Poll: "Do you believe in the current mgmt group"

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

If one had to go I would want it to be King as he's had a decade and the results on the ice have steadily declined every season after 2004 which seems to coincide with his increasing influence on the team. He also casts a large shadow over the GM chair wich is why we have to settle for GM's like Feaster that are just happy to have the job compared to more sought after candidates. Not going to get a top notch GM as long as King is president.

That's why i said promote KK. Let him look after the business side of the empire and the new arena. I don't want him as president with infuence over the day to day Calgary flames, but the man knows business. You do not let a business guy with KK's acumen walk out the door.

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by Sgrath

Some thoughts on management

Things we know to be true or at least accept as common knowledge
* Before this season the Flames needed more scoring potential / increase in skill (still do but not the point)
* We needed to get younger
* Pre-season predictions were 14th in the West
* You don't make the play-offs with only 1 true centre
* You don't make the play-offs without grit
* you won't make the play-offs with a weak defence
* Ownership get in the way of decision making
* Ownership would not trade Iggy / Iggy wouln't agree to be traded unless he had no hope
* A rebuild couldn't really start while Iggy was here
* A rebuild had to happen
* Hartley is not the greatest defensive minded coach out there
* The players are mentally fragile.
* This is supposed to be a real deep draft year

Now this is the supposition on my part - with a good dose of hindsight
Feaster and staff were fully aware of all of the above points. He could not persuade ownership to blow the team up at end of last season. So how do you blow up a team while not obviously blowing a team up? Well building a team that is small with no grit and no centres is a pretty good starting point. In fact everything that was done in the off-season and since does point to a deliberate, if subtle, losing policy. Each off season trade / UFA signing attempts could be sold to ownership as part of "win-now" yet also be part of a tank strategy.

In fact with a full season to play with we'd have been out of play-off hunt and have a top 3 pick sewn up by Dec. and would probably have been able to get a better deal for Iggy and Bo.

The more I look back on everything the more I feel that this seasons team was deliberately built to fail from the start. The media knew we'd suck, we knew in our heads we'd suck (even if in our hearts we wanted success) and the players surely knew the team wasn't built for success, which may explain some of the performances.

On to the ROR offer sheet. This feels very much like it was a deal between GM's to force ROR's hand and just get a deal done. It would have kept the 'win now' faction of CGY ownership happy that we were really trying to win and it kept COL happy in that they got their guy signed to a deal they could accept without losing face. People did seem slightly surprised at the timing and the speed of the matching offer.

No chance Feaster "deliberately built to fail from the start". His best chance of keeping his job was to make the playoffs. He is just lucky that ownership is willing to let him do a rebuild after he said he was not the guy to do it.

[Sgrath]

Originally Posted by kyuss275

No chance Feaster "deliberately built to fail from the start". His best chance of keeping his job was to make the playoffs. He is just lucky that ownership is willing to let him do a rebuild after he said he was not the guy to do it.

I am not a great believer in luck, so this does bias my thoughts. It may well be that Feaster is a real autocratic guy behind the scenes and the rest of the support staff has zero backbone and wouldn't tell him we did not have a play-off ready team. I don't get that feeling, but could be wrong. They must have known the product they put on the ice was not going to be great.

As I have no access into the Flames organisation, all I can do is try and tell a slightly plausible story based on a set of self-selected facts and biases. Heck this is the internet after all

[Sakari]

The Cammalleri trade was pretty good. Besides that Feaster is just about as good a GM as a monkey.

[FAN]

I do not believe in the current management group. I believe King is too involved in the hockey operations aspects of the team and I believe Feaster has no idea how to put together a hockey team. I believe Weisbrod is one of the better scouts in the league but I also believe that he's been the driving force behind every one of Feaster's decisions and is no more of a patient GM than Feaster is. Weisbrod is a guy who supposedly kept recommending Feaster to trade away the team's first round pick last year prior to seeing Jankowski play. Not every good scout makes a good GM.

Originally Posted by Sakari

The Cammalleri trade was pretty good.

It's a good trade for both teams.

Originally Posted by Sgrath

They must have known the product they put on the ice was not going to be great.

But did they believe or hope that the team would make the playoffs? Everything Feaster has said and every move Feaster has made up until the Iginla and Bouwmeester trades suggest that making the team better NOW is a big priority. Feaster has always put priority on improving the team now rather than years down the line.

[flamesaresmokin]

[QUOTE=kyuss275;4227588]I can't possibly see why voters would say yes to Feaster.



I'll give him a pass on the Iggy trade. Thought the Boston deal was not bad at all.
/QUOTE]

How do you give a GM a pass on a trade when his job is basically defined by trading players?

[bucksmasher]

seeing how whenever feaster opens his yap and spouts off about "we wont do this or we will do that" the opposite happens. I'm ready to hunker down with a big supply of liquids for our wander through the desert.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

How do you give a GM a pass on a trade when his job is basically defined by trading players?

The most high-profile part of an NHL GM's job is trading players. But it's not really the most important part. How many big trades does Ken Holland make? In many cases, trades are something you're forced into because you haven't been drafting or managing the cap properly.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The most high-profile part of an NHL GM's job is trading players. But it's not really the most important part. How many big trades does Ken Holland make? In many cases, trades are something you're forced into because you haven't been drafting or managing the cap properly.

I think there are many ways to build a team. The ability to make good trades and timely trades are important abilities to have for a GM and shouldn't be dismissed in importance. There's simply no way to draft and develop every player who plays a contributing role to a Stanley Cup victory. Every Cup winner has supplemented the team with good free agent signings and trades.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Originally Posted by Sgrath

Some thoughts on management

Things we know to be true or at least accept as common knowledge
* Before this season the Flames needed more scoring potential / increase in skill (still do but not the point)
* We needed to get younger
* Pre-season predictions were 14th in the West
* You don't make the play-offs with only 1 true centre
* You don't make the play-offs without grit
* you won't make the play-offs with a weak defence
* Ownership get in the way of decision making
* Ownership would not trade Iggy / Iggy wouln't agree to be traded unless he had no hope
* A rebuild couldn't really start while Iggy was here
* A rebuild had to happen
* Hartley is not the greatest defensive minded coach out there
* The players are mentally fragile.
* This is supposed to be a real deep draft year

Now this is the supposition on my part - with a good dose of hindsight
Feaster and staff were fully aware of all of the above points. He could not persuade ownership to blow the team up at end of last season. So how do you blow up a team while not obviously blowing a team up? Well building a team that is small with no grit and no centres is a pretty good starting point. In fact everything that was done in the off-season and since does point to a deliberate, if subtle, losing policy. Each off season trade / UFA signing attempts could be sold to ownership as part of "win-now" yet also be part of a tank strategy.

In fact with a full season to play with we'd have been out of play-off hunt and have a top 3 pick sewn up by Dec. and would probably have been able to get a better deal for Iggy and Bo.

The more I look back on everything the more I feel that this seasons team was deliberately built to fail from the start. The media knew we'd suck, we knew in our heads we'd suck (even if in our hearts we wanted success) and the players surely knew the team wasn't built for success, which may explain some of the performances.

On to the ROR offer sheet. This feels very much like it was a deal between GM's to force ROR's hand and just get a deal done. It would have kept the 'win now' faction of CGY ownership happy that we were really trying to win and it kept COL happy in that they got their guy signed to a deal they could accept without losing face. People did seem slightly surprised at the timing and the speed of the matching offer.

Yeah I've said it before, Feaster pulled off a masterful job of tanking while still successfully selling the "we're competitive, we're not the Oilers" illusion to the faithful.

Too bad his small weak roster peppered with players like Hanowski pulled out of nowhere was at the end outsucked by teams that shamelessly took tanking to a whole new level.

[browna]

Simple question. For those who specifically think Feaster should be given "more time":

How much more time? This year? Two years, no matter how bad this year is?

Decisions on spending the tens of millions in cap space, revamping the roster further. and being the the one ultimately responsible for what is done at this important draft falls on him.

Making mistakes at this point, with the next era of the franchise in the balance in this unique offseason, makes his signing Babchuk for 2 years, extending Jackman at the trade deadline, and wanting to sign Comeau for 2 years instead of 1 and all his other dubious roster decisions, even the ROR debacle, seem like child's play.

[sergei_makarov]

I think the ownership/management group have become involved ever since Darryl Sutter went through that crazy phase that started with trading Phaneuf, followed by the Kotalik acquisition and shipping Prust out of town. After giving Sutter free reign to do as he pleased, it turned out very bad for the franchise which will take years to fix.

I think they're buying themselves some time before the right candidate (they probably have a few guys in mind) becomes available to bring in. I'm sure they would have loved Nil or Davidson, but they probably declined for their own reasons.

I think the right candidate will be given more freedom than the rumoured amount that Feaster has, but he has to be the right guy. Since Feaster to them maybe isn't, they've become very involved in decisions.

Since Burke has been available, I'd assume the ownership doesn't see him as the right guy for the role.

[DeluxeMoustache]

U

Originally Posted by browna

Simple question. For those who specifically think Feaster should be given "more time":

How much more time? This year? Two years, no matter how bad this year is?

Decisions on spending the tens of millions in cap space, revamping the roster further. and being the the one ultimately responsible for what is done at this important draft falls on him.

Making mistakes at this point, with the next era of the franchise in the balance in this unique offseason, makes his signing Babchuk for 2 years, extending Jackman at the trade deadline, and wanting to sign Comeau for 2 years instead of 1 and all his other dubious roster decisions, even the ROR debacle, seem like child's play.

There are short term and long term decisions. These need to be considered in context.

Also Babchuk performed admirably for Sutter and earned that extension. 5-6 sheltered PP specialist, and had very good stats with that expectation and handling. Problem is you have a number of more pressing gaps.

For a FA, Comeau obviously became a tradable asset. How can you really complain about that?

[Alberta_Beef]

I am not voting since no answer really fits how I feel. I wouldn't say I believe in the management team, but I also wouldn't say I don't. I'm really on the fence when it comes to them.

[afc wimbledon]

Never quite understood the logic that the past three years don't count and Feaster should be given some kind of fresh timetable now that Iginla is gone.
Trading Iginla three years to late and thus wasting a teams biggest asset should be enough to get Feaster fired, the other crap is just Gravy.

[afc wimbledon]

In fact a better question to ask is not
'Should Feaster be kept?' but
'Would you hire Feaster if he wasn't the GM already?'
If the answer to that is no, he isn't the best candidate out there, then bearing in mind the team isn't a work in progress in the midst of a turn around, but in fact is just hitting the bottom of a painful fall from grace with no particular reason to think it won't be crap for a few years yet then Feaster should be canned to make way for a better candidate.

[UKflames]

Well this thread certainly turned into a lightning rod for the anti Feaster/KK pitchfork waving fans

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by iamca

1991 -- lost to Edmonton, 4-3, Smythe Division semifinals

I can't believe we were up 3-0 in game 7.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by UKflames

Well this thread certainly turned into a lightning rod for the anti Feaster/KK pitchfork waving fans

What would you expect when over 50% of fans here have given them a no confidence vote? Were you expecting an overly pro-King/Feaster thread when support for them is the minority?

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by browna

Simple question. For those who specifically think Feaster should be given "more time":

How much more time? This year? Two years, no matter how bad this year is?

...

The amount of time Feaster gets will not be decided today, but by the decisions he makes during his time going forward.