It's been a dreary decade or so for Canadian NHL teams. There's kind of an unremitting debate over the reasons these franchises have, as a group, struggled to perform. There's also the fact that the last Canadian team to win a Stanley Cup was Montreal in 1993. So, dire times for teams north of the border, and doubly grating because they're the biggest generator of NHL-level talent by miles and miles. The 2013-2014 season was something of a case study in Canadian hockey franchise futility. Edmonton was stuck in Year Whateverof their endle s rebuild. Calgary and Winnipeg were also-rans for most of the season. Vancouver and Ottawa, two teams with legitimate playoff expectations, never really got out of the gate. Toronto spent their entire season being the in the analytics era. That leaves us with Montreal a team that reached the Eastern Conference Final despite some play for most of the year. It's debatable whether or not they were the only Canadian team that surpa sed expectations. Even if you concede they did, we are still talking one of seven. At any rate, Montreal like every other Canadian team had plenty of work cut out for them this offseason. Naturally, you would figure these teams would target talent on a variety of fronts. Instead, every front office spent countle s hours scouring the intangible department. Why? Because it's worked so well in the past. Let's look at each team and how they approached the summer. CALGARY FLAMES : The type of people is just as important as the type of player, stre sed Flames GM Brad Treliving. We want to make sure were bringing good character people here. Were just at the start of bringing a lot of young people into our organization, and as much as you want leadership on the ice in terms of production and play and those type of things, the personality, the people, the character of the individuals that we bring in here is critically important to lead that path. : Deryk is a guy who I think in a lot of ways has been underappreciated, undervalued, the Flames GM said. Hes a tremendous person. Weve talked about character and the type of people we want to bring in here. Continued: If you go back and do the homework and do the research and talk to former players and talk to the people in Pittsburgh what type of person Deryk is, youll get the respect. This guy was a big part of their locker room. He was a leader, tremendous character and a real good person. Theyre all good players, but Sams a guy we had our eye on from Day 1, GM Brad Treliving said. He has a special combination of skill, speed. Ive talked about this since Day 1, the character, the intangible pieces, this guy oozes character, plays with an edge. Were real happy tonight. : I think Brandon is a guy Moral Stephens Jersey who, when given a situation with a little more responsibility, a little more opportunity, theres growth to his game yet, said Flames GM Brad Treliving. He gives us some size. Weve got some young people coming, in terms of skill, so we wanted to make sure theyre surrounded by the right people. Hes won a Stanley Cup. EDMONTON OILERS : I think the scenarios are becoming more and more clear. There are six pending scenarios I think we can be presented with in terms of packages of players. There are a couple of players were going to have to decide between. We still continue to do our homework in terms of the character and the a se sment with people who know these players well. "We talked about size, we talked about increasing our competitivene s and he's a guy who tracks the puck very well and pre sures the puck very well. He's a great skater and we really felt we needed to add that element." : "You combine him with our No. 1 pick last year (Darnell Nurse), and we start to see some size and quite a bit of character continue to come into our dre sing room." MONTREAL CANADIENS : "The acquisition of Dale Weise contributed to the succe s of our team this season," Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin said. "A young veteran with a lot of character, Dale is an intense player with a strong work ethic. We're very pleased to have him as part of our team moving forward." : "Size is something every team looks at," he said. "But character for me and compete [level] always comes into play. : The Habs went "under the radar" on Koberstein, according to their scouting director. I think this guy has good upside and long-range projection," he said. "He's a great kid and has tons of character. : I think when you bring character defencemen and character forwards you see the difference when you get into the playoffs, and thats what theyve brought to us, Bergevin said. OTTAWA SENATORS : "We knew he was competitive. He played better than I thought he could play for us. He really was a good player and hes a real character man." : "I think he, after talking to a number of the Swedish players in Detroit, thought it would be different. He thought they were ahead of us as far as winning and it ended up, because we lost his leadership, they were." : "We're past that, we're going to have a good hockey team here. We're going to compete, we lose a little bit a centre ice, we gain a little bit on the wing. We've got a couple of young guys coming that are going to be a different brand of player in Borowiecki, Lazar, guys like that who bring a real character to the team. I think our team is going to be a really competitive, hard-working group of people and I think the leadership I've talked to Erik Karl son the last day or two and all that type of thing I think we're going to be well off going forward" : We've always wanted to shift to the hard-working competitive team we had two years ago and last year for some reason we got off the track. We're going to try to get back on track. : The Senators believe Lazar is the best character player they've drafted in at least the last seven years. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS : "His leadership, the way he plays the game, the fact he can be a second-power-play-unit guy at this stage of his career, the compete, the character, all those things we were looking to add, we were pretty happy that we were the team he ended up with," Nonis said. Continued: "He's a heart-and-soul kind of a player," Toronto general manager Dave Nonis said. "He's a player I think that at the end of every year you can look back and say he's given you everything he had. He's still a very effective player." Continued: Q: How much of a factor was everybody thats played with (Robidas) talks about how good he is in the dre sing room, you guys talked about the culture inside the dre sing room, how important was that in bringing this player in? A: It was a factor. I mean, put it this way: If he was just a great guy and couldnt play, well that wouldnt have helped us. The people that I know that know him, that (team president) Brendan (Shanahan) knows, speak very highly of the way he handles himself on and off the ice. I dont think were looking at a guy thats gonna come in here and be terribly vocal or anything like that but in terms of playing the game the right way, taking care of yourself and leading by example, that, again, coupled with being a right shot and his playing ability, he was a guy we targeted right away. Both those players had significant roles on our team two years ago, Nonis said. And we talked a little bit about that chemistry that we had two years ago, and the work ethic and the players playing outside their comfort zone. : "Well I think part of it, its always about character. Your room can handle players who have maybe questionable character if its strong enough, if you have enough players that can override that. I dont think we have a character i sue with our team or our players but I think adding people like Leo and Robidas to that group only strengthens it. The compete level that we had two years ago I think was at or near the top of the league. We got more out of our players, the coaches did, the players themselves did, in terms of pushing each other than we did last year, no question about it. And some of the players that were talking about were here and will help us get that back or have a history of doing that, and that was a focus for us." VANCOUVER CANUCKS : "I like our core," he said. "Our core players are high-character people." : "I would like to see a little more physicality on the third and fourth lines. I'm not talking about fighting, but I am talking about between the whistles, getting in on the forecheck, hitting, playing with a little bit more grit." : "We've been talking about bringing in some good energy guys that are going to work hard and compete hard physically and he's going to do that for us," Canucks general manager Jim Benning said Friday. : Until you can quantify courage and character analytics dont really help on the amateur side." "This core group of players, they're a character group," Linden said. "They took full responsibility for the season and their performances. It was really le s about that and more about many factors needing to go in a new direction. Describing Desjardins and Benning, Linden on Monday said: These guys are down-to-earth, hard-working, genuine people. When you want to build a team, and you surround yourself with good people, thats the type of people you hire. WINNIPEG JETS : "In our exit meetings, one of the things Paul and I talked about was the importance of several players. One of those players was Mark Stuart, who we locked up earlier in the year prior to the trade deadline. Paul felt he was one of the guy's who was a real leader in the room." : "He is someone that plays six minutes one night and twelve a next. He's not going to be upset playing six the next night. You only have to go back to remembering the day he stood up for his teammates and fought Zdeno Chara. If that doesn't make an impre sion on you and on a group, and know where a player's heart and pa sion lies .. it's there." : "His hockey sense is right up there," he said. "And his character's not far behind. This is a player that every time we had an opportunity to meet with him, we didn't want the interview to end. He's going to be an exciting player for a long time." : "That's extremely high," the GM said. "Hockey sense is one of the core, foundation points for a hockey player. That's our belief. And it is something probably that's the hardest thing to measure and to gauge. Say you took five scouts and asked them what hockey sense is to them, you'll get five different answers. But it's one of the most important categories." Will it work? Check back next summer to find out! (No.) Rayshad Jackson Jersey