Sutter takes a lot of heat, but I think a lot of it is undeserved (but of course, there is plenty he deserved as well).
Firstly, any GM that takes this team to a finals appearance automatically gets put into - at minimum - the 'neutral' pile. What are we doing here? There has been exactly 3 Stanley Cup Finals appearances in this organization. I was a bit too young to remember the first, but I definitely remember a lot of the 2nd. The third was amazing.
Secondly, we have to judge a GM based on how things were when he was hired, and how things were while he was here, and what was left.
When Sutter arrived - no playoffs. A bare-bones scouting staff. No development team. No AHL-controlled franchise (we shared one, with IIRC, Carolina??).
Yep, drafting did suck, especially for his first half. He was also a rookie GM. Over the years, he grew the scouting staff, he convinced the owners to start up their own AHL franchise, and he built up a development department. In his first half, tonnes of misses, very little successes. However, Sutter left significant pieces - Giordano, Backlund, Brodie (who is forgotten about these days, but was amazing with Giordano and gave the Flames one of the best top-pairing defence pairings in the entire league), Ferland, and others. Drafting started hitting while he was here.
Couldn't hire a coach to safe his life either, which was the start of his undoing here as well. He did make an egregious trade that made people forget about all of his 'perfect' trades beforehand.
He brought this team to one phantom goal away from a Stanley Cup. What else is the point? I will GLADLY suffer through 6 bad seasons (and they weren't all bad - made the playoffs 5 straight seasons too, which Treliving never accomplished), if it meant that I would see my team compete for the Stanley Cup. Who here wouldn't take deal, especially when we look at the fact that this team hasn't even come close to that mark since, 21 years later?
Obviously he had a lot of warts. However, for a ROOKIE GM coming into a difficult situation (bare-bones team, no experienced assistant or president like Calgary gave to Treliving and Conroy, 1 full-time scout and 2 part-time scouts, no development department, no AHL-controlled franchise), how he didn't fall flat on his face is a damn miracle in hindsight. To make the moves he did and get that team into the finals? And then make the playoffs for another 4 straight seasons afterwards - yet another mark that Treliving never accomplished here?
I am sorry, but I have to rank Sutter as the 2nd best GM. Heck, if maybe the Flames gave him as much rope as they gave Fletcher, maybe Sutter would have developed into a really good GM and the Flames would have been further ahead. That just doesn't happen any longer, so it is a moot hypothetical point, but I say that just to emphasize how underrated he was.
People remember the failures a lot more than the successes when it comes to him, and they forgot all about his re-signings, his cap management (first maverick to sign a cap-circumventing deal!), how he re-signed Iginla and Phaneuf when people said it was never going to happen... There was a lot of successes there, and he left this team in much better shape than what he found it in, including in terms of contracts. Feaster had an easy time with those deals. Sutter should have rebuilt this team rather than continue trying to go all in - but hey, so did Treliving (who had a tonne more tools around him).
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