

"When you say 'culture change,' it's just a way of doing things," Trotz said. "We talk about accountability in some areas and the way we present ourselves, the way we act, the way we respond to adversity, all those things. That's part of changing the culture. Changing the culture might be instead of when things get a little bit rough in terms of maybe not going a certain way, if you don't have a great culture you fracture and you all go individually in your own direction, when actually you should come together and go in the same direction.
"That's a mindset. That's something day in and day out you force accountability on the guy next to you and he trusts you're going to get your job done."
​

I think what he says is interesting, and his success as a coach backs up the importance of his words.

HockeyNebula

I see what you are saying. Benning has ruined the culture on this year which is why it is the losingest team in hockey over the last few years.

 

[me2]

great post by the op. it's funny that you can look at the immediate smartass dismissive responses in this thread and you see in this subforum mirrored what an nhl coach has to overcome. i guess we are the edmonton oilers of subforums.

If anything it shows how much a great coach can affect culture and how little overpaying a 4th line plug UFA or an overpaid flop demoted to the AHL does to change. The mocking Benning gets is not for culture but for overpaying plugs and calling it culture when he can get the same amount of culture from plugs that are not overpaid.

 

[TruKnyte]

The team that won the cup last year vs. one that finished at the bottom of the standings, but let's look at their records the very next year to see who got the better of a 2 player swap? Nonsense.

Do you honestly think that Beagle is a better player at his salary than Dowd was this year? If you answer yes then I know for sure the only intention of your posts is to provoke an argument.

 

[TruKnyte]

The team that won the cup last year vs. one that finished at the bottom of the standings, but let's look at their records the very next year to see who got the better of a 2 player swap? Nonsense.

Double post

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Okay, op. Here's the problem.

For years we've been hearing about culture around here. Culture carriers, culture of compete, winning culture, blah blah f***ing blah. All it is as it pertains to the Canucks is as a red herring. It's an excuse. It's a fallback position for people who want to defend the clueless dopes running the team. They're just hiding behind subjectivity when everything objective is against them. "Oh, are they getting killed in puck possession? Corsi? Goals and assists? Wins and losses? Well, they're building culture! You can't say they're not!" It's giving Benning and Weisbrod and their minions an easy out by insisting their success is only measurable by a standard that can't be measured. I have actually seen from one of management's most faithful propagandists here (one of *Ryan Miller's many, many accounts) that "I'd be okay if the team went 0-82-0 if it meant building winning culture!" you know, as if the locker room of a pro hockey team that had just gone 0-82-0 wouldn't be the most crushingly bitter and miserable place on the planet. It's ass-backwards logic. They're hoping they if they throw a bunch of disparate parts together a "winning culture" is going to emerge from the mess they couldn't sort out. Trotz and Lou Lam approached it the opposite way. They worked from the top down. They had a direction and said: "Here guys, this way. Follow me!" Benning's twiddling his thumbs and hoping the players rescue him from his own failure.

Just a little different situation.

 

[Motte and Bailey]

Do you honestly think that Beagle is a better player at his salary than Dowd was this year? If you answer yes then I know for sure the only intention of your posts is to provoke an argument.

Thanks for proving my point. In a thread about how culture is unappreciated people are still appealing solely to statistics to determine the value of players. I’m aware that Nic Dowd’s hero charts look better than Beagle’s this year. My position is that culture is more important and hero charts don’t tell the whole story about which player is more valuable overall. So yes I’d much rather have Beagle.

 

[ekimbo]

Thanks for proving my point. In a thread about how culture is unappreciated people are still appealing solely to statistics to determine the value of players. I’m aware that Nic Dowd’s hero charts look better than Beagle’s this year. My position is that culture is more important and hero charts don’t tell the whole story about which player is more valuable overall. So yes I’d much rather have Beagle.

One can't really argue with your subjective opinion - there is no way to tell exactly how Beagle impacts the other players and the team culture, and how that will somehow result in this team winning at some point in the next 10 years. However, one could argue that your approval of a management team that has been awful in almost every objective metric could mean that your subjective opinion probably isn't very reliable.

 

[TruKnyte]

Thanks for proving my point. In a thread about how culture is unappreciated people are still appealing solely to statistics to determine the value of players. I’m aware that Nic Dowd’s hero charts look better than Beagle’s this year. My position is that culture is more important and hero charts don’t tell the whole story about which player is more valuable overall. So yes I’d much rather have Beagle.

Thanks

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

That's very cute.

Culture only means something if you have the strength to back it up. It's not a blank check for incompetence.

And accountability is something this organization does not have.

Right now "culture" and "hard working" are being overused here because this team really got nothing else to show for.

Five years, we're one of the most laughably bad teams in the league.

What kind of culture do we have when players like Sutter and Eriksson makes a combined 10 ****ing million a year?

outside of a few exceptions, this team flat out doesn't work hard. it's just lies

 

[xtra]

Thanks

Yea I’d ignore him u less your bored and want to hear stupid comments. He’s the poster that said gudbrandson would put up 35 points this year if he played with Hughes

 

[Dough72]

people mock it because they are taught anything older or traditional is automatically "bad". For reasons that have nothing to do with hockey but it trickles it's way down to sports forums as well. For hockey this will include things like culture and team spirit. As well as toughness and grit and heart and all the other things newer fans seem to have no appreciation for or understanding of.

 

[TruKnyte]

Yea I’d ignore him u less your bored and want to hear stupid comments. He’s the poster that said gudbrandson would put up 35 points this year if he played with Hughes

I enjoy reading dumb posts sometimes, makes things more entertaining

Just thought I'd confirm what I already knew.

 

[xtra]

people mock it because they are taught anything older or traditional is automatically "bad". For reasons that have nothing to do with hockey but it trickles it's way down to sports forums as well. For hockey this will include things like culture and team spirit. As well as toughness and grit and heart and all the other things newer fans seem to have no appreciation for or understanding of.

If all you bring to the table is culture or leadership then your not worth being on the team. You have to bring items in other areas that are above replacement.

Otherwise we should sign Mark Messier for the leadership and culture he brings

 

[krutovsdonut]

Here's an example: if a team works its butt off days in days out, and for 10 years they are never above bottom 5 of the league.

Does that team have a hard working culture? Sure.

Does anyone give even a quarter of a flying ****? In your dreams.

bottom 5 for a decade with a hardworking culture would require incredibly bad drafting.

but since we are in a thread about trotz, nashville is a team that spent a decade as a solid hard working culture that couldn't take the extra step to be a true contender and was repeatedly knocked out in the first round and never really threatened. they and trotz personally seem to have done ok by the experience.

 

[valkynax]

bottom 5 for a decade with a hardworking culture would require incredibly bad drafting.

but since we are in a thread about trotz, nashville is a team that spent a decade as a solid hard working culture that couldn't take the extra step to be a true contender and was repeatedly knocked out in the first round and never really threatened. they and trotz personally seem to have done ok by the experience.

the main point is: no one is saying culture is completely useless, having a champion-level culture is definitely important. But the problem is, a lot of Benning bros are throwing the word "culture" around WAY to much as an excuse to cover up for Benning's comical incompetence, to the point where they are suggesting as long as we have "culture" it doesn't matter if we lose a bunch of trades or sign horrible contracts or draft like ass for five years.

That's just lunacy.

EDIT: if you gonna say hey culture is important, a team needs a good culture to win. I will absolutely agree with you.

 

[Pip]

I certainly hope that none of these pro-culture posters were slagging Carolina’s antics this year.

 

[Jyrki21]

people mock it because they are taught anything older or traditional is automatically "bad". For reasons that have nothing to do with hockey but it trickles it's way down to sports forums as well. For hockey this will include things like culture and team spirit. As well as toughness and grit and heart and all the other things newer fans seem to have no appreciation for or understanding of.

If intangibles don't lead to tangibles, they are literally worthless. None of those things are ends unto themselves.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

people mock it because they are taught anything older or traditional is automatically "bad". For reasons that have nothing to do with hockey but it trickles it's way down to sports forums as well. For hockey this will include things like culture and team spirit. As well as toughness and grit and heart and all the other things newer fans seem to have no appreciation for or understanding of.

Completely wrong in every single assertion. Bravo.

 

[bossram]

great post by the op. it's funny that you can look at the immediate smartass dismissive responses in this thread and you see in this subforum mirrored what an nhl coach has to overcome. i guess we are the edmonton oilers of subforums.

Having played on sports teams, yes, I agree culture is a factor.

It's just as fans, evaluating from the outside, we can't measure culture. We don't know what goes on in the locker room or organization. We can only see the results, and they haven't been good.

If the supposed "culture carriers" Benning acquired haven't materially changed the teams results, what does that say about the character of those players? What does it say about the culture of the team? Or is it fine to have a great "culture" and still suck?

That's why many of us are of the mind to worry about skill/talent first.

 

[bossram]

Except if you're using Trotz as an example, he's come in to two situations now where in short order he established a culture. The Islanders are less talented than Washington, but he's managed to turn it around and make the team more consistent within a season. In Washington I think he was figuring it out and hadn't completely learned from Nashville. He made the same playoff mistakes until the last season.

More importantly both teams didn't see a lot of turnover, so his influence clearly made a dfiference.

Maybe the problem isn't culture but that our management and coaching talks a big game but doesn't acquire the players or have the accountability to achieve the culture they talk about all the time.

Exactly this. It starts at the top. And they've shown they can't get it done, or can't identify the right players to get it done.

 

[me2]

Good culture matters but pro-Benning/Culture people present no evidence that Benning's picks bring more culture than players who perform just as well at 1/2 the price. Schenn makes $800k so he must be bad for culture. Prust made $2.5m so he must have been good for culture. Eriksson makes $6m bring his experience and his culture. Biega works his butt off for $800k. I see more culture emanating from Horvat and Pettersson than Spooner, Eriksson, Beagle, Gather and Granlund combined.

 

[RandV]

Good culture matters but pro-Benning/Culture people present no evidence that Benning's picks bring more culture than players who perform just as well at 1/2 the price. Schenn makes $800k so he must be bad for culture. Prust made $2.5m so he must have been good for culture. Eriksson makes $6m bring his experience and his culture. Biega works his butt off for $800k. I see more culture emanating from Horvat and Pettersson than Spooner, Eriksson, Beagle, Gather and Granlund combined.

I think that's the key here. I don't know specifically how an NHL team locker room works, but I'd theorize that good "culture" is something you grow and nurture internally, and outside of a few rare instances (Sundin) not something you can just 'import'.

I see two key factors in play here, the first when Benning goes out and intentional brings in these supposed culture warriors... what does that say about the guys already in the room? Early on the guy he wanted McCann and Virtanen "rubbing shoulders" with was Derek Dorsett, and he brought in other guys like Prust and Sutter to be "culture carriers". Were our long time vets: Henrik, Daniel, Burrows, Higgins, Hamhuis, Bieksa, etc etc, the guys that have in some cases spent their entire careers battling in a Canucks jersey, not good enough?

For the second point, just how big an impact can someone really have when they're essentially being brought in as a mercenaries? No disrespect meant to Jay Beagle but he's a career 4th line center of little noticeable distinction who was a Washington Capital until their team won the Cup and the only reason he came to Vancouver was because we gave him a stupid amount of money for a player of his age and talent. Not saying players like this can't be good for the locker room, but we've seen the ultimate example of it going wrong for these reasons in Vancouver already with Mark Messier.

 

[Zippgunn]

Culture definitely matters, I think the issue I've had with its use with the Canucks is either when it's used as a crutch for otherwise bad decisions or when there's inconsistency in building a culture.

We traded Kassian for an older, less skilled, more expensive Prust on the guise that this was about Prust being such a great culture role-model...then within a season had to dump him for among other things, his bad attitude toward not being happy with how he was being deployed. Oh, and of course with Benning, we somehow were convinced to ADD a pick to the trade.

A strong culture requires consistency, transparency and integrity. Mike Babcock wrote a good book about his approach to building team culture, and management and leadership has to give the players the sense that all sides are held accountable, otherwise there is no basis to trust everyone to do their part if you do yours. When Benning says we're building a team to compete in the playoffs and trades and signs accordingly, only to repeatedly fall flat on his face doing so AND THEN switching his story at the end of the year saying that the plan all along is to retool and build for the future, there isn't going to be the sense that you can trust management's word or their competence. Either Benning is a fool, or a liar, or quite possibly both, but that's not the basis to trust the team you're on.

If you look at high performing teams, either in business, military or sports, there is a culture of excellence where there is no compromise that everyone is accountable from the athletic trainers to the star athletes. Eriksson, Sbisa, Prust, Gudbranson, Sutter, Hamhuis, etc, etc, where is Benning's accountability?

Culture matters, and our culture is rotting from the top.

The very top...