How/Why does Tod Button still have a job?

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

pure speculation that has never been confirmed. Button has flat out blown 85% of the drafts he has been responsible for.
Funny how he is only viewed as having 2 decent drafts out of 14 years. Yes 2 out 14 or 12 however long old Button has been screwing up the Flames with his stellar track record.
Button in his stay with Calgary has cost the Flames years and years of bad development.
Button isn't even mentioned on the the Flames website anymore but yet there he is still around lmao.

http://flames.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=40740

http://flames.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=40733



I am delighted when my employees get 2 out of 14 tasks correct. Button is the best Head of Scouting in the NHL. He builds a dynasty.

http://flames.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=58266

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by kyuss275

Button when heavily relied upon for the 2011 draft, had one of the best drafts in the last couple of decades for the flames. (Sven, Granlund, Wotherspoon, Gaudreau and Brossiant.) It was pretty much his draft, unless you think Feaster had good input.

Its also been noted that Sutter did his own thing for first picks when he was in charge and Button took over for latter picks. Don't see to many first round picks working out, but some of the latter picks are going to. (Brodie, Arnold, Reinhart ect)

He also seems to be following Weisbrod's criteria and doing a good job. Not sure why the hate anymore?

That 2011 draft looks so good that I'm a little apprehensive that Weisbrod would change up the criteria.
Another consideration for Button is that he's gained a lot of experience here even if he maybe wasn't that good in his earlier years.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by macrov

We have no idea whether Button should be let go or not because:

1) Scouting does not equal drafting. The GM is responsible for drafting. Apparently Sutter didn't listen to his scouts very much, so you can't pin the poor drafting record on the scouting system.

Also keep in mind that Button has worked with 4 different GMs, not two. That seems to be a recurring theme in this thread.

I've also bolded this part because it is rather sweeping in speculation. While there might be some truth to the fact that Sutter was a control freak, I have my doubts that he was making every single pick every single year. The scouting staff would have still been presenting him a list based on certain criteria that he laid out.

Whatever methodology was used, it was horrible. The worst in the NHL. Plenty of blame to go around.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Also keep in mind that Button has worked with 4 different GMs, not two. That seems to be a recurring theme in this thread.

I've also bolded this part because it is rather sweeping in speculation. While there might be some truth to the fact that Sutter was a control freak, I have my doubts that he was making every single pick every single year. The scouting staff would have still been presenting him a list based on certain criteria that he laid out.

Whatever methodology was used, it was horrible. The worst in the NHL. Plenty of blame to go around.

People look at Darryl's year and always point to Chucko and Pelech, and think that is all that Darryl did. And those 2 years, Darryl badly mis-read which direction the league was going, which was his fault. And 2006, well, never draft a goalie.

But how about Backlund, Erixon (puke), Brodie? All high hockey IQ. How about Max Reinahrt and John Ramage for character?

Remember some busts like Mitch Wahl were drafted for their hockey IQ too. And Mickey Renaud for his character. Juusi Puusinen was drafted for skill.

Of coarse not to take away anything from the Feaster/Weisbrod regime, but there are some pretty good drafted players after you look past those 2 years of screw ups. And while I'm stoked about the prospects now, we can't say its a full success yet too.

/ debbie downer

[macrov]

Here's the way I think of it: On average, a decent NHL player will play 10 years in the league. Some will play 20, a lot more will play 5-7, but lets say its around 10. And there are 20 players on each team. So, give or take, you should be drafting 2 NHL players per year to be average, and 2+ players per year to be better than average. Did sutter do that?

2003: Phaneuf,
2004: Boyd, Prust, Pardy
2005: None
2006: None
2007: Backlund, Aulie
2008: Brodie
2009: Erixson
2010: Reinhart, Ramage (maybe)

So, over 8 years, he drafted 9 NHLers, with 1 still a prospect. That is significantly less than 16. And any monkey could have drafted an NHL player with a first round pick in 2003. But even so, 9 in 8 years is not good enough.

Now lets look at Feaster:

2011: Baertchi, Granlund, Wortherspoon (maybe), Gaudreau, Brossoit (maybe)
2012 Jankowski, Sieloff, Gillies

I would bet we end up with a lot more than 4 NHLers out of those 2 drafts.


Its a complete 180; which is why I say, its not all about the scouts. A lot of it has to do with the GM. Sutter is a great hockey mind; one of the bests. And he has an eye for talent, and development. But I feel like Feaster makes a better manager, or CEO because he seems better able to synthesise information from others. And many hands make light work if you know what to do with them...here is a bit of what probably goes into drafting...

How does he want to build a team?
How does he weight different hockey and character traits?
What does he want his scouts to focus on - playing a strong 2-way game or hockey sense for example?
How do they think drafting strategy - trading up or down or letting a prospect slide because they think they can have him later?

Weighting information: If 5 of your scouts do work on a player, how do you value each of their input relative to each other? Statistics VS qualitative scouting?

Focus of resources: Do you go for breadth (more players) or depth (more scouts on fewer players) in any give scouting situation? When do you rearrange scouts to go look at a special player that caught someones eye? How much focus do you spend on the top 30 prospects? top 90? Bottom 300? HOw many scouts do you send to NCAA, and high school hockey? Europe? etc.

Building the ranking list: how do you weight everyones list? How do you go about decision making - Do you deliberate or have everyone make a secret blind list? Do you consensus-build or do you trust your start scouts over all others? How do you mitigate group think? How do you reconcile prospect rankings between leagues? HOw do you factor in the league tables or central scouting reports?

There is so much more to drafting than simply "scouting"

[Calgary4LIfe]

People who think that Sutter just sought big tough western Canadian kids just weren't paying any attention to his drafts and point at a few picks and say "See!".

He drafted Russians, Swedes, Fins.. He drafted finesse players, offensive defencemen...

I think Darryl gets a bum rap here. He continually gets raked over the coals for his drafting and development, but he is the one that really turned things around.

You can't put a 'start date' and 'end date' on the drafting and development side of things with a GM, unless that new GM completely cleans house on that department. Sutter took over the Flames who had barely any staff, and over the years grew those departments.

Takes a few years for things to show themselves as well. Split Darryl's tenure into 3 periods, and you instantly see not only the evolution of the current Flames' drafting philosophy, but increased 'hits' as well that are now showing themselves.

Was Darryl 'great'? I don't think he was. However, he isn't as bad as how many posters think when you look at what he had to work with to start, and what the drafting and development programs looked like when he left (much bigger - almost non-existent at the start, and ending up to being fairly robust departments when he left). That was the big change, and you could see better drafting as a consequence (better drafting that the Flames still enjoy to this day).

[schooner]

lots of different ways to rate success when it comes to scouting, thought I would throw this one in from "Art of Scouting." They base it purely on min games played, and use a time frame that spans multiple gms.

1. Buffalo - 10yrs – 91 draft picks – 28 NHL Players = 30.7% success rate (1)
2. Boston - 10yrs – 85 draft picks – 26 NHL Players = 30.5% success rate (1)
3. Ottawa - 10yrs – 92 draft picks – 26 NHL Players = 28.2% success rate (2)
4. Pittsburgh - 10yrs – 95 draft picks – 27 NHL Players = 28.4% success rate
5. Colorado - 10yrs – 96 draft picks – 27 NHL Players = 28.1% success rate (1)
6. San Jose - 10yrs – 78 draft picks – 21 NHL Players = 27.0% success rate (3)
7. Montreal - 10yrs – 90 draft picks – 24 NHL Players = 26.6% success rate (2)
8. Anaheim - 10yrs – 74 draft picks – 19 NHL Players = 25.6% success rate
9. Nashville - 9yrs – 88 draft picks – 20 NHL Players = 24.0% success rate (3)
10. NY Rangers -10yrs – 100 draft picks – 23 NHL Players = 23.0% success rate (1)
11. Columbus - 7yrs – 74 draft picks – 17 NHL Players = 22.9% success rate (3)
12. Minnesota - 7yrs – 61 draft picks – 14 NHL Players = 22.9% success rate (1)
13. Chicago - 10yrs – 110 draft picks – 25 NHL Players = 22.7% success rate
14. Toronto - 10yrs – 84 draft picks – 19 NHL Players = 22.6% success rate (1)
15. Dallas - 10yrs – 91 draft picks – 20 NHL Players = 21.9% success rate
16. Los Angles - 10yrs – 97 draft picks – 21 NHL Players = 21.6% success rate (1)
17. Washington - 10yrs – 92 draft picks – 19 NHL Players = 20.6% success rate (1)
18. Florida - 10yrs – 92 draft picks – 19 NHL Players = 20.6% success rate (1)
19. NY Islanders - 10yrs – 97 draft picks – 20 NHL Players = 20.6 % success rate (1)
20. Vancouver - 10yrs – 84 draft picks – 17 NHL Players = 20.2% success rate
21. Detroit - 10yrs – 85 draft picks – 17 NHL Players = 20.0% success rate (2)
22. Carolina - 10yrs – 80 draft picks – 16 NHL Players = 20.0% success rate (2)
23. Philadelphia - 10yrs – 89 draft picks – 17 NHL Players = 19.1% success rate (1)
24. Edmonton - 10yrs – 98 draft picks – 18 NHL Players = 18.3% success rate (6)
25. St. Louis - 10yrs – 89 draft picks – 15 NHL Players = 16.8 % success rate (3)
26. Atlanta - 8 yrs –78 draft picks - 13–NHL Players = 16.6% success rate (1)
27. Calgary - 10yrs – 99 draft picks – 16 NHL Players = 16.1% success rate
28. Tampa Bay - 10yrs – 102 draft picks – 16 NHL Players = 15.6% success rate (2)
29. New Jersey - 10yrs – 91 draft picks – 14 NHL Players = 15.3% success rate (6)
30. Phoenix - 10yrs – 86 draft picks – 13 NHL Players = 15.1% success rate (1)

http://www.theartofscouting.com/defa...?p=nhlprospect

[Badgers Nose]

Interesting that draft success measured this way does not correlate to success in the standings. BUF and COL are good at drafting, bad at winning.

And look at Detroit. Way down the list.

[schooner]

Originally Posted by Badgers Nose

Interesting that draft success measured this way does not correlate to success in the standings. BUF and COL are good at drafting, bad at winning.

And look at Detroit. Way down the list.

I believe a lot of the perceived success from the Wings scouting department is due to having a couple standout scouts over in Europe. Also important, which this articles does not account for is quality v quantity. Some late gems can make up for a lot of misses.

I wonder too how many successful draft picks are still with their original team, or at the least, were used as part of effective asset management in trades. Prob explains why some good drafting teams have not seen that success translate to success in the standings.

[Stormchaser]

Originally Posted by macrov

Here's the way I think of it: On average, a decent NHL player will play 10 years in the league. Some will play 20, a lot more will play 5-7, but lets say its around 10. And there are 20 players on each team. So, give or take, you should be drafting 2 NHL players per year to be average, and 2+ players per year to be better than average. Did sutter do that?

2003: Phaneuf,
2004: Boyd, Prust, Pardy
2005: None
2006: None
2007: Backlund, Aulie
2008: Brodie
2009: Erixson
2010: Reinhart, Ramage (maybe)

So, over 8 years, he drafted 9 NHLers, with 1 still a prospect. That is significantly less than 16. And any monkey could have drafted an NHL player with a first round pick in 2003. But even so, 9 in 8 years is not good enough.

Now lets look at Feaster:

2011: Baertchi, Granlund, Wortherspoon (maybe), Gaudreau, Brossoit (maybe)
2012 Jankowski, Sieloff, Gillies

I would bet we end up with a lot more than 4 NHLers out of those 2 drafts.


Its a complete 180; which is why I say, its not all about the scouts. A lot of it has to do with the GM. Sutter is a great hockey mind; one of the bests. And he has an eye for talent, and development. But I feel like Feaster makes a better manager, or CEO because he seems better able to synthesise information from others. And many hands make light work if you know what to do with them...here is a bit of what probably goes into drafting...

How does he want to build a team?
How does he weight different hockey and character traits?
What does he want his scouts to focus on - playing a strong 2-way game or hockey sense for example?
How do they think drafting strategy - trading up or down or letting a prospect slide because they think they can have him later?

Weighting information: If 5 of your scouts do work on a player, how do you value each of their input relative to each other? Statistics VS qualitative scouting?

Focus of resources: Do you go for breadth (more players) or depth (more scouts on fewer players) in any give scouting situation? When do you rearrange scouts to go look at a special player that caught someones eye? How much focus do you spend on the top 30 prospects? top 90? Bottom 300? HOw many scouts do you send to NCAA, and high school hockey? Europe? etc.

Building the ranking list: how do you weight everyones list? How do you go about decision making - Do you deliberate or have everyone make a secret blind list? Do you consensus-build or do you trust your start scouts over all others? How do you mitigate group think? How do you reconcile prospect rankings between leagues? HOw do you factor in the league tables or central scouting reports?

There is so much more to drafting than simply "scouting"

I'm not defending Sutter at all, but you must factor into account that Sutter traded away a ton of our picks. The guy traded away 1st and 2nd rounders like they grew on trees. Feaster has a smaller sample size compared to Sutter but I'd be interested in knowing how many picks Darryl actually made and how many of them turned out......not that it may help his percentages at all compared to Feaster....just interesting discussion.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by schooner

lots of different ways to rate success when it comes to scouting, thought I would throw this one in from "Art of Scouting." They base it purely on min games played, and use a time frame that spans multiple gms.



http://www.theartofscouting.com/defa...?p=nhlprospect

Adjust that list to account for where the team finished in the standings, and which picks they held, on average over that time period, and I bet that list looks completely different. Basing it on # of nhlers, in and of itself, doesn't say much with the context of how well the team was playing in that time. You'd expect a perennially bad team with lots of high picks to have a much better success rate than one that is consistently a playoff team.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by stormchaser

I'm not defending Sutter at all, but you must factor into account that Sutter traded away a ton of our picks. The guy traded away 1st and 2nd rounders like they grew on trees. Feaster has a smaller sample size compared to Sutter but I'd be interested in knowing how many picks Darryl actually made and how many of them turned out......not that it may help his percentages at all compared to Feaster....just interesting discussion.

That's a tough comparison to make though as Sutter's picks were lower due to the team being better than Feaster. Feaster has picked 13th, 21st, 6th, 22nd, and 28th in the first round so far. Sutter picked 9, 24,26,24,25 and 23). On one pick was top 10, the rest 23 or lower. Interestingly, his bets 2 picks (outside Phaneuf) were both Swedish (Backlund and Erixon)

It would be interesting to rank the two GM's by comparing their draft pick success rate to the weighted success rate the average team would have with those same picks.

Detroit for example. is perceived to have good drafting not because they have an above average success rate, but that that they continue to draft and develop quality players despite being a playoff team year after year.

[FAN]

I never understood the praise Feaster received for his drafting so early on. I'm hopeful but it's way too early to tell. On the other hand, Sutter's drafting is starting to produce some decent results. Erixon and Brodie are looking like top 4 defensemen. Backlund is looking like a solid top 9 player. Aulie is looking like a capable bottom pairing defenseman. Bouma looks like an NHL player. 2005 and 2006 drafts are bummers though.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by stormchaser

...Sutter traded away a ton of our picks. The guy traded away 1st and 2nd rounders like they grew on trees...

It could fairly be said about Sutter that he traded away a high number of second-rounders, but his history with first round picks requires major consideration of context. Outside of those instances in which he made deals at the draft in which he parlayed his first rounder into a slightly lower selection and a second-round pick, he only traded away two first round picks in his entire history with the Flames. The first time he did so was in 2008, when he traded his first and second to LA for Mike Cammalleri and a second, but he recouped the first rounder immediately by trading Tanguay to Montreal.

Sutter traded six of his nine first-round picks between 2003–2011, but the only time under his management that the Flames did not draft in the first round was in 2010, in exchange for Olli Jokinen.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Badgers Nose

Interesting that draft success measured this way does not correlate to success in the standings. BUF and COL are good at drafting, bad at winning.

And look at Detroit. Way down the list.

Conversley I see three Stanley Cup winning teams over the last decade, four finalists, and a perenial contender in the Sharks in the top 10 which is 50% of the top drafting teams having very good success. Drafting is a big part of the puzzle but coaching, developement, and adding key pieces in trades and free agency also matter which is why the Avalanche (coaching especially hurt them) stink and Buffalo hasn't had a lot of success lately but were pretty competitive in the past decade overall.

When you look at the top 10 the only team you can say that hasn't had much success overall is the Avalanche but IMO that's self inflicted due to poor management and coaching. Otherwise that list confirms what we already knew in that drafting plays a role in team success. If you draft consistently amongst the top teams chances are your team will ice a competitive product and half the time a cup contender.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It could fairly be said about Sutter that he traded away a high number of second-rounders, but his history with first round picks requires major consideration of context. Outside of those instances in which he made deals at the draft in which he parlayed his first rounder into a slightly lower selection and a second-round pick, he only traded away two first round picks in his entire history with the Flames. The first time he did so was in 2008, when he traded his first and second to LA for Mike Cammalleri and a second, but he recouped the first rounder immediately by trading Tanguay to Montreal.

Sutter traded six of his nine first-round picks between 2003–2011, but the only time under his management that the Flames did not draft in the first round was in 2010, in exchange for Olli Jokinen.

Yep. Sutter made a point of keeping his first rounders. If the team was better at drafting in the first round, the team would be in a different position right now. The value Feaster and Weisbrod places/placed on first round picks has scared me. I couldn't believe it when Feaster and Weisbrod were considering trading the first round pick the team used to draft Jankowski. I can understand trading a potential top 5 pick for ROR, but then there's the Iginla trade where Feaster felt the Boston's offer of conditional 1st round pick was better than the Pens offer of a guaranteed first round pick. Luckily, it seems Feaster has changed course, but the odds are that at least one of the Flames' first round pick will be traded before Feaster's is done here.

[Fischy13]

Originally Posted by FAN

Yep. Sutter made a point of keeping his first rounders. If the team was better at drafting in the first round, the team would be in a different position right now. The value Feaster and Weisbrod places/placed on first round picks has scared me. I couldn't believe it when Feaster and Weisbrod were considering trading the first round pick the team used to draft Jankowski. I can understand trading a potential top 5 pick for ROR, but then there's the Iginla trade where Feaster felt the Boston's offer of conditional 1st round pick was better than the Pens offer of a guaranteed first round pick. Luckily, it seems Feaster has changed course, but the odds are that at least one of the Flames' first round pick will be traded before Feaster's is done here.

Feaster actually came out and said the Boston 1st rounder was guaranteed, not conditional like so many think. I don't have a link, but I've seen it posted.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by FAN

Yep. Sutter made a point of keeping his first rounders. If the team was better at drafting in the first round, the team would be in a different position right now. The value Feaster and Weisbrod places/placed on first round picks has scared me. I couldn't believe it when Feaster and Weisbrod were considering trading the first round pick the team used to draft Jankowski. I can understand trading a potential top 5 pick for ROR, but then there's the Iginla trade where Feaster felt the Boston's offer of conditional 1st round pick was better than the Pens offer of a guaranteed first round pick. Luckily, it seems Feaster has changed course, but the odds are that at least one of the Flames' first round pick will be traded before Feaster's is done here.

Feaster has had five first round picks in three years as GM of the Flames

Sutter is the only one of the two who traded out of the first round completely.

[Roof-Daddy]

Even Chiarelli openly stated that the return for Iginla included an unconditional 1st round pick.

[Lanny_McDonald]

As much as I don't like Button, I think that organizational philosophy plays a big role in how the scouts judge certain prospects. I think Feaster brought in a new philosophy, and that may not be a result of Feaster but his hiring decisions elsewhere. Adding the likes of Wiesbrod and Goulet to the mix are huge changes. Giving them the latitude to make selections that others may consider foolhardy may payoff in the long run and prove to be wise. Scouting and talent evaluation can sometimes be too cookie cutter where a player is judged more on the compilation of his parts than his exceptional abilities. I like the fact that the Flames are now looking at exceptions and selecting them. You need a number of players, but you also need guys with exceptional abilities. Guys like Gaudreau and Jankowski are exceptions to the norm and could pay off in huge gains. Those are the players that a philosophy of selecting guys that have the highest probability of being a NHL player would prevent from ever being drafted. I think that Button has done a good job adapting to this new philosophy and managing his scouts accordingly. I don't like the guy, but I think that is mostly because I can't stand his brother, but I give him credit for allowing his scouts, the guys he manages, to amass a good collection of prospects in a very short period of time.