The Canadian teams suck

[Tinordi]

I think this thread pretty much hit the nail on the head. Canadian owners are more likely to be "fans" and therefore will be more involved in the hockey decisions and will not want to go through a rebuild for the same reasons that many posters on this board didn't want to for years even though it was plainly obvious that that was the only option.

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by Red John

Glad to see the Canadian teams failing hard, when a Canadian team finally wins the Cup hopefully its the Flames and frankly that isn't too crazy of a prediction to make.

The other Canadian teams have either a bad core or a poor choice of players to build around which is the workings of bad management combined with some bad luck.

Toronto chose to build around Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf. Is anyone surprised that team chokes hard in the clutch? Clarkson and Bozak contracts, Grabovski buyout...terrible moves from a bad GM.

Ottawa's goalie is a true Jeyll and Hyde guy and always will be, so you'll get good year - bad year from them but they really have no true superstars besides Karlsson and he's a one-dimensional guy. Traded a 1st rounder for a winger who can't spell intense. Just picked the wrong players to build around. Spezza? Really?

Winnipeg - mediocre team and core all the way through and likely will be for a long time. Ladd, Wheeler, Kane, Byfuglien, Bogosian, Enstrom - those are awful players to be building around. They're great complementary pieces but not core guys.

Montreal - Bergevin seems to be a bright guy and they're drafting well so hence the best canadian team right now but the insistence on a French coach and French players in that fishbowl will likely limit how far they ever go in the playoffs. A clear step below the contenders in the East.

Vancouver - enough said. Headed for a decline tied to a core that never did get it done in the clutch.

Edmonton - a rotten core in a rotten organization. The joke of the league.

Calgary - seem to be on the upswing, will be interesting to see who they hire as GM and what he chooses to do with the coach etc. moving forward. Could be the next great Canadian team but a lot has to go right in the next couple years. Cautious optimism.

Bozak is underpaid. He's better than Grabovski and makes 1.3 million less per season. There's nothing wrong with him getting 4.2 million.

Bozak in 2013-14':
GP 52 Goals 17 Assists 28 Points 45 +4

Here's Grabovski's stats:

51 12 21 33 +4

And Kadri's stats are better too. So what you're saying is, they should have kept that third best centre for 5.5 million and criticizing Nonis for that.

And BTW, Kessel has 15 goals, 21 points in 22 playoff games. Nothing wrong with having him as an important piece.

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Let's face it....sign a couple UFA's, make a big trade and create some buzz about your team in the offseason and a Canadian team sells a lot of tickets before the season even starts. Edmonton has been one of the most active teams since the start of the season signing Gordon, and Ference and trading nearly every fringe player they can.

Fans have patience to deal with putting together a properly built roster, but I don't think the owners and management in these markets do. Rather than risk playing in front of 15,000 fans at the end of the year owners demand that their GM's try to create buzz to sell those extra 2000 tickets a game to make money that season.

Tambellini was doing nothing, letting things shape themselves...he got axed, mind you he changed his coach every year...another thing that seems to plague Canadian teams, the number of coaches they have all had in the last 10 years. The Flames get some okay pieces falling into place with Coates...he got axed...both times replacing these guys with first time GM's. So when they did fire one guy...they just kept replacing them with new inexperienced people.

GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs should be the primo job in the NHL...is Dave Nonis really the guy that should be doing that job?

Owners in Canada keep making stupid decisions with who they hire for management. I think Calgary bringing in Burke was a good move, hopefully they give him time and let him get the people he wants.

They had the perfect guy and fired him. Now Calgary gets to move forward with Burke.

[foshizzle11]

ya,
I don't quite understand why they let Burke go. There has to be more to the story than what we have heard. Is Dave Nonis better than Burke? what did Burke do to get fired?

[BigTuna]

I think it wasn't performance. The new owners did not like him. Nonis is more of a quiet, corporate guy.

Whenever there's new ownership, often changes will be made.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by BigTuna

They had the perfect guy and fired him. Now Calgary gets to move forward with Burke.

Agreed. And I think this ties back to the point about Canadian owners being more involved, generally.

Burke was doing a good job. He was fired (I believe) because the owners - who were directly and significantly involved with running the team - didn't like him personally, or his ego, or whatever.

The point is - he wasn't fired due to performance. He was fired because the owners were directly involved.

Good for Calgary, though.

[Enoch Root]

Ironically, that resulted in him getting the President of Hockey Operations job in Calgary, where he will essentially be a buffer between ownership and direct management (among other things obviously).

[saXon]

Since there's no Leafs thread, I'll put this here. This is the most entertaining OTR I've ever seen. Includes a snippet on the Canucks too.

Pt.1
http://www.tsn.ca/VideoHub/?collection=72&show=317474

Pt. 2
http://www.tsn.ca/VideoHub/?collection=72&show=317476