[News] Feaster and Weisbrod relieved of duties. Burke will hire a new GM

[Mister Yamoto]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Do you seriously believe that Jay Feaster "wrecked" the Flames?

Ridiculous.

Yes, I do. Good riddance Jay.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Why stop at Maata? What about Girgensons, Hertl, and Laughton? Could have had those guys as well.

As well? No. The Flames could have only picked one of them, not every one.

[Tinordi]

The double edge sword of having a superstar fixture of your franchise is in full light in this thread. Their enormous influence and presence is valued in the good times and is a significant burden in the bad times. It would seem that everyone from management to ownership to the fanbase were subservient not just to Iginla but to the idea of Iginla's legacy and importance. As a result we took a three year walk in the woods where the idea of a player took the priority over the actual success of the franchise.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

As well? No. The Flames could have only picked one of them, not every one.

Weak. You get what I was trying to say and misrepresenting that point only makes you look obtuse.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Do you seriously believe that Jay Feaster "wrecked" the Flames?

Ridiculous.

Agreed. Darryl Sutter wrecked the Flames much more than Feaster did IMO.

Was Feaster perfect? No, far from it......but he spent most of his time as GM of the Flames trying to fix many of the problems Darryl left behind.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Mister Yamoto

Yes, I do. Good riddance Jay.

You'll forgive me for not simply taking your word for it. Perhaps you could outline just how much worse off the Flames are today as a direct result of Feaster's tenure, coupled by a good descriptions of how much better off the Flames would be today without his body of work.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Weak. You get what I was trying to say and misrepresenting that point only makes you look obtuse.

Deliberately obtuse, but I offer no apology. It's what you get in response for unnecessarily piling on. We get it, and the point does not need to be belaboured. Feaster was far from a great GM. However, chastising teams for players that they DIDN'T draft is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Show me one team or one GM that has never missed.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

The double edge sword of having a superstar fixture of your franchise is in full light in this thread. Their enormous influence and presence is valued in the good times and is a significant burden in the bad times. It would seem that everyone from management to ownership to the fanbase were subservient not just to Iginla but to the idea of Iginla's legacy and importance. As a result we took a three year walk in the woods where the idea of a player took the priority over the actual success of the franchise.

Yup. We don't know how this played out. Perhaps Feaster wanted to get #12 to sign a formal list, but was told not to by Edwards. Iginla and Edwards are tight.

Asking Iginila to sign a formal list of teams off is not unlike asking your fiance for a pre-nup. You maybe should do it but it is a hard conversation to have and could damage the relationship.

[flamesfan55]

Originally Posted by DionTheDman

My understanding was that Iggy's "list" included Boston initially, and so Feaster was working on trades with those teams. However, when it came down to it, Iggy basically threw the list out and would only accept a trade to Pittsburgh. I thought that was the generally-accepted version of what happened? Correct me if I'm wrong.

This is my understanding of what happened also. They had said Crosby talked to Iggy about going to the Pens. That's why it was a last minute nix. Iggy wanted the Pens in the end. Feaster did the right thing with the Boston trade he just screwed up with the end return from the Pens.

[Hanna Sniper]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Asking Iginila to sign a formal list of teams off is not unlike asking your fiance for a pre-nup. You maybe should do it but it is a hard conversation to have and could damage the relationship.

I would agree with this statement IF you were asking your wife for a pre-nup days before the divorce.

Both sides knew the marriage was over not just beginning

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Brendan Morrow and his fixture in the landscape of Dallas is not even remotely comparable to the legacy that Iginla forged in Calgary. In the first place, one is a good bet to be a first-ballot hall-of-famer, while the other will never receive such consideration for entry as a player in his lifetime. In the second place, the status of each figure relative to the market is outrageously out of balance. Iginla the superstar established himself in a small market in which NHL hockey has no equal; Morrow was but one of a number of memorable players on a Dallas professional sports team that shares a market six times the size with other sports giants, the Dallas Cowboys, the Mavericks, and the Texas Rangers.

If this is really the best modern comparable that you can construct, then I rest my case.

Blah Blah Blah, Iginla's Legacy, Blah Blah Blah.

None of that has anything to do with the protocol you follow when dealing a player with a NTC/NMC. You're illustrating the folly of the organization right here. Why follow contracts at all? Why not just have a verbal agreement for a pay structure. Surely, if the roles were reversed, Iginla would accept a handshake agreement in lieu of a contract for services rendered, right?

Is this a family loan or a business here?

Good managers make the right decisions, not the easy ones.

How much do we care right now as Iginla plays for the Bruins, anyway, with a fixture of the proposed deal playing with him and well while the spare parts Calgary received are up in the air? I guess we have one final bend-over to Iginla and his legacy to console ourselves with as the team is near the basement of the league? What is the tangible benefit from not having followed the trade protocol, an Iginla post game victory lap?

What is this, the Calgary Iginlas? Based on some of the booing and jeers from the previous game, and some of the posts in this thread like yours, it's easy to see why the organization has been so inept and rudderless for so long.

There is a legal framework within which general managers, agents and players maneuver. Calgary didn't follow it and surprise, surprise, were burned substantially because of it, to the point where the president of the organization offered his own regret about the decision.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

The double edge sword of having a superstar fixture of your franchise is in full light in this thread. Their enormous influence and presence is valued in the good times and is a significant burden in the bad times. It would seem that everyone from management to ownership to the fanbase were subservient not just to Iginla but to the idea of Iginla's legacy and importance. As a result we took a three year walk in the woods where the idea of a player took the priority over the actual success of the franchise.

I think people are mistaken for imaging that things could have ever played out much differently. Trading Iginla the icon was a doomed enterprise to begin with. There was never going to be a "kickstart" to the rebuild simply because ownership was wary of the fan base and loathe to move him. More importantly—and this point seems somehow to ALWAYS get missed in all of this—Iginla never had any interest in playing elsewhere in the first place. One can't really blame the player, since he earned the right to control his destiny here, but nothing and no one hurt the Flames's return for Iginla more than Iginla's long insistence on staying with the Flames.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Deliberately obtuse, but I offer no apology. It's what you get in response for unnecessarily piling on. We get it, and the point does not need to be belaboured. Feaster was far from a great GM. However, chastising teams for players that they DIDN'T draft is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Show me one team or one GM that has never missed.

I actually don't think Feaster was that bad. I certainly think Sutter was worse over the body of work. And most of my vitriol is saved for who I think was really pulling the strings during the Feaster tenure which are those higher up. But still, the Jankowski thing is looking bad. Very bad. And it's mostly the result of hubris, the feeling that we're smarter than everyone. And that pick should be held to account. We were a bad team with little in the way of prospects by that time trading down to then pick a longshot when there were nice prospects out there, like Girgensons who I had hoped we picked at 14 was... well... it was a bad decision. Same as not having a 2nd rounder for that draft to nab the "best goalie outside of the NHL." We should have had multiple seconds that draft not be forced to trade down to get one.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Yup. We don't know how this played out. Perhaps Feaster wanted to get #12 to sign a formal list, but was told not to by Edwards. Iginla and Edwards are tight.

Asking Iginila to sign a formal list of teams off is not unlike asking your fiance for a pre-nup. You maybe should do it but it is a hard conversation to have and could damage the relationship.

Really? This seems like such common practice around the NHL that it would be a more apt comparison to compare it to signing a marriage contract.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Yup. We don't know how this played out. Perhaps Feaster wanted to get #12 to sign a formal list, but was told not to by Edwards. Iginla and Edwards are tight.

Asking Iginila to sign a formal list of teams off is not unlike asking your fiance for a pre-nup. You maybe should do it but it is a hard conversation to have and could damage the relationship.

I think it's unlikely that Feaster lost his ability to read and understand contract framework twice in a 3 month period without significant 'oversight' to motivate said loss of ability.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by Hockeyboy2

I agree with your thoughts on that 100 percent. I was very young when Calgary traded away Martin St. Louis but I do recall him being plugged on the third and fourth line, tried to turn him into a mini checker and he was never given much of a chance.

And to top it all off he was instrumental in the door to door canvassing in the save the flames drive if what I heard is true.

After this happened he was immediately disbanded and I dont recall if he was traded to Tampa Bay or he was put on waivers and then claimed by Tampa Bay. Either way yah that sucked and it would be a big slap in the face to have something like that happen again.

Shortly after Craig Button became the GM (within a few weeks I believe), St. Louis was put on waivers and not claimed, then bought out. He was also available in the 2000 expansion draft but went unclaimed by Columbus and Minnesota.

He then signed a two-way deal with Tampa and the rest is history.

He also went to Ottawa's training camp as a tryout prior to signing with the Flames.

[Super Nintendo Chalmers]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

You'll have to ask Brian Burke then, not me. I actually like the draft picks.

One thing I recall Burke saying was that Feaster hit a home run with Monahan.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Calgary was never interested in getting full value for their assets because full value would entail accumulating draft picks, something the organization has been allergic to for the previous 2 decades.

Fair comment. And I think you're right. But again, who was directing the overall direction of the team during Feaster's tenure? Doesn't look to me like it was Feaster.

And I don't have any confidence that Burke will be any more enthusiastic about trading for picks. I expect to see our UFAs moved for mainly the kind of half-baked prospects Feaster traded for.

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Keep in mind as well, King also made the comment to McCowan on primetime sports that if he could have done it again, he would make Iginla sign a waiver. This was a few days after the trade.

That's because a few days after the trade King knew that Iginla and Meehan ended up playing hardball with the Flames when management thought they were still playing pattycakes. About the only good that came out of that experience was the recognition (hopefully) that you don't ever treat a player like he's bigger than the team. Ever. Because players and their agents sure as heck aren't sentimental about the business of hockey.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

None of that has anything to do with the protocol you follow when dealing a player with a NTC/NMC. You're illustrating the folly of the organization right here...

SO WRONG. It has EVERYTHING to do with why things played out the way they did. I don't blame you for not liking it. I don't like it either, but it is simply naïve to imagine that Iginla's legacy did not have an enormous and irrevocable impact on the circumstances of his trade.

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

...There is a legal framework within which general managers, agents and players maneuver. Calgary didn't follow it and surprise, surprise, were burned substantially because of it, to the point where the president of the organization offered his own regret about the decision.

Of course the Flames are filled with regret! But that does not preclude that things would ever have played out differently under different personnel, or that it would have played out differently two years ago.

We can't really know how this scenario would play out under a good GM until another team's seventeen-year veteran, future Hall of Fame player and the most recognisable figure in his community is traded in the final year of his contract.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Really? This seems like such common practice around the NHL that it would be a more apt comparison to compare it to signing a marriage contract.

The practice is probably common but the relationship between Iginla and the Flames isn't. Clearly the organization made it priority to "do right by him".

Which isn't to say agree with what they did. They needed to take a far more cold business stance on the issue and get him to sign a formal list, even if it meant the relationship would take a hit.

Of course perhaps at that point Iginla would have said "I'm not signing a list - I want final say".

Tough to predict how it would have played out.

To be honest though I don't think the Boston deal was much better. I prefer the Russian over either prospect Calgary got, but I prefer Agostino and Hanowski to Bartowski.

Ultimately the mistake was they traded him 1-3 years too late. That's why they didn't get value.