To add to Green Machine's post, one thing I notice Darryl taking a lot of flack for is the drafting.
Yes, it was horrid in the first half of his tenure here, but you also have to grade him based on the changes he made, not just the outcome.
When he took over, I believe the Flames were sharing their AHL team with Carolina (if I remember correctly - anyone verify?). Also, Todd Button might have been the ONLY full-time scout. I believe there were 2 part-time scouts in the organization.
So, he started off with nothing much.
He substantially added to the scouting department, restarted the development program (seriously, I don't even think there was anyone employed in development), and in time even got ownership to buy-into the creation of the Heat.
From these changes, you could see progress, though painfully slow. Over the years it became better as Sutter added to it. Yes, one can argue that change was too slow to be acceptable, and you may very well have a point. Maybe ownership was more hesitant to throw money into it at first? Perhaps building a scouting department takes a lot of time to put together, and even more time for them to start seeing results proving to themselves they are on the right track?
A rookie GM no less would probably have even a harder time assembling a scouting crew.
Did Darryl fail at the drafting and development side of things? Yes, he did. However, he also realized how important it was, and he put a lot of effort into getting it on track (which it started becoming around 2008 or so, and increasingly better every year). Too little too late, but bulk of the work that continues to this day I believe was centered around 2005-2008/9 maybe - when it seems they finally started identifying what they should be looking for in prospects.
I always wonder what would a rebuild look like under Darryl. Would have have been very interesting to see what direction he would have gone in, but Burke and Regier all strike me as the most 'Darryl-esque' GMs out there for some reason (and I also think given Regier's relationship to Burke, he is probably the favorite for the GM role).
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