Quote:
Originally Posted by FAN
The people in charge are responsible for performance of those who are under their supervision. When you keep the same scouting staff it's assumed you are happy with their performance. When you make scouting changes, it is assumed you are making improvements.
GMs and scouting DO go together. So do guys who head scouting departments. For example, Poile was great at drafting defensemen in both Washington and Nashville (albeit he did bring some of his scouting staff over). Lombardi's drafting has also been good in both San Jose and LA. Ottawa was one of the best scouting teams when they had Jarmo Kekalainen and Trevor Timmins. Kekalainen and Timmins have increased their reputations since then. There are teams that keep finding talent from specific leagues/regions and that's in large part due to the scout positioned there. Heck, our scouting of US/NCAA seems to be better and that can probably be attributed to Weisbrod.
Sutter had years to improve this team's scouting the same way Feaster had years to improve the Lightning's scouting. They both suck at drafting, but I suppose you can excuse Feaster a bit since he has no idea how to evaluate talent.
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100% true.
It just takes some time. I have absolutely no idea who was working under Feaster in his tenure there - and no idea what changes he made (or didn't) to try and improve.
With Sutter, he had a tiny scouting staff, but over the years he did start to make changes until it did start to get better. Do I give Sutter an "A" for scouting? Absolutely not. I would give him a 'D' over the entire tenure. An "F" for the first half of his tenure, and a 'C' for the last half (while I would like to give him a B+ for the 2010 draft).
My point was it takes time to make changes, and it takes time to see the end result of those changes. It is tough to gauge especially new GMs who you don't have previous results to gauge for. We can certainly gauge Button, and it does seem like he has improved - especially if we ignore all other factors like GM in charge and additional scouting staff surrounding him.
It takes a couple of seasons at least to start seeing if your picks were positive or negative for the most part - at the very least, your mid-late round picks. Then you make organizational changes and then have to see once again what those changes affected 2-3 years down the road at least (once again, for the late round picks). For a GM with no prior experience at the draft, and without an existing number of scouts he has learned to trust over the years, perhaps Sutter was better than we thought.
For instance, Poile and Lombardi did probably bring some scouts they trusted and brought with them that would make that transition easier, but someone like Sutter who probably didn't have that luxury, it would be more of an uphill climb, especially when you factor in the current state of the scouting department when he took over. Was it his responsibility? Most definitely it was. Was drafting a weakness under his tenure? Once again, most definitely it was. However, he did start to get it right (or at least, started improving) towards the end of his tenure, and that was my point only.