Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
Riser for sure. The Gilmour/Leeman deal is just so bad where they lost on not just the two big names, but literally every name included. Macoun/Nattress were both key parts of the blueline here and continued to be in Toronto. It was franchise altering for both teams in opposite ways.
Sutter got the team to the finals so hard to ignore that. But as a GM he wasn't good. He drafted poorly but his narrow view of what a good player is/was caused him to toss aside quality players for next to nothing. Examples including Toni Lydman and Anton Stralman. He just was a VERY poor talent evaluator. And then he lost his mind down the stretch inexplicitly acquiring a guy like Kotalik. I don't think he knew what he was doing.
I admit I have a bias towards him though.
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Sutter is a bit of a mystery. Some of his moves would indicate how bad he was as a talent evaluator, as you mentioned, while other moves like acquiring Nilson, Simon and Niemenen (not even including Kiprusoff here) were knocks out of the park. Just weird.
I too was a big supporter of Sutter throughout his stints with the Flames up until he ruined everything in his last year as coach with his attitude towards seemingly everyone in hockey including his own players. Pelletier is a good kid and someone that nobody dislikes. I guess except for Sutter, who felt good about firing shots at him by pretending to not know who Pelletier is and emphasize just how not important he is to him and the Flames. First NHL game (I think?)? Meh, screw his and his family's moment. Part of me also wonders if that was Sutter wanting to snap back at media, with no intention of slighting Pelletier and his family, but he's not that dumb.