The Athletic: NHL front office confidence rankings

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Bingo

This won't sound good no matter how I put it down, but I always roll my eyes at polls filled out by those that probably don't have enough information to even answer the questions.

I'd put this group up to any task around the Flames, many for the league as a whole, but if you step the Calgary view off of this site (and a few others) what do you get? Development opinion? Cap management?

Then put it across the league and have what 50,000 Torontonians opining about this?

Hard not to rate Flames management on results rather than effort or process.

When you strip away the minutia it's all about results.

[tkflames]

Originally Posted by dobbles

No surprise Detroit is that low. Holland has been running an Edmonton-esque caliber operation for a decade now.

Wow...I did not see this take coming. You and I are completely opposite on this. Holland would be top 3 GMs in the league in my world.

The downfall of the red wings has less to do in mind with bad management, and everything to do with the constraints of the organization. Detroit used to be a "spend" organization which was a perennial contender for a record number of consecutive playoff appearances. At the same time as the finances of the city hit a down cycle, as did the team. Rather than a scorched earth approach, Ken has continued to put together competitive teams, despite having his coach and assistants poached by a contract that no other team would have been able to afford. All of this despite mediocre draft positions due to his afformentioned refusal to tank. All through the 90s I hated the wings (I was an avalanche guy in the rivalries), but if there is a team that deserves to win a lottery, it's the wings.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

Hard not to rate Flames management on results rather than effort or process.

When you strip away the minutia it's all about results.

OK so just rank based on the standings then?

[Bingo]

Our current voting levels ...

Roster Building 3.7
Cap Management 4.1
Draft / Develop 3.3
Trading 3.9
Free Agency 2.8
Vision 3.5

3.5 overall and good for 12th spot on the Athletic list where I would expect it.

[saillias]

Look at Cap Management and Draft/Develop.

Yes our own fanbase gave our team higher scores (3.6/3.4 vs 3.1 for both) than the public opinion, but the public opinion of us is actually higher ranked in both categories (20th and 20th vs 22nd/23rd).

Ok so every team's fanbase has a homer bias pumping up their own scores, but this shows our own homer bias is much lower than average, low enough that the general public ranks us higher in 2 categories than our own fans do.

So really, complaining about the general public and Toronto this and that is off-base. It's the Flames fans responding to the poll who think Flames management is mediocre

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by saillias

Look at Cap Management and Draft/Develop.

Yes our own fanbase gave our team higher scores (3.6/3.4 vs 3.1 for both) than the public opinion, but the public opinion of us is actually higher ranked in both categories (20th and 20th vs 22nd/23rd).

Ok so every team's fanbase has a homer bias pumping up their own scores, but this shows our own homer bias is much lower than average, low enough that the general public ranks us higher in 2 categories than our own fans do.

So really, complaining about the general public and Toronto this and that is off-base. It's the Flames fans responding to the poll who think Flames management is mediocre

Very good point and I have an admission to make ...

My reaction was more to the Calgary Athletic tweet which was misguided. I actually didn't notice that the fan view had zero bearing on the rank itself.

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Our current voting levels ...

Roster Building 3.7
Cap Management 4.1
Draft / Develop 3.3
Trading 3.9
Free Agency 2.8
Vision 3.5

3.5 overall and good for 12th spot on the Athletic list where I would expect it.

Those numbers seems quite generous given how the team has performed to date. That would suggest the Flames overall have been operating above average when the results say otherwise.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

Those numbers seems quite generous given how the team has performed to date. That would suggest the Flames overall have been operating above average when the results say otherwise.

IMO many flames fans equate being mediocre with being above average.

Standards for the organization are pretty low on this board I think.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

Those numbers seems quite generous given how the team has performed to date. That would suggest the Flames overall have been operating above average when the results say otherwise.

A 3.5 out of a maximum of 5 is a hard C-, which looks pretty average in my estimation.

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

A 3.5 out of a maximum of 5 is a hard C-, which looks pretty average in my estimation.

C- is probably what I would consider an appropriate letter grade as well. I was responding specifically to the estimation of being near 12th overall when I think the number should realistically be much closer to 20th than to 10th.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

C- is probably what I would consider an appropriate letter grade as well. I was responding significantly to the estimation of being near 12th overall when I think the number should realistically be much closer to 20th than to 10th.

It is a mistake to think of 15/16 as the mid-point, and everything above and below this number as above/below average. I think more likely there are probably five or six excellent management groups and maybe ten poor management groups, and everyone else is closely bunched together in the middle. The Flames at #12 strikes me as completely non-controversial.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

Those numbers seems quite generous given how the team has performed to date. That would suggest the Flames overall have been operating above average when the results say otherwise.

Fans are aware that the previous management did an unintentional scorched-earth rebuild by trading away their key veterans at poorly chosen times for bad returns. The current management's performance is being rated not on where they are relative to the league, but on where they are relative to where the team was when it hired them. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

IMO many flames fans equate being mediocre with being above average.

Standards for the organization are pretty low on this board I think.

I would say that you are a person who equates being above average with being mediocre.

There are, or have been, a number of people on CP over the years who loudly proclaimed the view that any given season is a failure if you don't win the Stanley Cup. That guarantees a 97% failure rate for the league overall. Anyone in the entertainment business who fails 97% of the time is quickly out of business, whereas the NHL's business has grown by leaps and bounds over the past three decades.

I don't recall your saying anything quite as foolish as all that, but some posts of yours have stuck in my memory, causing me to identify you as a person who thinks, for some reason, that Flames fans are entitled to a consistently above-average team, and that management has a minimum duty to provide that. These expectations are not rational, and frankly, I don't know where you get that inflated sense of entitlement.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Fans are aware that the previous management did an unintentional scorched-earth rebuild by trading away their key veterans at poorly chosen times for bad returns. The current management's performance is being rated not on where they are relative to the league, but on where they are relative to where the team was when it hired them. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

I think that the team you inherit as a management group is known at the end of your first full year. Pretty hard for a GM to really create change in the first year. Every year after that first year the new GM and management team can build on that. BT's 1st year the Flames made the second round. I look forward to the opportunity this year to build upon that.

To be 12th in the league is kinda of shocking actually. One would think objectively that a fan should be more confident in the management groups of the following teams:

Anaheim
San Jose
LA
Vegas
Nashville
Winnipeg
St. Louis
Colorado
Toronto
Boston
Tampa
Washington
Philly
New Jersey
Pittsburgh

Flames management group is definitely better than

Oilers
Canucks
Arizona
Buffalo
Ottawa
Montreal
Carolina

One has to think the Flames are somewhere between a high of 16th and a low of around 24th in the league, right around mediocre, which makes sense for a team that made the playoffs once in the past 3 years.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Fans are aware that the previous management did an unintentional scorched-earth rebuild by trading away their key veterans at poorly chosen times for bad returns. The current management's performance is being rated not on where they are relative to the league, but on where they are relative to where the team was when it hired them. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

The current management group inherited a team with no (at the time) bad contracts, lots of cap space, a few up and coming star players, all their draft picks and lots of prospects. Today we are at the cap, have traded several high picks and have recently bought out several contracts. I think Treliving has done a good job overall but the team is entirely his at this point and we can stop blaming the previous management.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Jacks

The current management group inherited a team with no (at the time) bad contracts, lots of cap space, a few up and coming star players, all their draft picks and lots of prospects. Today we are at the cap, have traded several high picks and have recently bought out several contracts. I think Treliving has done a good job overall but the team is entirely his at this point and we can stop blaming the previous management.

This is pretty darn correct in terms of segmenting current management from past, and the preliminary results of Bingo’s polls show the Flames around 4/5 on almost all categories. I look forward to the debrief on the aggregate stats, and what was missing.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

https://theathletic.com/454869/2018/...team-is-doing/

The Athletic's annual survey of fans on how much confidence they have in their front office.

Tampa #1.

Canadian teams:
Leafs #2
Jets #4
Flames #21
Canucks #28
Oilers #29
Habs #30
Sens #31

A couple of things.

- The Athletic’s annual survey? Inaugural annual?
- Categories are undefined, so what’s missing? For example Coaching - does it fit in vision? Roster? It has such an impact, as we have seen with a rotating cast over the last many years.
And the failure to manage the important position of G. Roster building? Because the last off season did good things for RW and overall but G is as always not so hot.

I can see how homer polls based on these categories show a non playoff team being above average.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Our current voting levels ...

Roster Building 3.7
Cap Management 4.1
Draft / Develop 3.3
Trading 3.9
Free Agency 2.8
Vision 3.5

3.5 overall and good for 12th spot on the Athletic list where I would expect it.

Updated ... not much change

Roster Building 3.7
Cap Management 4.1
Draft / Develop 3.3
Trading 3.9
Free Agency 2.9
Vision 3.4

Overall Rating 3.5

From the Athletic teams' fans who rate their team higher.

Buffalo 3.6
Islanders 3.8
Florida 3.6
Rangers 3.7
Arizona 4.0
Colorado 3.6
Jackets 3.8
Vegas 4.1
Sharks 3.7
Devils 4.2
Penguins 3.8
Flyers 4.1
St. Louis 4.1
Capitals 4.1
Jets 4.2
Predators 4.1
Toronto 4.5 (what has Dubas done?_
Tampa 4.6

That's 18 teams rated higher by their fans then our poll, and if you use the 3.4 from Calgary fans in the Athletic section they are tied with the Kings, Bruins and Hurricanes at 3.4

Certainly not a homer result at all.

[DeluxeMoustache]

^ Thanks, Bingo. It seems eyeballing the bell curve makes it seem like results are higher. It really takes a hugely skewed curve to get averages calculating up above 4.

Interesting that the Athletic fan results for Calgary mainly agree with CP, except for that CP views trades and cap management in a much more favourable light.

Cap management is a tale of two groups. Top players are signed to very good contracts, almost across the board. Way too much money was spent in the past on the bottom 6 but with guys like Stajan dropping off and Brouwer bought out, with some recency bias, I think the team is in a very good place now. So I get how at this moment, cap management is polling well.

Trades, I think casual observers and even some passionate ones think Hamilton was a top defenseman in the league. I am in the camp that didn’t like his compete and defensive game, as was the organization that didn’t use him on the PK. And I suspect you will find more of that camp on CP than in the broader population. And blockbuster trades probably get more weight

So that all kind of makes sense.

I still don’t see anyplace which is clearly appropriate for coaching selection. And I think coaching has a significant impact on the team. Tre has done a garbage job there, and now sits with a question mark. I put it in vision and penalized vision on multiple fronts, but that isn’t seemingly how most other people think. Which is fine.

And Leafs fans - 4.5? Haha, that’s good for a belly laugh. Must be mainly 5s. At least as many 5s as 4s, and for each vote less than a 4, several additional 5s to keep the average up. Nuts!

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Jacks

The current management group inherited a team with no (at the time) bad contracts, lots of cap space, a few up and coming star players, all their draft picks and lots of prospects. Today we are at the cap, have traded several high picks and have recently bought out several contracts. I think Treliving has done a good job overall but the team is entirely his at this point and we can stop blaming the previous management.

They also inherited a team that was at the bottom of the standings, with hardly any good players aside from those up-and-coming young stars.

[DeluxeMoustache]

That just made the playoffs before they were at the bottom of the standings, and won a playoff round. Hiller was something special.