January 6, 2026

What Hockey Taught Me About Winning When You’re Supposed to Lose

Opher Brayer

Here’s the thing about underdogs nobody tells you: they’re dangerous precisely because everyone already wrote them off.

Last week, I watched the Winnipeg Jets play the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now, Winnipeg had lost seven games straight. In the last two? One goal. Each. Total offensive output of a team that forgot how to score. On paper, this should’ve been a slaughter. Toronto walks in, Toronto walks out with an easy win.

Except that’s not what happened. And what did happen is a masterclass in strategy that every CEO, founder, and performance leader should tattoo on their forearm.

The Setup

Winnipeg scores. Then scores again. Then again. Suddenly it’s 4-1, and Toronto—the supposed winner—is standing on the ice looking like someone just told them their flight got cancelled and there’s no hotel.

Here’s what happened psychologically: Toronto came in expecting to win. And when you expect to win, you don’t actually prepare to fight. You coast. You assume gravity will do its job. Meanwhile, the Jets—backed into a corner with nothing to lose—came out swinging like their careers depended on it. Because they did.

The Brilliant Move Nobody Talks About

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Craig Berube, the Leafs’ coach, does something counterintuitive in the second period. He tells his team: don’t attack. Defend.

Wait, what? You’re down by three goals and you’re going to… not try to score?

This is the part where most coaches panic. Most leaders panic. When you’re behind, every instinct screams do more, try harder, attack. But Berube understood something fundamental about momentum: you can’t outrun it. You have to break it first.

Defense wasn’t about winning the second period. It was about confusing the hell out of Winnipeg.

Think about it. The Jets had momentum. They were flying. Everything was working. And then suddenly… nothing. Toronto stops feeding them opportunities. The ice gets quiet. The rhythm breaks.

The Kill Shot: Confusion

Here’s the dirty secret of competition: the best time to attack someone isn’t when they’re weak. It’s when they’re confused.

Winnipeg couldn’t adapt. They’d found success attacking, so they kept attacking—even when it stopped working. They didn’t shift to defense because their brains were still stuck in “we’re winning” mode. And that gap between what’s actually happening and what they think is happening? That’s where Toronto drove a truck through.

Third period: Toronto scores. And again. And again. Final score: 6-5 Leafs.

From 4-1 down to 6-5 up. Not by panicking. Not by trying harder. By disrupting momentum first, then attacking.

The Business Translation (Because You Knew This Was Coming)

Every week I work with leaders who are either the Jets or the Leafs in this story. Sometimes both in the same quarter.

When your competitor suddenly gains ground—when the market shifts against you, when the deal falls through, when the numbers tank—the instinct is to work harder. Launch more. Spend more. Attack.

But sometimes the winning move is to go defensive. Not forever. Just long enough to break their momentum and create confusion. Let them keep swinging at air while you regroup. Then, when they’re exhausted and disoriented, wondering why their playbook stopped working—that’s when you strike.

Microsoft and Google are playing this game right now. A year ago, Microsoft was unstoppable—the OpenAI deal, Copilot everywhere, total momentum. Google looked finished.

But here’s the thing about momentum: it needs fuel. And when people stopped deploying AI skills at the rate Microsoft expected, the engine stalled. Now Google’s on offense and Microsoft’s trying to figure out what happened.

The question isn’t whether Microsoft can come back. Of course they can. The question is: will they have the discipline to go defensive first? To disrupt Google’s momentum before attacking?

Or will they keep pushing the same playbook, wondering why it stopped working?

The Real Lesson

Winning isn’t about being stronger. It’s about reading the game.

Know when to absorb. Know when to disrupt. Know when to strike.

And for God’s sake, never underestimate a team with nothing to lose. They’re not playing to win—they’re playing like they’ve already lost everything. Which makes them the most dangerous opponent you’ll ever face.

What’s your Berube move?

When have you gone defensive to break momentum instead of attacking harder?

As an experienced Performance Strategist at ipmro.ai I learn from everything, so that is why I did cross-domain analysis, to extract the strategic principles. Here are, again, the game details observation I had: Toronto rallied from a three-goal deficit (4-1) to NHL defeat Winnipeg 6-5, with Winnipeg dropping their 8th straight loss. And here’s the critical validation of my own insight; Coach Craig Berube explicitly said: “I made a change just to try and change the momentum more than anything.” NHL

I tried identifying the exact strategic logic Berube employed. Let me extract the deeper principles you’re surfacing, because this maps onto organizational strategy:

The Momentum Paradox: When facing an opponent with sudden momentum (even a “weak” opponent), the instinct is to fight fire with fire and attack harder. But momentum has inertia. Berube understood that you cannot overcome momentum directly; you must first dissipate it. Defensive play doesn’t win the game, but it creates the conditions for winning.

The Confusion Inflection Point: This is your most profound observation. Winnipeg’s coach captured it perfectly: “We finally scored some goals and then implode the other way.” NHL When their momentum was blocked, they couldn’t adapt. They kept attacking because that’s what momentum demands—but without the psychological fuel, their offensive posture became vulnerability.