An NHL GM is something of an artist. They take a varied collection of materials (players, prospects, draft picks, cap space) and attempt to fashion from them something extraordinary: a championship.
In this sense, each GM could be said to be searching for Beauty. Not in the Don Cherry, thumbs-up, give him a beer after the game for blocking that shot with his nether-regions kind of beauty.
I mean real Beauty. Grace Kelly in her wedding dress. Jessica Chastain on the red carpet. A perfectly polished black walnut table. Morning fog rolling through the river valley. Vivaldi’s Winter. Schubert’s Ave Maria.
Beauty.
The way the 1987 Oilers were beautiful or the 1977 Canadiens.
But as I’m sure most of you know, defining Beauty is a tricky business.
Taylor Hall was…sorry…IS, a beautiful player. He rolls down the ice and it reminds me of old footage I’ve seen of Guy Lafleur, his long hair flowing out behind him as he cradled the puck on his stick and blew past his defender like an autumn wind carrying leaves past a lazy walker out for a stroll along the St. Lawrence.
It was beautiful watching Lafleur play the game. Hall is beautiful to watch play the game.
But now we have Adam Larsson.
Is Larsson beautiful? Time will tell, but I’d wager he is, though of course it will depend on who is doing the looking.
I think Peter Chiarelli is trying to build a roster he finds, if you’ll pardon the expression, beautiful.
How is a team without Taylor Hall more beautiful than with?
That’s what I’m going to explore.
Eye of the Beholder
The above is an old adage, well-known and often repeated.
But what does it really mean when we apply it to hockey?
Believe it or not, we (human civilization) have spent the better part of the last 5000 years trying to figure out just what we mean when we talk about Beauty, in broad artistic terms. So what are the chances I can get this sorted out by the end of this post? Well, I’ll try anyways.
“For some the most beautiful thing on earth is a cavalry squadron, others say an army of foot soldiers, others again say a fleet of ships, but I think beauty is what you fall in love with…[h]e who is beautiful is so for as long as he stands before us, he who is also good is good now and will always be so.” (Sappho, 7th/6th century BC)
If I asked random hockey fans to tell me the name of a player whose on-ice performance they would describe as beautiful, what names do you suppose I might get in response?
I did just that.
@CodexRex @BruceMcCurdy Connor McDavid of course. Orr was my favorite player ever. All the greats. Lafleur was incredible. Cournoyer
— Lowetide (@Lowetide) August 4, 2016
@CodexRex @Lowetide Jean Beliveau. Dave Keon. Bobby Orr. Gilbert Perreault. Mario Lemieux. Nick Lidstrom. Pavel Datsyuk. Gretzky to Kurri.
— Bruce McCurdy (@BruceMcCurdy) August 5, 2016
@CodexRex – Lafleur was my 1st favourite hockey player. He skated like the wind, his shot ultra-accurate. A beauty fun to watch
— Heather Marginet (@margih99) August 5, 2016
@Lowetide @CodexRex @BruceMcCurdy Bure was a pleasure to watch. Thrilling player, he touched the puck and you were out of your seat.
— Ben from Edmonton (@benoliver_1) August 5, 2016
.@CodexRex @Lowetide @BruceMcCurdy Lemieux, Kariya, Hemsky, Pronger, Lidstrom, Niedermeyer, Leetch, Modano, Weight, Malkin, McDavid, Karlsso
— Hollywoo JJerms (@jjerms12) August 5, 2016
You may notice that there’s a pretty wide disparity between the dominant skills of those players.
Now all those players had things about their game that they did exceptionally well, and it was up to us as the viewing fans, to appreciate – to identify and connect with – those things in order to appreciate that beauty.
And there are just as many varieties of fans watching the game as there are players on the ice. This may be why such passionate discussions can erupt over issues such as the “value” of a player like Ales Hemsky, idolized by some for his speed and finesse and criticized by others for a lack of other qualities. Remove the names and the specific traits, and the underlying template of that argument, with divided and passionate advocates on either side, could be made for virtually any player on our list above.
So, then, is beauty in hockey as subjective as it is in art?
“I have always believed that good is none other than Beauty in action, that the one is inextricably bound up with the other and that both have a common source in well-ordered nature. From this idea it follows that taste is perfected with the same means as wisdom, and that a soul open to the seduction of the virtues must be sensible in like measure to all the other kinds of Beauty.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie or The New Heloise, 1761)
This sentiment, if not the words themselves, could come from any number of paid hockey analysts, amateur data analysts or passionate fan.
Let me rephrase it like this: “What I perceive to be Beautiful is so in truth because it is rightly ordered within the natural laws of how the game is meant to be played and I know this because it coincides with my demonstrated knowledge of the game.”
Fans are subjected to this on an almost nightly basis from the unassailable heights of the analysts’ and colour commentator’s desks.
Philosophers and lawyers call it circular reasoning
The rest of us call it being an ass (Rousseau had some good points and certainly helped develop some fundamental concepts in modern Western thought – I’ve a greater affinity to his belief that people are inherently good than Hobbes’ assertion that people are prone to their baser instincts – but that doesn’t preclude him from being insufferable at times).
But here’s the question: if we were to accept the above statement as reflecting the truth about what is beautiful and then extend that idea to our premise of building an NHL roster, does it not imply that there is a single way to view what constitutes a “good” roster from a “bad” one? Matters of personal taste and preference in playing styles are no longer up for debate in the face of some unassailable authority whose criteria, no matter how reasonably defined, are ultimately subjective.
Put it another way, not all championship teams would be considered equal as the logical outcome of this argument would be to say that some teams won the “right” way while others did not.
So if someone within a position of authority in the NHL media landscape told you that the 2003 New Jersey Devils, the 2007 Anaheim Ducks and the 2011 Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup the right way while the 2008 Detroit Red Wings and the 2016 Pittsburgh Penguins did not, for all of the reasons stated above, how could you possibly respond?
The truth is that we all have varying perceptions of what we find to be of value in the game, what we think is beautiful.
David Hume wrote on this idea around the same time as Hobbes and Rousseau.
“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.” (Of the Standard of Taste, 1757)
This statement is closer to the truth of what it means to construct a winning NHL roster than that of Rousseau above (and I concede that neither of these men were speaking on matters of sport when they wrote their words).
Consider the following: you hear a statement from someone, either through the mainstream or social media, that declares player X to be lacking or unsatisfactory in some way and your blood boils. How on earth could they not see the great things this player does? They obviously don’t watch the games, or at least if they do they don’t grasp the game on the level you do! You are driven to argue “if you can’t see the value that Mark Fistric brings to this lineup then I’m not sure you really understand how the game is played!”
Now obviously there are tangible, quantifiable things we can use to either support or refute these arguments, but consider how often those facts are convincing to everyone in that argument?
And if we, as fans, have a hundred different opinions on what makes the game beautiful, how many might GMs? Even in the NHL, described often as a “copycat league”, could we expect to see four, five or even more differing visions of an ideal team?
Now what sort of differences might we expect to see amongst those, let’s say, half-dozen different visions?
So what kind of team might Peter Chiarelli consider beautiful?
Balance
Stashed somewhere in his secret lair, Lowetide has a picture. It represents balance, so we’re told. And it shall be revealed to us on the day the Oilers achieve this vaunted position (we should all live so long).
“Chrysippus […] states that Beauty does not lie in the individual elements, but in the harmonious proportion of the parts, in the proportion of one finger in relation to another, of all the fingers to the whole hand, of the rest of the hand to the wrist, of this last to the forearm, of the forearm to the whole arm, and finally of all the parts to all the others, as is written in the Canon of Polyclitus” (Galen, 2nd c AD, Placita Hippocratis et Platonis).
Balance means every player situated in his proper place on the depth chart, playing his especial role, backed up by a player who can push him without necessarily overtaking him. Balance is a roster that, through depth and ability, pushes each player on to greater heights and which, taken together, lends a kind of inherent momentum to the team so as to press upon their opponents – continually, consistently, unceasingly – until they falter or collapse altogether.
A balanced roster, taken as a whole, presents us with a beauty all its own. One that exceeds, but does not engulf or overshadow, the beauty of the individual player. Ideally these two things should work in concert, but each can exist without the other. Teams with few flashy or exciting players can, because of their cohesiveness and depth, become a whole whose value exceeds the sum of its parts. And as many Oiler fans are keenly aware, there can exist beautiful players, talents who can in a matter of seconds redeem the entirety of an otherwise forgettable game.
In a few rare occasions the two come together and we are treated to something very special.
Can Chiarelli accomplish balance without subtracting too much more from those elements of the roster we consider beautiful?
“…[The s]ublime does not persuade the audiences but rather transports them out of themselves. Invariably what inspires wonder casts a spell upon us and is always superior to what is merely convincing and pleasing” (Pseudo-Longinus, 1st c AD, On the Sublime).
The Oilers are gifted with a sublime talent in Connor McDavid.
But where else might they find that mixture of beautiful talent and skillful, if perhaps more mundane, execution to help bring the roster into a kind of harmony.
To put it another way, they have an artistic genius, but will they find enough qualified craftsmen with whom to surround him in order to bring a masterpiece to fruition?
The discussion now seems to shift from interpretations and types of rosters to whether it is more important to win at any cost or to try to do so in a more dazzling manner. Of course most fans are going to reply, when asked, that they would prefer their team to win 5-4 than 2-1 because the greater the number of goals the more likely the game was entertaining. But if preferring a 5-4 win brings with it a greater risk of defeat and failure, what then?
Darryl Sutter’s Los Angeles Kings arguably play the latter of the two styles and I’ve no doubt there are those who would argue that they enjoy watching that team’s style of play – that they find in it something enviable and superb. Certainly Anze Kopitar is a wonderful talent to watch, but he is surrounded by a very different supporting cast of talents than Patrick Kane in Chicago or Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh.
At the time of the Oilers’ official rebuild beginning the common parlance was that they needed to adopt the “Detroit” model to try and become a perennial powerhouse. Shortly thereafter the language shifted to the “Chicago” model, then there was talk of getting bigger, heavier, to replicate the “Los Angeles” or “Boston” model of winning.
The similarities and differences between all these teams has been discussed elsewhere, so instead I’d like to make the point that while the NHL seems to be stuck in a copycat mentality, the teams manage to carve out new, distinct models, perhaps in spite of themselves.
Should the Oilers ever manage to bring about a semblance of balance and roster depth, perhaps one day we will hear discussions of an “Edmonton” model (though to be honest, I doubt it, as any significant success will be attributed to McDavid’s presence and many will argue that anything earned must be discounted because of the extraordinary advantage the team has in that player).
Going back to what Hume said about subjective perceptions of beauty, does this mean that Chiarelli believes Adam Larsson is a more beautiful player than Taylor Hall? No, I don’t believe so. What I think is that Chiarelli believes a team with Adam Larsson is more beautiful, or at least closer to being beautiful as a whole, than an unbalanced team without him but with Taylor Hall.
“1. Architecture depends on Order, Arrangement, Eurythmy, Symmetry, Propriety, and Economy.
2. Order gives due measure to the members of a work considered separately, and symmetrical agreement to the proportions of the whole. It is an adjustment according to quantity. By this I mean the selection of modules from the members of the work itself and, starting from these individual parts of members, constructing the whole work to correspond. Arrangement includes the putting of things in their proper places and the elegance of effect which is due to adjustments appropriate to the character of the work” (Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture or de architectura, trans. Morris Hicky Morgan, 1914)
GMs enter the Hockey Hall of Fame as builders and we often use the term “architect” to describe a GM who has assembled a roster that is particularly effective (and sometimes, in mockery, those that are particularly ineffective).
Peter Chiarelli is the architect of the Edmonton Oilers, in pursuit of a beautiful roster, and I believe that balance and a strong defensive foundation are near the top of his list of priorities. Is he looking to make the Oilers a more functional construct at the cost of some spectacle? Perhaps, although it should be noted that the organization’s situation was so gravely mishandled these past ten years that he is essentially faced with exorbitant costs for what should be remedial work.
I believe Chiarelli is trying to craft a beautiful team, a balanced team, one that can challenge their opponents various ways but also force their own style of game on them. Does this mean that every part of his team will meet the expectations of our own discerning eye? No. Almost certainly not. But if they can achieve balance, if they can achieve a level of harmony within the roster, perhaps those lesser parts will be redeemed by the whole.
(Excerpts above were taken from Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, save for Vitrivius’ de architectura, which was available online as a free PDF)
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