It seems to me that the only way anyone can defend Feaster is by inventing some conspiracy theory that every bad move he has made was really the result of president/ownership meddling, which is just silly.
To those who are saying that Feaster probably realized that a rebuild should have occurred much sooner, but ownership wouldn't let him so he was just towing the company line, I am failing to see your point. Even if this was the case (which I am not certain that it was) Feaster was still given a job to do (make the playoffs) which he has come significantly short of. Think about the line-up that he assembled this year with the intentions of making the playoffs. Our centres consisted of Stajan (a player who played fairly well this season but had come off of multiple disappointing seasons and, even when at his best, is no where near adequate enough to rely on in a top 6 role), Backlund (a guy that has struggled with consistency and injuries and was very much a question mark coming into this season), Cervenka (a player that was brought in to replace Jokinen but, by all accounts, has never actually played centre before), Jones (AHL throw-away), and a number of small players that are not natural centres who were played as fill-ins. Anyone who assembles a team with that kind of centre depth and thinks that they have a shot at the playoffs clearly has no idea how important centres are to the game, and likely lacks a fundamental understanding of hockey. This should be very concerning to everyone. We saw the exact same issue when he was in Tampa Bay. He allowed Khabibulin to leave for nothing, and thought he could just replace his number 1 netminder with career back-ups. There is clearly something lacking there and while many have speculated that Feaster surrounding himself with sound hockey minds would compensate for this, we have yet to actually see this occur.
It's pretty clear that he is not a hockey guy, but what he is, is someone that plays corporate politics very well and uses that skill to work his way up the food chain. He did this in Tampa Bay, getting promoted from assistant GM after Rick Dudley did all the heavy lifting in bringing in the core players that ultimately won Feaster his cup, and he did the same thing in Calgary, with much poorer results, unfortunately.
In summary, while you can perform mental gymnastics to create reasons for why Feaster is not to blame for his numerous mistakes, what no one is able to do is present a list of actual accomplishments that would suggest that he is suited for the job and that belief in this management group is well placed. Frankly, I am amazed that he has as much confidence in this thread as he does, because I can't see any justification for it.
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