As Moron Man says, "you cannot out -talent the opponent in hockey! You need toughness and determination! Good Canadian kids who know what it is like to struggle to achieve!" That is to say, the team that sits in the penalty box and gives the other team more power plays wins.
Sadly, that ancient dinosaur way of thinking is widely held in traditional hockey markets.
New ways, like analytics, skills, good scouting, getting European players to play here are all treated with suspicion.
The dinosaurs heads explode when in the salary cap era you pay players today for what they will be in the future, and not for cups won a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But there is this fondness for memories and thinking of what that guy would look like in a Leafs jersey, and he wanted no part of the media circus of Toronto when he first became a free agent, but now that he is looking at the end of pay checks, Toronto looks like a great destination, and Leafs Nation continues to embrace this Moron Man school of thought.
