Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Sutter was our GM. Davidson was the Blues president. So they aren't directly comparable that way.
Davidson was responsible for bringing Doug Armstrong in as a succession plan for when Pleau retired. Armstrong and Davidson brought in Ken Hitchcock which looked like a brilliant move.
If you want to compare him to Ken King, King was responsible for bringing in Sutter. Letting Sutter choose Playfair, Keenan, Sutter as coaches. King is responsible for bringing in Feaster and replacing Sutter with him as well as bringing in Weisbrod and Hartley.
The credit for the Blues rebuild should go to Armstrong, Davidson but also the drafting of now Columbus GM Jarmo Kekelainen who was Asst. GM before Armstrong became GM.
|
I agree with much of what you said above, although I do think you are too focused on the titles of President in your comparisons, not all NHL Presidents do the same things IMO.
Regardless of that, I think the key is what I bolded. Specifically the words "looked" and "credit". What exactly are we giving him credit for at this point? The answer appears to be be moves that "look" good, but haven't really amounted to anything yet. JD has very little actual "success" in his exec. role to his name, just a bunch of stuff as fans that "we think seem good" and that we "expect to pan out".
Point is, it is far from a certainty anything he's done will pan out. St. Louis may struggle just as the Flames did for the first 5 years post lock out to accomplish much of anything, and Columbus may continue to spin in circles.
I think there is a lot of counting chickens before eggs have hatched with JD, and there was a time when the bulk of Flames fans felt like D. Sutter / K. King had their on ice plan locked and loaded and we were sitting pretty. Things change pretty fast, and far too many people are way too upset we missed on an exec. in JD that has yet to give any proven results IMO. Maybe a year or two from now there might be evidence to suggest our dissapointment is valid, but certainly there isn't much to go on right now.