Championships=every player in right role at right time

                                      Stop asking if the player(s) choked or lacked character.

Start asking if every player was in the right role at the right time of his career.

In the midst of disappointing playoff defeat, it's easy—if more often than not a logical fallacy—to attribute unexpected playoff losses to teams or players "choking" or "lacking character." But, more often than not, there's something else going on when a player who has previously won a championship suddenly appears to be "choking" or a team's core that isn't quite ready to win a championship just appears to have all sorts of "character" issues that cause them to "choke" or "underperform" in the postseason.


Let's look at some historical examples:

• Prior to 1991, Mario Lemieux was considered a player who wasn't as good as Gretzky. Lemieux hadn't won a single championship, let alone multiple championships. In 1991, however, Lemieux finally got a championship team around him, and the result was two consecutive championships. Lemieux, thrown into the playoffs with no help=his team chokes and he lacks character and can't win big games.   Lemieux, in the playoffs with a supporting cast=he is full of character and the captain of a champion and a player who comes through in the clutch.  
• Prior to Detroit's Cup victories in the nineties, Steve Yzerman and his Red Wings were considered historical underachievers.   Yet Yzerman got help in the form of a deep supporting cast, and, suddenly, the Red Wings were the elite team in the NHL.  Suddenly, Yzerman was a great leader, full of character, who helped his team win. Yet Yzerman, like Lemieux, finally got help—and when help arrived, well, so did Stevie Y as a hockey leader.
• Wayne Gretzky won four championships as an Oiler. He remained a great player, but he never had other players, playing the right roles at the right times, to win another championship.
• Mark Messier, considered the leader of leaders, required the right players in the right roles at the right time to win championships. When Messier was surrounded by players playing the right roles at the right times in their careers, he won. And when Messier wasn't surrounded by such players, he didn't win championships—a pattern that's held true for every Hockey Hall of Famer throughout history because hockey is a team game.

Now, let's look at some examples from this playoff season:

• In Los Angeles, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter are complementary players who do not have to be the faces of the franchise. Suddenly, Richards is free to play the role at the NHL level he's best suited to play: stalwart second line center. Suddenly, it seems, "Dry Island" wasn't really the issue. Instead, it seems the Los Angeles Kings have players such as Richards and Carter playing the right roles—very important complementary ones—at the right time in their careers. (Philadelphia made the right move in determining these players weren't best suited to be face-of-the-franchise players, but the Kings also made the right move in slotting them in their proper roles as complementary stars.)
• The current core of the Washington Capitals has been accused of "choking" or lacking "character" a lot in previous postseasons. Never mind facts about Alexander Ovechkin's career points-per-game average in the playoffs. Never mind that Washington has never had a true number one shutdown defenseman or true number one goalie. No, it's always about "character" or "choking." Suddenly, however, when John Carlson and Karl Alzner have matured into defensemen who can play a shutdown role (and if you think they're good now, just watch them in a couple of years), when Ovechkin's job can simply be to generate offense, when a very good goalie can stop the puck, and when Mike Green doesn't have to be a #1 defenseman but can do his thing offensively and on the power play—the Capitals look like a very, very good team because, for the first time, ever, they may actually have players in the roles they are best suited to play. (And when Alzner and Carlson get Cup rings—and they will—it won't be because they suddenly grew "character" but because they were playing the roles they were suited to play on a team that was fit to win it all. And if by some chance those players don't get rings, it won't be because they lacked character, but because they had the misfortune of playing on teams not constructed with every player playing the right role at the right time in his career.)
• If you watched Game 3 of the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia series, you watched former Stanley Cup champions Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Kris Letang have mini-implosions that made it look those players were simply choking. If you watched, at best you thought none of those players had any composure, and, at worst, you thought they lacked character, big-time. If you looked back to when they won the Cup in 2009 (when these players, three years younger, looked like they had composure and character in spades), you'd discover that a well-conditioned Crosby beat Philadelphia with two large physical wingers on each side of him. You'd discover a defense that insulated Marc-Andre Fleury a lot better and a defense that ran eight deep, helped each other, and didn't force any one defenseman (even Gonchar) to do everything by himself—and you'd note that Crosby, Fleury, and Letang no longer had the help they'd had when the 2009 Pittsburgh team won it all.

When you look at facts, you see how silly it is to attribute playoff losses to issues of character and choking.


Throw any great player into the playoffs with no help. His team chokes. He lacks character. He can't win big games.

Surround a great player with a team that can win it all. He has lots of character. He wins the big games.

Memo: Mario Lemieux was the same player, with the same character, before 1991 and after 1992. Ditto Jaromir Jagr after 1992 (in fact, Jagr got better as a player). When Lemieux and Jagr lost, in later years, look at the goaltending they didn't get. Look at the defensive help they didn't have. They were the same players, winners and champions, but they didn't have the right help at the right time, and they only won two championships because their later teams didn't give them the right help at the right time, with every player in the right role at the right time in his career, to capture another championship.


The harsh truth: it's about the right role at the right time. So, what does that harsh truth mean for general managers who are charged with putting teams together? What does it mean for coaches? What does it mean for analysts and fans?


General managers have to figure out what roles their players are best suited to play at this point in their careers, and surround those players with the help they need to play those roles. If your superstar center needs a big wing, make sure he has one. If your stalwart defenseman happens to be smaller than average, make sure you have some body-bangers on defense who can do what he physically can't. If your goalie can make the big save at the right time but needs some help to do so, make sure your team is properly insulating him. If your team is full of emotional players who wear their hearts on their jerseys and care so much they can lose their minds, make sure you surround them with some steady-as-she-goes guys who care just as much but are by nature temperamentally a little calmer. (Memo to Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero: I think I may have stated some of the help I believe your core players need.)


Coaches need to put players in the best position to succeed. There's a reason young defensemen tend to play protected minutes—it's for the team's good, and their good. Sometimes a GM forces a coach's hand, and a coach is forced to put players in positions where they can't succeed. But coaches need to know. My center needs this winger. My goalie needs this support defensively. I can't run my top two defensemen into the ground if I want them to play at an elite level game in and game out.


For analysts and fans, it means that most "analysis" (save for silliness like players staying out until 4 AM the night before a playoff game) should not be about "character" or "choking"—because, historically, it's just rare the actual core issue has much to do with "character" and "choking." Character and choking, as it turns out, have a lot to do with players being in the wrong role at the wrong time of their careers, or being in the right role at the right time of their careers but with no help to perform that right role at the right time.


If you watched Pittsburgh's first round series with Philadelphia this spring, you saw meltdowns. Ray Shero said it wasn't about character. And I agreed with him. It was about players not having the help they needed to play the roles they were asked to play.


Right roles, right times of career, with the right help=a team that wins a Stanley Cup 


Wrong roles, wrong times of career=a team that won't win the Stanley Cup


Right role, right time of career, but no help to play that role=a team that "should" win the Cup on paper, but is never going to win the Cup


For players that have won championships before or will win championships in the future, it's all about the right roles and the wrong roles and the right help or insufficient help. This year, it's about Jaromir Jagr, at age 40, not being expected to carry a team on his back like he did in his twenties. In 2009, it's about Kris Letang, in his second year in the league, being expected to play a complementary role on the power play, but not run the power play, on a team that wins a championship. Last year, it was about John Carlson and Karl Alzner—character guys and talented players—not yet being the shutdown guys they would be a mere one year later. (Seriously, if Washington was truly going to win it all in 2011, what in the world were they thinking having two very talented but very young and inexperienced players—kids— in the role of shutdown defensemen?)


Being real forces us to admit that talk of character and choking should be dismissed as the joke it usually is, and that, instead, we should turn our attention to the real question: Do I have the right players in the right roles at the right time of their careers, surrounded by the help they need to perform those roles well, so much that my team can win a championship?


That's the only question that matters. And those meltdowns—they're often about caring, albeit "too much" or a "wrong" manifestation of caring. And they belie a greater issue: Which of these roles does this team need to address in order to capture a championship?