Dimitri Filipovich

Please excuse me.

When we were going through our mock draft exercise, which everyone can go read at The Athletic, and Scott did an unbelievable job with the intel that he was able to provide, we ended up sort of having this conversation about drafting character players throughout the class.

And then by the end of it, I was like, I feel like we stepped on every landmine possible.

The Canucks are talking a lot about culture, and yet I feel like the mark of culture is not do you solely bring in the highest caliber character people as an organizational ethos, but can you build a strong enough culture that you can take some swings and make people better?

I feel like it's also got to be part of the decision, especially when it comes to the draft, if you're going to take the sort of swings that might create sort of impact.

Guys, how does, in your view, how should the Canucks kind of balance that, especially as we talk through names like Roarbrook and Nordmark and some of the gaudy profiles that will likely be available in their range?

Absolutely.

I think it's interesting.

The larger trend in hockey history is that talent concentrates around other talent.

In the past...

I'm talking 15 to 25 years ago, right?

Like Ole Okunin left Florida, Jay Bomeester left Florida, Luongo left Florida, like Stephen Weiss went to Detroit, right?

Like talent used to flow northward because those teams weren't serious and weren't spending to the cap.

Over the last five, six years, and I think there's multiple things that have driven this.

One is

I think players have become increasingly conservative.

NHL players have become increasingly conservative generally, politically.

And as just like, you know, demographic trends and polarization consistent with that, right?

We're mostly talking about young, white, affluent males without college educations, right?

So, I mean, this is not a value judgment on my end.