Personally - having played quite a lot of hockey in my life... (from youth-age to now/almost50)....
Wingers are typically - by far - the least hockey-smart of the lot of hockey people - positionally.
If I had to pick people for general hockey-smarts:
1. Former defensemen
2. Former centers
3. Former goalies (*goalies are the biggest "range" - I've met absolute brilliant guys in net... and absolute dummies... crazy)
...
4. Analytics gurus
...
5. Former wingers
...
Maybe Shanahan is OK-smart... IDK... but I've never met a high-hockey-IQ winger during my lifetime.
Wingers - I've found - often have the highest SKILL:SMART ratio of all positions... and that's why they end up on wing - because it translates best there.
Making a dumb mistake can be covered by all the other positions... if you are on wing.
[not saying ALL wingers are dumber than every guy at ever other position... but I think if there was a Hockey-Wonderlic of sorts... I think this is how it would play out - list above.]
And part of the issue here is... Who hires Shanahan? (or a winger of any sort?)
Do they - themselves - have the hockey smarts to know if this guy is brilliant... or not?
If you have an owner rep (MLSE) - they probably don't have deep hockey smarts themselves... so how are they supposed to "know" or "not know" what Shanahan is?
I'd hope that these places have hiring-consultants... you know... just a 85 year old Scotty-Bowman-type would be enough to sit during interviews and say "This guy gets it all - he'll pick smart people under him".
IDK...
Shanny always shocked me as a strange hire for an upper position in the hockey world.
I watched him a lot as a teenager - and thought he was just a very skillful player...