I guess when I hear character I don't think of the bare minimum that should be expected of a pro athlete. When I hear character I think of players that lay a lot of hits, block a lot of shots, and fight, but don't necessarily have good skill. How often do you hear about Sidney Crosby's character despite having one of the best work ethics in the NHL? You only hear about it with guys like Glass.
I am fairly certain defining the loose definition of character applicable to Gorton's line of thought or thought process you can look at 2 shining examples: Sidney Crosby and Jagr. They're not only generational talents, they have the work ethic to match their skills.
Of course nowadays, you have to win the lottery outright to receive an opportunity to draft those two. But in the context of examples, they're perfect. You're giving up no skill and getting players that will do the extra work that another will not.
So if there's a choice between 2 players, one where his work ethic or off the ice behavior doesn't match but the other one is a gym rat, gets along with teammates, is always looked as a Captain or volunteers in the offseason at a retirement community in between workouts, the Rangers will pick the guy with the better intangibles.
I think it's just a way of saying absence of other tiebreakers or all things being equal, they're going to look for the little things a player does. It's not science or anything. I also think if there's a disparity in skill they won't ignore that, they'll pick the skilled guy first.
In reality though, there's razor thin margins between all of these kids save for the top 1 or 2. So you're kind of honor bound as a talent evaluator to dig deeper and find the guy with better intangibles you believe will make the chances of player A to be more successful than player B.
It could be anything from work ethic to how he gets along with teammates. Lets face it there's a heck of a lot more to making a team than just finding the 20 most talented players you can. There's a lot of moving parts/personalities needed to make a successful hockey team.
To be clear: I am only concerned about character because of the razor thin margins and a way of differentiating 2 prospects all things basically equal. I don't think it should be a sole reason to draft a player. Also no European players because they're soft and have no character. lol
