Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
Is that you Jay Feaster?
There were probably 2 very good reasons why Darryl picked SLIGHTLY more Western Canadian kids vs others:
1) He was trying to build a culture in Calgary of players wanting to play here, and being proud of this team.
2) Lack of scouts - he convinced ownership to expand the scouting department for what I think was every single season he was GM (and the drafting DID improve). Flames simply did not have enough manpower to adequately scout every league - hence a few more picks in the leagues they would get to see more often. Makes sense to me.
Also, as for drafting the 'big western Canadian' all grit no skill you mentioned - who drafted Backlund? Brodie? Erixon?
Seriously, go back through every one of Darryl's drafts and look at who he selected. Euros, OHL, QMJHL even (though I think only a couple at most in the Q). Not everyone was big and burly. He selected a lot of skilled and somewhat undersized players as well.
People just remember what they want to remember, instead of looking things up for themselves. Not only do you see players selected who pretty much the exact opposite of what you insist was his focus, but you can see an ever-improving draft. When did "High hockey IQ" become something the Flames drafted towards? Feaster's regime? When Weisbrod came aboard? No, it was under Darryl.
Once again, Darryl took over a team with horrible drafting and development. He himself BOMBED HORRIBLY at it for the first few years as well, but he started to make the changes necessary to adjust. You might argue it was slow in coming, but it did come, and Feaster just seems to be taking every ounce of credit for it.
Did Darryl make some blunders in the drafting philosophy and selections? YOU BET! However, he is also responsible for the improvement as well - both in investing in drafting and development, as well as what qualities the staff should be emphasizing on.
Darryl was not the "God" he seemed to be for years in Calgary, but on the same token, he was definitely not the devil either as people make him out to be.
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Completely agree that drafting did improve during the latter half of his tenure. Why he does get crapped on was his willingness to trade away 2nds like candy while at the same time insisting that the pipeline was well stocked when everyone else knew otherwise.
People talk about meddling ownership but there is also meddling GMs. And when Tod Button said that the final call was Darryl's, I believe him and based on Duane Sutter's reaction to taking a small Swiss in the 1st round of 2011, I doubt that we would have picked him if Sutter was still in charge. Say what you will about Feaster, but he seems to let the scouts do their job without meddling.
I did go back and check out the draft picks under Sutter's reign and yes, he did draft from all over the world (exception Russia and limited Czech/Slovak picks) however he did stay close to home in rounds 1-3 and picked more OHL/QMJHL//Euro in later rounds (yes, Backlund, Erixon, Nemisz the exceptions) so the likelihood of these players turning out diminishes. I'm not anti-Western and would have been happy if Sutter picked Ennis instead of Nemisz, Green instead of Chucko, etc.
It wasn't the pro Western bias that us in this predicament and upon review i did present a simplistic reason for why our drafting sucked. Yes, Sutter began to turn it around but the 2003-2006 era really set us back and his willingness to trade away draft picks and prospects coupled with his simplistic view that kids from Western Canada would build a winning culture based on their birthplace are a couple of reasons why we were unable to build a strong prospect pool.
Yours truly, a proud multigenerational Western Canadian.