Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
One guy - any one guy, the GM, the head scout, whoever - is NOT personally responsible for all of the picks made by the team he was with for the entire tenure of his time with that team.
No GM in the NHL goes out and personally scouts all the 3rd, 4th, 5th round picks himself.
I would think that the GM would usually have a great deal of input with respect to 1st round picks. After that, not so much.
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I get and mostly agree with what you are saying. I just wanted to add that a GM is ultimately responsible for the draft.
This is the part where I was 'unhappy' with the announcement of the Burke hire, and became even more apprehensive after he let Weisbrod go.
Burke hasn't seemed able to implement a strong scouting staff in his different tenures around the league. It does take a long time to put together a strong staff and start seeing results (as Darryl was only starting to find success near the end of his tenure). However, you can't credit Feaster for being a strong draft GM for all the picks under him, and you can't exactly disregard Burke for the poor showings either.
What would be really be much more insightful (and harder to track) would be the scouting personnel changes and any directives the GM gave (i.e. "preference for size", "preference on D", etc).
For example, has Burke been a sub-par GM at drafting because he has brought along parts of the same scouting staff from one team to another? How much of a budget was provided for each team? Did he start making changes to the scouting department, and have they continued along the same path he has created (like Sutter in Calgary, for instance)? Did he press the owners for a bigger budget (if it was small) for both the drafting and developmental programs?
I find it difficult to grade a GM on drafting in any organization except for the GMs around the league that have held long tenures on the same team (Holland in Detroit, Lou in NJ, etc).
I just wish it was easier to see the moves within scouting departments - directives I would imagine would be tough to figure out, as they would be a more closely guarded secret akin to their final draft lists, but would be nice to at least see the moves on different teams and see how the moves impacted the success rate of the draft in subsequent years.
You are spot on, however - it is tough to attribute the complete onus on any one person in the organization (both positive and negative). If this year's draft turns out to be a complete flop, will it be because of Burke? Probably not. If it is awesome, it is still tough to give him credit.
To gauge if a GM was good or bad as at drafting and development, you have to look at the program a few years before he took over and see which way it was trending, look at the moves they made in those departments in the subsequent years, and see how they were trending in their tenure and just beyond.