Historically, I have been a Doug Wilson fan. He seemed to understand the importance of chemistry and the need to acquire players who value the crest on the front of their sweater more than the name on the back.
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For a group that appears to need more leadership, grit and mental toughness how is Heatley the answer?
Most of all, it's validation of their resiliency, after bounding back from the Boyle Goal in Round 1 and then from the 7-1 curb-stomping in Game 4 against Detroit. The team has more backbone than every previous San Jose playoff team combined, minus the one with Irbe between the irons.
The first bit is from Jay Feaster, when he condemned the Heatley trade last summer. The second bit is Greg Wyshynski talking about the Sharks after their relatively easy dismissal of the Detroit Red Wings in round two.
The Feaster claims struck me as ridiculous the day they were written and it's somewhat fortunate that the Sharks post-season success has fully exposed them as such some eight months later.
My purpose, however, isn't (merely) to write a mocking send-up of a former NHL general manager who should know better. It's to once again highlight the scourge of the fundamental attribution error in hockey writing and analysis.
It's actually quite remarkable the degree to which both fans and analysts alike attribute success or failure in sports to the supposed psychological qualities or failings of a given player (or group of players). The overarching assumption I suppose is "winners win" and, of course, it's corollary, "losers lose". Which is why clubs that defy expectations in either direction are often met with well-worn but plausible sounding bromides about how they "wanted it more" or "have lost confidence in X" or "don't have enough character in the dressing room" etc etc. What's especially amusing about these stories is they are often proffered by people who have little to no idea about the inner workings of the dressing room in question. Just take a stroll through your local messageboard and marvel at the number of fans who seem to know who is (or isn't) inspiring confidence, being passionate about winning, (insert cliche about winners and losers here), despite never even once passing within spitting distance of the guys whose character they are praising or condemning.
In one way, this speaks to the intractability of an observers expectations wherein the disparity of an assumed level of performance and the actual level is explained away by some innate quality of the actor(s) involved. It couldn't be that one misjudged the potential for success or failure of a team or that chance skewed the results to "n" degree - it's that all the guys in the room came together and played for each other. Or there was more (or less) confidence suddenly. Also, passion, heart, grit. And so forth.
Of course, what's obviously clear over a long enough time line is that folks are just chasing results around and attaching labels to them in the aftermath. Joe Thornton is a poor leader and a choke artist right up until the point where he isn't. Pavel Datsyuk was a soft, fancy-pants Euro dangler a few short years ago. A guy who could put up points in the regular season but disappeared in the play-offs. Dany Heatley's selfishness was going to sink the San Jose dressing room. And the Colorado Avalanche were a plucky group of fresh-faced, exuberant underdogs who battled against all the odds - until they started losing, of course:
I don’t think this team wants it bad enough. That may sound harsh, but I think it’s the truth. I just don’t think they have the drive to be, nor the confidence that they are a playoff team anymore.
That's Adrian Dater back on April 1, when the percentages were finally starting to regress to the mean for Colorado.
We still don't fully have a handle on what moderates success in the NHL. A large portion of it is talent of the skaters. Another is coaching. Then there's quality of goaltending, injuries, organizational depth, officiating, quality of conference/division, difficulty of schedule and, of course, that fickle mistress, variance. If there's a thimble sized amount of explanatory power left over for "leadership, grit, poise, pluckiness, passion" etc. after all that, well...I'd be surprised.
