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Here are two very common things that are said about NHL hockey. If you haven’t heard them, you’ve been watching with the volume turned down (which is not necessarily a bad idea).

(1) Mark Messier is the greatest sports leader of all time, certainly in hockey and quite possibly in all sports, and

(2) Leadership is extremely important for success at the NHL level.

Though often said, they are rarely said together, because if you confront them consecutively it becomes clear that at least one of the above arguments is false. Why? Because the New York Rangers, captained by Mark Messier and loaded with talent, struggle to even make the playoffs.

It is often said of the Rangers that they are a very talented group of players (and are very well-paid), but they don’t play as a team, and that’s why they don’t win. To that, I would say, then what good is a leader? If a great leader like Messier can’t get his team to play as a team, then what good is leadership? The results of the Rangers in recent years indicate one of two things, at least: that Messier is not a great leader, and that’s why he can’t get his team to play together; or that leadership is simply not very important in hockey.

Let’s stick with that second idea for a bit. It is a perfect example of one of the great informed-outsider-versus-hockey-insider debates. Insiders will tell you that ‘intangibles’ such as leadership, or grit or character or what have you are key factors for winning in the NHL. Informed outsiders such as myself do not argue that intangibles do not exist, which is what insiders tend to accuse us of. Rather, we argue that these intangibles may well exist, but their importance is dwarfed by such basic skills as skating, shooting, passing, etc.

Indeed, the reason the Rangers don’t win is not because they don’t have chemistry, it’s because they suck at defence. They have many offensively-gifted players (including Messier), but most are defensively liabilities (also including Messier). They simply don’t have enough offence to make up for their shoddy defence, and their goaltending has not been spectacular. If they had a goaltender like Roberto Luongo, they could win. And such an acquisition would be far more valuable than all the leadership in the world.