How/Why does Tod Button still have a job?

[Stay Golden]

Button hasn't proved any measure of notable drafting success that warrent's keeping his brain cramped tail with the Flames for now a mind boggling 17 years.
It is known league wide how much the Flames stink up the place regarding the draft for years yet this tool has been kept around in spite of multiple GM's and HC's.

Does King and Edwards truly believe just because Button's father was a stats genius and created Central scouting that Todd had that rub off on him.
It is bizarre that Button has remained and will continue to remain with the organization.
17 years Edwards this clown has been messing up the drafts for the Flames.
Just another reason King should be punted.

[8sPOT]

We have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. For all we know the current and past GM's took Button's list and go against some of his recommendations. We just don't know.

I'd assume each time there was new GM come in, that Button would go over his past work. Perhaps the work he did behind the scenes is what kept him employed.

Just a thought.

[Erick Estrada]

The way I look at it is that Wiesbrod came over from Boston's scouting department and if he thought Button was as bad as some of you think I'm sure he would have recommended he be replaced. You have to admit since the shackles from Darryl Sutter were removed that the talent pool has improved despite never going into a draft with a full deck of cards due to his GM's trading away picks for quick fixes.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The way I look at it is that Wiesbrod came over from Boston's scouting department and if he thought Button was as bad as some of you think I'm sure he would have recommended he be replaced. You have to admit since the shackles from Darryl Sutter were removed that the talent pool has improved despite never going into a draft with a full deck of cards due to his GM's trading away picks for quick fixes.

The 2008(Brodie)/2009/2010 draft don't look that bad. 2004-2007 were brutal cause Darryl mis-read which direction the league is looking to go.

[Johnny Rotten]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

I've said a lot of this stuff in the past when this topic comes out but I'll repeat it again. It's not simply a matter of good or bad scouting. When it comes to an organization's ability to produce NHL players there are a myriad of factors at work
- Where they draft, particularly in the 1st round
- How many high round picks they have. In general Sutter has had to use picks to fill out his NHL team while asset-rich organizations like Colorado have been able to do the opposite - stockpile 1st, 2nds and 3rds to fill out the entire pipeline. More bullets in the chamber=more chance to develop NHLers.
- The development system as a whole in an organization.
- Where you draft in what years. A 15th pick one year can be the same as a 45th pick the year after depending on how deep that draft goes. There are some drafts in recent memory where guys when in the top 15 - and the year after they probably would have gone in the 2nd round. So when you suck matters as much as how much you suck. Gotta time it right. Pittsburgh, Chicago, Washington did. Calgary and Edmonton back in their down years did not.
- Luck. The Canucks had horrible luck when Luc Bourdon died. The Flames have had bad luck with Mickey Renaud, Dan Ryder, Brent Krahn, etc. Some things aren't in your control.


I think people always want to be able to blame a specific person or reason for things - and the reality is that the issue is far more complex than that. So we can sit here and complain about the lack of prospects - or we can dig a little deeper to try and understand what really is driving this.

Out of thanks, but thanks. Also, few second rounders. Plus, what guidelines are given to him for who he drafts? Is it just a coincidence that the Flames drafted so many western boys when Darryl was GM?

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Johnny Rotten

Out of thanks, but thanks. Also, few second rounders. Plus, what guidelines are given to him for who he drafts? Is it just a coincidence that the Flames drafted so many western boys when Darryl was GM?

I think it had mostly to due with the fact that most of his scouts were local because of a limited budget (i.e. it was well known he did a lot of his own scouting)... as he started to expand the scouting department, you start to see later drafts he picks guys outside the WHL.

[Stay Golden]

Originally Posted by 8sPOT

We have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. For all we know the current and past GM's took Button's list and go against some of his recommendations. We just don't know.

I'd assume each time there was new GM come in, that Button would go over his past work. Perhaps the work he did behind the scenes is what kept him employed.

Just a thought.

there must be some valid reason why he has been kept around in spite of numerous failures drafting. If Weisbrod has taken over those duties in the past 2 years then once again it remains a mystery why Button is still with the Flames.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

there must be some valid reason why he has been kept around in spite of numerous failures drafting. If Weisbrod has taken over those duties in the past 2 years then once again it remains a mystery why Button is still with the Flames.

Isn't Weisbrod assist GM and more of a pro-scout? Weisbrod seems to be more of a NCAA guy, whereas Tod Button knows the in's and out's of the CHL. Its good to have an main guy for both. I think we have 2 (?) scouts in Europe, and would love to get some more connections to Europe.

[FAN]

Well Button is likely no longer the guy who is truly running the draft. Weisbrod is. For what it's worth, it was Button and the scouting staff that got Weisbrod to go watch him.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Yeah that's another point that cannot be understated. Out of all the teams in the league we've had one of the least amount of 1st rounders + 2nd rounders in Button's tenure and very rarely have we had slam dunk franchise players available.

Give the man more draft picks or higher picks and he would've delivered more prospects.

[dissentowner]

I don't think it is fair to crap on Button (Todd that is, feel free to eat a carton of ex lax and straddle Craig). We don't know for sure how the scouting works or how much of his input is used vs the GM, Asst GM, etc... I know they have a war room where they discuss it all but I don't think you can blame one man, especially with the fact that when Darryl was running the show we know he wanted big "safe" Canadian boys.

[Hanna Sniper]

I love how some many posters make blanket statements about Darryl and just assume they are correct. Hell Darryl didn't even have word that the Flames were drafting Brett Sutter. While there have been some players that fit into the Sutter stereotype there was other that didn't fit into that stereotype as well.

If the stereotype was indeed true, the head of pro scouting still could have used that mold and drafted great players as well. Darryl so-called restriction didn't enable poor picks but rather poor scouting came to a concusses pick that was poor. Outside of the Dion pick, I really can't believe that Darryl pulled his weight on any pick

But it's easy to go along and beat a dead horse

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I think it had mostly to due with the fact that most of his scouts were local because of a limited budget (i.e. it was well known he did a lot of his own scouting)... as he started to expand the scouting department, you start to see later drafts he picks guys outside the WHL.

There was also the fact that the Flames were operating on a budget of half nothing when Button joined them. Not only did they skimp on scouting, they also skimped on player salaries. I remember people in the organization telling the media that they wanted to target WHL players in the draft because they would be more likely to sign here for a price the Flames could afford.

Basically, they restricted their draft pool mostly to players who might give the team a hometown discount. This was a bush-league plan, and worked out about as well as you'd expect.

[Ice_Weasel]

At one of the season ticket holder meetings a month or so back, Ken King was talking and essentially admitted that the flames drafting record was pretty poor. That promted someone in the crowd to ask him why he thinks its going to get better with the same people (ie. Button) in charge.

His response was along the lines of that while the people have not changed, the 'process' has changed significantly. They now use extensive analytics and decision making software to consolidate thoughts as opposed to the 'old days' which sounded a lot like the scene from Moneyball where a bunch of crotchety old guys debated names, with no real way of knowing if the 'best' choice was made or the group just gave in to the loudest personality.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

There was also the fact that the Flames were operating on a budget of half nothing when Button joined them. Not only did they skimp on scouting, they also skimped on player salaries. I remember people in the organization telling the media that they wanted to target WHL players in the draft because they would be more likely to sign here for a price the Flames could afford.

Basically, they restricted their draft pool mostly to players who might give the team a hometown discount. This was a bush-league plan, and worked out about as well as you'd expect.

I remember one of Darryl's quotes saying he had to target guys who "had some sort of special reason to sign here, and would be willing to take some sort of discount" ...

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I remember one of Darryl's quotes saying he had to target guys who "had some sort of special reason to sign here, and would be willing to take some sort of discount" ...

Thanks for the example. I can remember Al Coates saying similar things back in the day, but those were the Dark Ages and his words were not engraved on teh interwebs for posterity.

[ah123]

Originally Posted by Hanna Sniper

I love how some many posters make blanket statements about Darryl and just assume they are correct. Hell Darryl didn't even have word that the Flames were drafting Brett Sutter. While there have been some players that fit into the Sutter stereotype there was other that didn't fit into that stereotype as well.

If the stereotype was indeed true, the head of pro scouting still could have used that mold and drafted great players as well. Darryl so-called restriction didn't enable poor picks but rather poor scouting came to a concusses pick that was poor. Outside of the Dion pick, I really can't believe that Darryl pulled his weight on any pick

But it's easy to go along and beat a dead horse

The GM sets the parameters to use when ranking prospects; so Darryl might have put an emphasis on size where as another GM might prefer speed. The fact that Button has survived 4 GMs either says something about this skill in doing what is asked of him or says something about his skill in schmoozing to the right people

Just my $0.02

[Resolute 14]

This is an ironic bump given the premise of the OP. In the three years since it was created, Adam Pardy, Brandon Prust, Keith Aulie and TJ Brodie (plus Lance Bouma if he could stay healthy) have all turned into 3rd round or later picks that turned into decent NHLers (Boyd had a not-insignificant run as well), and we are currently very high on guys like Reinhart, Gadreau, and the like, while Backlund, Erixon and Baertschi look like they will be decent to decent to above average NHLers from the first round.

That isn't to say that Button should keep his job, particularly when we next replace GMs. It is a good example of how much can change in three years though.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I really feel it is very difficult to point the finger at anyone in particular and say: "This is why our drafting sucks!".

You have to look at the whole drafting and development programs as a whole, rather than just the guy in charge at the time. It is easy to criticize Feaster (in his Tampa days) and Sutter with Calgary, and say these guys 'suck' at drafting.

A high-end scouting department takes a lot of time to put together, and even more time to figure out if it is 'working' or not.

Had Darryl not been pressing management to take full control of an AHL squad so the Flames would be better able to develop their own prospects and put them in positions to best succeed in the future, and had he not been trying to improve the scouting by adding additional scouts, and most importantly - had he not been finally getting some 'hits' on some of his picks, I would definitely agree that his scouting sucked.

When you go over the past drafts from the end of Craig Button's tenure, to the present day, you start to see a bit more of a pattern. There IS improvement there, and a shift of philosophies. You can justifiably argue that it came 'too late', but at least it finally came. Is it perfect now? Nope, not by a longshot - but it is unquestionably becoming better.

You really have to gauge the drafts on a year by year basis, see who was drafted, and see where they went after they were drafted and for how long. You then have to see who were the scouting staff composed of. Todd I thought wasn't very good for a while - I would figure him alone scouting would have had at least a hit here and there for a while, but it was very rare. It got better with time - I think he became more seasoned at his role, and he got additional help and more eyes out there. I would think it takes a while to learn the craft of amateur scouting much more than being a pro scout. Pro scouting is all about "what you see is what you get" for the most part, while trying to see if a certain player could possibly be trending up or become a really good fit for the organization. Amateur scouting I think is much more complex.

It would be interesting to note who really identified "hockey IQ" as being the seemingly most important trait - was it Sutter? Todd? Was it another scout? It definitely started coming about from the 2010 draft, as I never once heard it coming from Calgary before that (and at the time, thought it might just be a 'smokescreen' to try and make the picks sound sexier than they were). Seems to be a good move in the right direction as a drafting philosophy for the Flames lately.

I don't want to sound like a troll, but I look at a team like Edmonton and I am so glad that the Flames are not like them. They didn't have any real pieces to help their rebuild, and since their rebuild started, they have had very little come through the pipe outside of their first-rounders. They are a fairly wealthy team, and it seems their scouting department has not been very good.

I was hoping that the Flames would have grabbed Mark Jankowski's uncle, Ryan Jankowski. Seems he had quite a number of hits on his selections deeper down the draft. This is not to say I don't like Weisbrod, or Todd Button now, but that finding good people to fill and expand your scouting department really does pay off more than any other department I think. I just hope the Flames continually look to add to their drafting program and continue to tweak it.

The one thing I do really give credit to Feaster was that he came in and didn't just blindly axe everyone (which most at the time would probably have been happy with) and try and rebuild the scouting department. Probably would have resulted in a few horrible drafts at arguably the worst time in franchise history. Flames were a fantastic drafting team in the 80's not only because they scouted the NCAA thoroughly, but because they had a fairly large scouting department as compared to other teams. Hope they keep adding to their scouting department and continue to get more hits in the later rounds.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

I really feel it is very difficult to point the finger at anyone in particular and say: "This is why our drafting sucks!".

You have to look at the whole drafting and development programs as a whole, rather than just the guy in charge at the time. It is easy to criticize Feaster (in his Tampa days) and Sutter with Calgary, and say these guys 'suck' at drafting.

A high-end scouting department takes a lot of time to put together, and even more time to figure out if it is 'working' or not.

The people in charge are responsible for performance of those who are under their supervision. When you keep the same scouting staff it's assumed you are happy with their performance. When you make scouting changes, it is assumed you are making improvements.

GMs and scouting DO go together. So do guys who head scouting departments. For example, Poile was great at drafting defensemen in both Washington and Nashville (albeit he did bring some of his scouting staff over). Lombardi's drafting has also been good in both San Jose and LA. Ottawa was one of the best scouting teams when they had Jarmo Kekalainen and Trevor Timmins. Kekalainen and Timmins have increased their reputations since then. There are teams that keep finding talent from specific leagues/regions and that's in large part due to the scout positioned there. Heck, our scouting of US/NCAA seems to be better and that can probably be attributed to Weisbrod.

Sutter had years to improve this team's scouting the same way Feaster had years to improve the Lightning's scouting. They both suck at drafting, but I suppose you can excuse Feaster a bit since he has no idea how to evaluate talent.