Quote:
Originally Posted by FAN
You can evaluate hockey sense just fine? Can you evaluate amateur talent and figure out who will become NHL stars? Pro talent? Can you break down a team's system and tell whether a player is playing it? Can you do those evaluations at a high enough level that if you were offered an opportunity to be an NHL team's scout or hockey executive you would do a fine job? My guess is that you can't do it any better than most casual hockey fan on this board, and that's not a slight against you.
Feaster was a contracts guy before he became Tampa's GM. After that, he was a blogger. I've said this many times. Feaster is the only GM I know of that doesn't go on scouting trips (maybe he'll read the boards and go on a scouting trip next season). He relies on his scouts, which is fine for taking a chance on guys like Cervenka or Byron but not for major decisions. I remember there being a thread about Brian Burke having attended the Ducks and Blackhawks game. A couple months later, the Lupul and Gardiner trade was made. That's what you need to do as a boss in any line of work. You need to confirm with your own eyes your employees' work and not just take it on blind faith.
It's all about talent evaluation and Feaster doesn't have the skills to evaluate talent because he never learned it. Look at the GMs around the league. If they didn't play in the NHL, they either have scouting background, coaching background, player agent background, or all of the above. They either know the game real well or they learned how to be a talent evaluator. Ray Shero never played in the NHL, but he played hockey all his life, he coached, he was a player agent, and he did a lot of scouting when he was an assistant GM.
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I will have to agree with the previous post. The assumptions some make about about Jay Feaster are incredibly ignorant. We can judge a GM's effectiveness by whether the team wins or lose, but very few people have the slightest the clue of what Jay Feaster's job actually entails.
It's funny though. Jay Feaster (quite like Gary Bettman) will actually encourage criticism, as he recognizes that its part of the business; and, negative criticism is better than no criticism, as the NHL is about making money and earning a living.