Culture Does Not Bring Wins, Winning Brings Culture

Chainshot

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I'm so sick of the commentary that there are issues in the dressing room and that they have to "fix the culture". We have seen repeatedly and personally that "culture trades" are for losers. Win games and tensions abate. It's that simple. Find someone who can run the bench without seeming like he's been pulled out of 1989 and find another couple roster players who are above replacement level for the roster and there will be no more concerns about the room.

The coach and GM are talking about how much they all communicate. Great. That doesn't do f*** all for wins. Scoring goals matters. Stopping pucks matters. Effort matters. Passing matters. But kumbaya culture happiness is contrived and should not be the focus of building a winning team.

/end rant
 

Chainshot

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Need more talent

Need guys prepared to play the important roles

Need a coach who isn’t an idiot

Need a GM who can do these 3 things

That’s it

Pretty much. Having a working system is going to keep some players who may otherwise check out when attempting to recycle an obviously broken methodology engaged. Engagement is going to feed preparation. Preparation will feed players stepping up when needed into important roles.

The coach playing double standards for bad play -- ie. if you're a vet like Scandella and can regularly completely blow, but you'll be back out there again and again while someone like Pilut gets pushed off the puck once and gets benched for games on end -- does nothing for culture. How is a vet going to stand up and say something about how to play when they are some of the most egregiously unprepared and under-performing people on the team?

Start with the coach.
 
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Willgamesh

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Pretty much. Having a working system is going to keep some players who may otherwise check out when attempting to recycle an obviously broken methodology engaged. Engagement is going to feed preparation. Preparation will feed players stepping up when needed into important roles.

The coach playing double standards for bad play -- ie. if you're a vet like Scandella and can regularly completely blow, but you'll be back out there again and again while someone like Pilut gets pushed off the puck once and gets benched for games on end -- does nothing for culture. How is a vet going to stand up and say something about how to play when they are some of the most egregiously unprepared and under-performing people on the team?

Start with the coach.
and its way more then just vets getting double standards Sobo etc. It's the d pairings and the lines and everybody's minutes. Plus the whole lie coming out of camp about earning spots then just spitting in the faces of players who earned them C.J's healthy scratches that made no sense.
 
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Chainshot

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and its way more then just vets getting double standards Sobo etc. It's the d pairings and the lines and everybody's minutes. Plus the whole lie coming out of camp about earning spots then just spitting in the faces of players who earned them C.J's healthy scratches that made no sense.

Yep, working pairings don't get put back together (Pilut-Risto). Lineups that leverage advantages (Reinhart with Mitts instead of Jack) don't happen. Smith gets scratched after scoring his first goal and having a better goals per 60 than about half the roster... Nylander's CF% being actually surprisingly good and yet because his linemates are not playing well, he gets benched?!?!? I just can't... No data on how others work in different roles, no possible found chemistry, especially up front.
 

sufferer

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Among plenty of other things, it was absolutely Pejorative Slured for them to keep Nylander down and have Thompson up for nearly the entire season. There's no way Alex would've been as much as a liability as his game is much more tailored to the NHL than Tage's goofy ass. Nobody was done any favors by this particular arrangement and I wouldn't even be protesting had they just kept them both in Rochester from the start instead of having the obviously inferior player get this brand of preferential treatment/development, to their detriment.
 

Chainshot

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Can anyone find a "culture" trade that has worked out for the team initiating the deal? We know what happened here. We've seen the flopping of the Oilers culture based deals. Heck, Dallas is pretty happy that Chia threw them Seguin. Carolina, even taking on a culture dump in Hamilton looks like they're pretty happy with that deal.
 
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Zip15

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Amen. Been saying it since the morning after the ROR trade. Preach, brotha.

And this isn't over. When they hire a new coach, drop the roster flotsam and replace with better players, you'll surely get a bevy of articles about how the new coach is changing the culture.
 

Chainshot

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Among plenty of other things, it was absolutely ******ed for them to keep Nylander down and have Thompson up for nearly the entire season. There's no way Alex would've been as much as a liability and his game is much more tailored to the NHL than Tage's goofy ass. Nobody was done any favors by this particular arrangement and I wouldn't even be protesting had they just kept them both in Rochester from the start instead of having the obviously inferior player get this brand of preferential treatment.

That comes back around to the GM saying "it would've been nice to see some people in important roles" when he had two players he could have actually shuffled down to the AHL because they're both still eligible in Thompson and Mittelstadt who both could have used the demotion early in the season. They could've looked at O'Regan, Smith, Nylander, Olofsson all in more important minutes. But we're supposed to believe that his hands were tied, when clearly they weren't?

That's a culture issue - not icing the best possible lineup is an integrity issue that is likely going to weigh on the players. Seriously. Having had the misfortune to be part of an organization that ran on nepotism, it was such a morale killer to be a part of.
 

Chainshot

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While I agree completely that winning fixes all locker room issues... there clearly is a culture problem. But it comes from the front office and the coach, not the players.

The double standards between word and deed from the front office and coach are certainly part of the root cause.
 

vcv

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Yeah, I'm sold.

Get better players. Use analytics to drive player usage. Stop sitting guys when they make an on-ice mistake (at least until the team is more successful).
 

Djp

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Jul 28, 2012
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I'm so sick of the commentary that there are issues in the dressing room and that they have to "fix the culture". We have seen repeatedly and personally that "culture trades" are for losers. Win games and tensions abate. It's that simple. Find someone who can run the bench without seeming like he's been pulled out of 1989 and find another couple roster players who are above replacement level for the roster and there will be no more concerns about the room.

The coach and GM are talking about how much they all communicate. Great. That doesn't do **** all for wins. Scoring goals matters. Stopping pucks matters. Effort matters. Passing matters. But kumbaya culture happiness is contrived and should not be the focus of building a winning team.

/end rant


its a chicken egg thing....
if a team doesnt know how to win or doesnt want to win then you may need to bring in new guys who are used to winning and change things.,
 
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Chainshot

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its a chicken egg thing....
if a team doesnt know how to win or doesnt want to win then you may need to bring in new huys who are used to winning and change things.,

Bringing in talent to get better is not culture change. Dealing current good players for "culture" reasons has been shown to not work over and over again.

Edit: still rocking the flip phone?
 
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Baccus

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Bad organizations often seem to place the blame for their issues first on culture, then on their good players who they ship out.
 
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Djp

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Bringing in talent to get better is not culture change. Dealing current good players for "culture" reasons has been shown to not work over and over again.

Edit: still rocking the flip phone?


i wasnt saying dealing players for culture reason/

In a young team it has shown you may not know how to win or how to handle slumps that some veteran leadership brought it could help. young team with not much playoff experience benefits from having vets with playoff experience.

You can have a problem with culture that divides the team so you need to move players. I do believe there was something going on with ROR and the team so something needed to change. Maybe botts saw something with the team he didnt see in pittsburgh that he wanted to remove.
 

Steddy33

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When the players don't believe in the management (coach, GM, owners) of a team you get the kind of shit we see with Sabres. The players don't give the full out effort every day because they don't believe in what they're doing. The players know their GM, coach, and teammates are not good enough.

Get a hockey dept president who will hold the management accountable. Then the players will be held accountable. This stuff starts at the top and flows downhill.
 

Chainshot

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i wasnt saying dealing players for culture reason/

In a young team it has shown you may not know how to win or how to handle slumps that some veteran leadership brought it could help. young team with not much playoff experience benefits from having vets with playoff experience.

You can have a problem with culture that divides the team so you need to move players. I do believe there was something going on with ROR and the team so something needed to change. Maybe botts saw something with the team he didnt see in pittsburgh that he wanted to remove.

Trading players for culture reasons specifically has been stated by various teams -- Buffalo with O'Reilly, Edmonton with Eberle and Hall, the Bruins with Seguin. And in none of those cases did it work out for the team initiating the trade. That's the point.

Finding good players should be every teams' mantra. Culture mumbo jumbo usually involves moving good players for jack shit return.
 

OkimLom

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May 3, 2010
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"Culture" is what a team sells to its fans when it can't sell winning.

It's a meaningless buzzword, nothing more.

IMO, not really. Culture, for me, is a term that labels the overall scope of a team's work ethic, player standards, organizational standards, and the type of players that particular organization may target. When talking about "culture" it's not necessarily and good or bad thing. When I look at Boston, I see an organization that has a productive and great culture. All their players work their butts off. For example, their players tend to have a solid cardio level to them, along with being very strong on the puck. When looking at the training camp videos, you see they hold their players to a high level of standards just COMING to camp. They also play a very structured system, and they don't cheat on their shifts. They are responsible throughout their roster. They come off as a very professional team in every way possible. This trickles down into Providence where they have been very consistent for years. Watching them play you can see they have a plan, and they play similar to how they play on the main roster. Makes it very easy to call guys up and have guys slip right into their lineup. That to me is what culture is.

Teams like Tampa, we've been seeing the results of their culture these past couple of seasons. Chicago had it. Los Angeles had it at one time. Pittsburgh has it. All these teams have had to re-design their culture from less than acceptable ways. They have found what works for them, and they stick to it. Winnipeg I will assume will be the next team that we will see create another successful one.

Edit: Would like to add; Culture comes from those above the players. Coaching staff, management, ownership.
 
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