[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Well, that's fair if you just look up the drafting history and compare them side-by-side with no context. I think he did well given the lack of scouts and development system. I think he did well in trading picks away in light of this, and building a team that consistently made the playoffs with one amazing finals run.


Was his drafting a success? Absolutely not. What he did do, however, was set the groundwork by getting the ownership group on board with hiring additional staff and spending money on their development. Without him pushing for those, the rebuild would probably have taken a lot longer.



That's what I mean by his drafting ineptness being overblown - I just think as a first-time GM in a franchise devoid of an actual scouting department, he started essentially at ground zero in building it up. Which scout do you trust more over an another? How do you hire scouts that you do trust when you have never been a GM before and have no interaction with scouts since you have been a coach essentially since you retired from the game?



I think that - under the circumstances and with context - that Darryl Sutter did a better than expected job at drafting. He shouldn't be lauded for his drafting, but I do think that the context in which he worked under should be noted. Essentially, if not for him, Feaster would not have had the relative luxury of having a decent scouting team and 'letting them handle it'.


That's the way I see it. I would argue that he should have made bigger changes quicker, but I have no idea how tied his hands were with ownership's willingness to spend money in those areas, vs his own inexperience and ineptitude at the position. I just don't think he was as horrible as the drafting record indicates, as I do see improvement on it as the years went by for the most part, especially when given context. I will never say he was great at drafting, but he wasn't the buffoon that people state he was.

I don't think Sutter was buffoon at all. I think he's far smarter and more adaptable than people think. And I have no idea what tools he had when drafting. My sense is his hands weren't very tied, and that was his demand when he was elevated to GM.