Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
Pointing exclusively to disintegration of 13 and 23's play does not justify what is, IMO, a poorly constructed roster. Many people questioned whether those two could ever form the top line on a contending team.
And suggesting the only way Treliving should be is accountable is if ownership told him to move on from Gaudreau and Monahan and he resisted seems like an example of trying too hard to absolve the General Manager of responsibility.
The GM is much more of a CEO and ownership is a BOD in a typical public company construct. I haven't seen many CEO's successfully pass off responsibility for business failure to their Board.
|
I think the signs of disintegration from 13 & 23 was there right from the start and I don't Treliving and co realized it until 2020 when they tried to trade Monahan last offseason. Their inability for these 2 to perform in the playoffs or when checking gets tighter was a massively glaring issue and they probably could've looked into it earlier. I mean, maybe some GMs might have seen it, maybe some not. But these executives get paid huge $$ to look into this and figure it out. It seems like Treliving took the route of, "they'll be ok, I'm just going to find them help by adding more depth" which he attempted to be fair, but it didn't work.
What comes to mind for me right now is the Toronto Maple Leafs of a decade ago. They went in to it with the core of Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf, sort of got "lucky" in that the group failed so spectacularly in such a short amount of time that they were able to quickly pivot and pick up William Nylander (drafted), Mitch Marner (drafted), Auston Matthews (drafted) and John Tavares (UFA) in the process. Now they've got Morgan Reilly and 4 stud forwards to go along with everything else and they're ready to take the next step. The Flames on the otherhand, tied their horses to their own versions of "Kessel and Phaneuf" and never pivoted. Now it's too late as sweetheart contracts are just about finished and this core accomplished nothing.