Quote:
Originally Posted by RedHawk12
If the Flames entire budget is limited, which I'm sure it is because all businesses have budgets, then perhaps it would actually be better for ownership to come out and say that we are a 75M cap budget team, for example, and use the remaining budget on a front office, coaching staff and scouting department that can actually maximize the value of a 75M team, rather than have a mismanaged 82M team.
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The Flames aren't cheaping out on coaching. Neither Sutter nor Muller is a bargain hire. Their amateur scouting has been doing its job. Pro scouting is an area that may not need much in the way of staff, because every play in every NHL game is captured on video and it's almost certainly more efficient to analyse them in detail from the video room than to go chasing around in person hoping to catch something the cameras missed. That doesn't require a large staff.
That leaves the GM and AGM positions. Frankly, I haven't seen any evidence that the market for hockey managers is efficient in the slightest. Some teams spend a lot on GMs and get garbage (I'm looking at you, Edmonton), some spend very little and get great results. I believe the problem is not with the money the Flames are willing to spend, but with the quality of candidates who are willing to work in a small Canadian market, with all its disadvantages in attracting talent, and risk sewering their careers in a bad situation.
I do know that the organization put too much into players and too little into GMs, scouts, and coaches at one time. They were trying to cut costs across the board and cut things they should have left alone. Craig Button cost the team more money by idiotic signings and waiver moves than it would have cost to hire a GM who would have avoided those mistakes. But that was before the salary cap, and a different group of owners, and I don't know of any reason to believe that the current group have the same attitude.