I think a lot of the Sutter as GM comments just emphasize the negatives and unfairly attribute some of those failures onto him, while completely forgetting about his successes.
I try to think of it in this way: If I was hired as a GM, what would I do? I would probably want to surround myself with people who I know I can trust - assistant GMs, coaches and scouts. Tough thing to do as a first time GM, right? No money for an assistant GM. Promotes his assistant to head coach. Started to build the scouting and development program.
The last one is where he always gets crucified for, but should he have been? Maybe, but not to the extent that I always read on here. When he started, I believe Todd Button was the only full time scout. There was one part-time scout on the payroll. Development team? How about a shared AHL team with the Hurricanes (IIRC)? That's a pretty hard situation to cut your teeth on.
Yeah, drafting and development was abysmal early on. However, did it remain completely so? I would argue that drafting and development increased throughout his tenure. You would be hard-pressed to formulate an argument against it. It is this 'arc' that is most important to me. Was a GM pushing this team in the right direction within that area, or was he pushing it along in the wrong direction? Sutter was definitely pushing it in the right direction.
Was it the '04 run or the rising Canadian dollar that led to the owners being more willing to spend on the team (in particular, the scouting department, as well as starting a new AHL organization and hiring staff and development personnel)? I would say it was probably both. Ticket prices and revenues drastically increased thanks to the success of the run, and he made a lot of moves as a GM getting the team to that point.
Sutter took this team to a phantom goal away from winning a cup as a GM/coach. How that continues to get disparaged at every turn is sort of funny to me. How Treliving gets rated higher is amazing to me, as his teams were never able to get out of the 2nd round. With respect to the drafting and development, I would argue that this organization started becoming a much better organization in that area under Sutter. When Feaster came in and pushed Sutter out, I would argue that he had the benefit of having a strong scouting department in place - one that Sutter built (with Todd Button of course).
Yes, things were face-palm poor in Sutter's 2nd last year - that was a crazy bad year in so many respects, and the start of the 'unsteadiness' that Burke was then hired to fix (as Feaster took that ball and ran with it, unfortunately). I still don't see how it ended as reason enough to erase the tremendous good - including in the scouting and development aspects - he was responsible for. It was time for him to move on as a GM, and it was clear.
I still think that he should have been - even with hindsight - a much more appreciated GM. That '04 run really helped to propel this organization forward, inspired an entire new generation of fans, and gave us all some of the best memories of the last 30 years as Flames' fans. For that, he will always have my respect, and with it, a more thoughtful look at his tenure as a whole, from top down and from start to finish.
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