It will probably take success to do it.
IIRC Landeskog on COL is the kind of guy we hope Lias Andersson will be persona wise, he's been their captain since like 19, and they still had garbage ass effort for like 3 of his 5 years.
I think it's really a thing beyond one or two or even five guys, it's a whole culture of it we still haven't purged. AV telling them to turn the other cheek is a cool narrative until he's long gone and they're still turning away from hits poke checking.
I think success helps, but I do think we have a bit of a leadership vacuum.
I still think we have guys who play hockey to live, not necessarily who live to play hockey. It's not to say they aren't passionate, but I don't know if they're the type who get sick to their stomach when the team under-performs.
I think there are several guys this team was expecting more from as leaders, and for the most part, I don't think they've necessarily met, let alone surpassed expectations.
But this is also a potential reason why this team so desperately needs its one or two guys to build around. Even if those guys aren't the most dynamic leaders in the world, they would help set the tone for the team --- which is missing on most nights.
Right now this is a team without an identity. They're not the hard-working lovable loser types, they're not the type that pushes a team but doesn't quite have the skill to beat them, and they're not quite the raw-skilled, but still unfocused type of team either.
Right now they're fairly easy to beat, aren't necessarily a hard-competing team, or an exceptionally skilled one. There's a number of support guys who could find success elsewhere, but the sum of several support guys does not equate to one or two tone-setters that everyone else falls in line around.
So again, while we've seen various posts about being a player or two away from being a contender, the reality is that there's quite a bit of work below the surface that has yet to be done.