Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Thanks for explaining it. I understand your usage and perspective a lot more.
Personally I highly doubt Treliving is looking to make a coaching move to prove his intelligence. It's a big hire for him. His last hire clearly bombed badly enough that he had to fire him which starts to point the crosshairs at Treliving himself. His motivation is going to be to hire the best coach for this group. He's not hiring a coach to look smart. IMO that's a silly suggestion. He's hiring a coach to contend and if he gets the choice right he will look smart. Just seems like a silly motivation suggestion. Like I'm a smart guy but super vain and narcissistic so I have to make decisions about how smart they will be perceived? It's very contrived. Overall I think the phrase is overused on this board and over applied.
I first heard it in regards to Jankowski and the draft. But this is exactly how the draft works. You have 30 groups of scouts who are all trying to outsmart each other in the quest to find impact NHLers. All of these scouts believe in themselves and their own abilities and are willing to put their opinions ahead of any "consensus" (which doesn't actually exist). So the phrase itself in regards to scouting seems silly. Every team and scout is trying to find players that other teams may have overlooked or underrated. They are all trying to be the smartest men in the draft building that day. That's their goal. And it aligns perfectly with their job. So accusing them of trying to outsmart the other scouts and GMs is to accuse them of doing their job. So the use of this phrase as a knock on Weisbrod and the scouting staff over the Jankowski pick was laughable to me. And of course Jankowski has turned into a fine NHLer for where we picked him so those who were motivated to use it as a derogatory phrase have failed.
And its the exact same thing with Treliving and being a GM. If he makes a smart hire it looks good on him whether it was a candidate the fans wanted or not. To suggest he makes a hire the fans didn't want only to look smart seems preposterous to me. His goal isn't to look smart, his goal is to contend. If he turns the Flames into a contender he will look smart. It's a byproduct of achieving his goal, not a primary motivation.
Overall I think the phrase is exceptionally stupid. But at least you've backed up why you use it very well.
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If Peters ends up trending as Jankowski has, it paid off and the risk was worth it.
I'm really hoping he doesn't take the risk, as I'm sure I was back when Jankowski was chosen.
If Jankowski ended up being as fruitful a decision was Gulutzan, I'd hope they leaned to consensus next time around.