It’s numero uno on the to-do list of every National Hockey League coach, including Paul Maurice of the Winnipeg Jets.
Taking a group of men and moulding them into a Stanley Cup contender is always job No. 1, whether a guy is standing on the bench with the Chicago Blackhawks or the Buffalo Sabres. But settling on which men wear the big-league jerseys is often both compelling theatre for outsiders and a hair-pulling chore for those involved.
And so it was Monday that Maurice, fresh from re-assigning 14 players to the Manitoba Moose and sending two more back to their junior clubs, rolled up his sleeves and got to work with the 27 players still scrapping for 23 roster jobs.