Throw Down who is the worst Flames GM of all time

[Jiri Hrdina]

Riser for sure. The Gilmour/Leeman deal is just so bad where they lost on not just the two big names, but literally every name included. Macoun/Nattress were both key parts of the blueline here and continued to be in Toronto. It was franchise altering for both teams in opposite ways.

Sutter got the team to the finals so hard to ignore that. But as a GM he wasn't good. He drafted poorly but his narrow view of what a good player is/was caused him to toss aside quality players for next to nothing. Examples including Toni Lydman and Anton Stralman. He just was a VERY poor talent evaluator. And then he lost his mind down the stretch inexplicitly acquiring a guy like Kotalik. I don't think he knew what he was doing.

I admit I have a bias towards him though.

[The Original FFIV]

Riser hands down. Wasn't ready. Forced into a role he was completely unprepared for. But took the job being a good company man at the behest of the Seaman brothers.

Of course, everyone talks about Leeman/Gilmour. Stumbled on this which gives a little backstory as to what happened. Can you imagine if we had done the deal with the Whalers instead? He might not have been the worst GM, but he did the deal and cemented his status as such.

QTE
Another irony was former Toronto GM Gerry McNamara was at that stage a Flames’ pro scout — hired by Fletcher a couple of years earlier — and given a say early in the talks. Al Coates, Risebrough’s assistant, first sought McNamara’s opinion on another proposed Gilmour swap, a 2-for-1, that would’ve fetched Pat Verbeek and Jim McKenzie from the Hartford Whalers.

“I said ‘I’d take that’,” McNamara told the Sun in 2015. “Then this Toronto thing gets going.”

McNamara said he was asked to assess the three Leafs he was most familiar with, Leeman, Godynyuk and Reese. But he wasn’t fully aware the deal was expanding to 10 so fast, then sealed while he was on a long flight for a scouting trip. As time went on, the teams went in opposite directions and the Gilmour legend grew, McNamara took some heat for over-estimating the Toronto components.

“That gnawed at me for years. I had given my scouting report, but never recommended they take that deal, only Verbeek and McKenzie for Gilmour.”
UNQTE

https://torontosun.com/sports/hockey...r-doug-gilmour

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Riser for sure. The Gilmour/Leeman deal is just so bad where they lost on not just the two big names, but literally every name included. Macoun/Nattress were both key parts of the blueline here and continued to be in Toronto. It was franchise altering for both teams in opposite ways.

Sutter got the team to the finals so hard to ignore that. But as a GM he wasn't good. He drafted poorly but his narrow view of what a good player is/was caused him to toss aside quality players for next to nothing. Examples including Toni Lydman and Anton Stralman. He just was a VERY poor talent evaluator. And then he lost his mind down the stretch inexplicitly acquiring a guy like Kotalik. I don't think he knew what he was doing.

I admit I have a bias towards him though.

I think his dual role often makes it seem like the GM was great. The coach Darryl Sutter was probably the best coach this team has had. The GM is probably the worst, he had 1 year under the old CBA and the playing field evened and he fumbled it big time.

What made that 04 team great was the team speed and the rules changed to allow for speed to be a big factor and he went the other way big time. Old and slow, couldn't give a F about teh draft. Even Conroy has mentioned that the team was really fast just recently. I remember the media talking about it after the finals as well if we added more skill to our speed we could take off.

If you build a team and give it to Darryl he can get a lot out of them. Just don't let him have any say in the players.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by troutman

This is only hearsay, but I think his hands were tied by off-ice dramas.

Yeah I heard the same thing as well, still a horrendous deal to make. He could have simply dealt the one guy that was supposedly the problem.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Riseborough. It no contest.

[BigThief]

Brad Treliving ; just garbage

[TheChief]

1. Risebrough - Before my time but traded the 89 team away for not much. The one that on paper (not having been old enough to remember) is the Joe Mullen trade. He wins the cup in 89. Leads the flames in goals during the cup win. Has a bit of a off year the next (first time in a while under 40 goals) and the flames proceed to trade him at the draft for a 2nd round pick. I get he was 33 but look at these stats as a flame.
1985-86 Calgary Flames NHL 29 16 22 38 11 3 21 12 7 19 4 1986-87 Calgary Flames NHL 79 47 40 87 14 18 6 2 1 3 0 1987-88 Calgary Flames NHL 80 40 44 84 30 28 7 2 4 6 10 1988-89 Calgary Flames 🏆 NHL 79 51 59 110 16 51 21 16 8 24 4


2. Bradley


He sucks plain as day. For all the "truculence" he brought in a lot of soft players, really feels like a lost decade with him as GM. Signed the wrong guys to the wrong contracts. Lost our best player in franchise history for nothing. Got bounced in the first round multiple times and missed the playoffs countless times. His coaching hires were horrendous (as were his goalie signings). Always seemed like he thought he was the smartest guy in the room.





I think those two are the worst. The others were average given the time they managed. For me its clear cut.

[Cheese]

Here is Risebrough's full trade record. Just atrocious.


https://www.nhltradetracker.com/user...sebrough/162/2

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Riser for sure. The Gilmour/Leeman deal is just so bad where they lost on not just the two big names, but literally every name included. Macoun/Nattress were both key parts of the blueline here and continued to be in Toronto. It was franchise altering for both teams in opposite ways.

Sutter got the team to the finals so hard to ignore that. But as a GM he wasn't good. He drafted poorly but his narrow view of what a good player is/was caused him to toss aside quality players for next to nothing. Examples including Toni Lydman and Anton Stralman. He just was a VERY poor talent evaluator. And then he lost his mind down the stretch inexplicitly acquiring a guy like Kotalik. I don't think he knew what he was doing.

I admit I have a bias towards him though.

Sutter is a bit of a mystery. Some of his moves would indicate how bad he was as a talent evaluator, as you mentioned, while other moves like acquiring Nilson, Simon and Niemenen (not even including Kiprusoff here) were knocks out of the park. Just weird.

I too was a big supporter of Sutter throughout his stints with the Flames up until he ruined everything in his last year as coach with his attitude towards seemingly everyone in hockey including his own players. Pelletier is a good kid and someone that nobody dislikes. I guess except for Sutter, who felt good about firing shots at him by pretending to not know who Pelletier is and emphasize just how not important he is to him and the Flames. First NHL game (I think?)? Meh, screw his and his family's moment. Part of me also wonders if that was Sutter wanting to snap back at media, with no intention of slighting Pelletier and his family, but he's not that dumb.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Sutter takes a lot of heat, but I think a lot of it is undeserved (but of course, there is plenty he deserved as well).


Firstly, any GM that takes this team to a finals appearance automatically gets put into - at minimum - the 'neutral' pile. What are we doing here? There has been exactly 3 Stanley Cup Finals appearances in this organization. I was a bit too young to remember the first, but I definitely remember a lot of the 2nd. The third was amazing.


Secondly, we have to judge a GM based on how things were when he was hired, and how things were while he was here, and what was left.



When Sutter arrived - no playoffs. A bare-bones scouting staff. No development team. No AHL-controlled franchise (we shared one, with IIRC, Carolina??).



Yep, drafting did suck, especially for his first half. He was also a rookie GM. Over the years, he grew the scouting staff, he convinced the owners to start up their own AHL franchise, and he built up a development department. In his first half, tonnes of misses, very little successes. However, Sutter left significant pieces - Giordano, Backlund, Brodie (who is forgotten about these days, but was amazing with Giordano and gave the Flames one of the best top-pairing defence pairings in the entire league), Ferland, and others. Drafting started hitting while he was here.


Couldn't hire a coach to safe his life either, which was the start of his undoing here as well. He did make an egregious trade that made people forget about all of his 'perfect' trades beforehand.



He brought this team to one phantom goal away from a Stanley Cup. What else is the point? I will GLADLY suffer through 6 bad seasons (and they weren't all bad - made the playoffs 5 straight seasons too, which Treliving never accomplished), if it meant that I would see my team compete for the Stanley Cup. Who here wouldn't take deal, especially when we look at the fact that this team hasn't even come close to that mark since, 21 years later?


Obviously he had a lot of warts. However, for a ROOKIE GM coming into a difficult situation (bare-bones team, no experienced assistant or president like Calgary gave to Treliving and Conroy, 1 full-time scout and 2 part-time scouts, no development department, no AHL-controlled franchise), how he didn't fall flat on his face is a damn miracle in hindsight. To make the moves he did and get that team into the finals? And then make the playoffs for another 4 straight seasons afterwards - yet another mark that Treliving never accomplished here?


I am sorry, but I have to rank Sutter as the 2nd best GM. Heck, if maybe the Flames gave him as much rope as they gave Fletcher, maybe Sutter would have developed into a really good GM and the Flames would have been further ahead. That just doesn't happen any longer, so it is a moot hypothetical point, but I say that just to emphasize how underrated he was.



People remember the failures a lot more than the successes when it comes to him, and they forgot all about his re-signings, his cap management (first maverick to sign a cap-circumventing deal!), how he re-signed Iginla and Phaneuf when people said it was never going to happen... There was a lot of successes there, and he left this team in much better shape than what he found it in, including in terms of contracts. Feaster had an easy time with those deals. Sutter should have rebuilt this team rather than continue trying to go all in - but hey, so did Treliving (who had a tonne more tools around him).

[Johnny Rotten]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Hull was traded before the '89 cup win. And the debate has always been whether the return of Bozek, Ramage, and Wamsley got us over the line for that solitary cup win, and whether that was worth sacrificing a hall of fame career for.

Bozek went to St. Louis in that deal. Not that it makes much difference. Came back to Calgary in Gilmour trade and then to Vancouver.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Here is Risebrough's full trade record. Just atrocious.


https://www.nhltradetracker.com/user...sebrough/162/2

What is interesting in that list is the names that have become coaches or managers.

[HitterD]

I do agree that Reisbrough is the worst, followed closely by Button. As for Sutter, his penchant for big=good got the better of him for most of his tenure as gm, both in drafting and team construction, like mentioned previously in an era that soon saw speedier teams seeing success.

I remember at the time in 2007, when Sutter deviated from his norm of drafting bigger players, his selection of Backlund was mostly applauded, yet he rarely replicated that behaviour again, save for maybe Brodie.

Nearly 20 years later and Backs is still with the team, still producing and of course now captain.

Looking back at all of these GMs work, it’s hard not to think what could have been if better decisions had been made across the board. I’m hopeful, and gaining confidence, that Conroy’s tenure will be right up with Fletcher once the chapter has been written. His moves thus far, as well as the drafting, have shown that he, more than most in this discussion, has a clear consistent direction and is building his way through that vision

[SilverKast]

Risebrough hands down was worst GM we've ever had, if for nothing other than the Gilmour trade. I can still remember him slowly dismantling what was a premier team after a recent cup win and turning it into the Young Guns era. Barf.

And let's not forget his stellar draft record either - Niklas Sunblad, Jesper Mattson, Chris Dingman. He was terrible at drafting and trades but I never did get over the Gilmour-Leeman deal.

[Strange Brew]

Riser for sure, although he is one of the few Flames GM's who got another GM job afterwards.

Actually Feaster was probably worse, but he stumbled his way into a couple of good moves and I guess deserves credit for that.

A big part of me just wants to say Treliving in order to trigger GioforPM and TOFan. Combined I bet those two posters have written 500 pages of material defending Treliving.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by SilverKast

Risebrough hands down was worst GM we've ever had, if for nothing other than the Gilmour trade. I can still remember him slowly dismantling what was a premier team after a recent cup win and turning it into the Young Guns era. Barf.

And let's not forget his stellar draft record either - Niklas Sunblad, Jesper Mattson, Chris Dingman. He was terrible at drafting and trades but I never did get over the Gilmour-Leeman deal.

Risebrough's draft record with high picks wasn't great. Got Stillman at 6th AO, but the later 1st rounders pretty much sucked with the exception fo Gauthier who was drafted later in the 1st round. In another twist just because the hockey gods like to kick us in the nuts whenever they can, Dingman went on to win a Cup against us in 2004.

He did make some pretty good picks deeper into the draft, like German Titov, Jonas Hoglund, Robert Svehla, Chris Clark, Clarke Wilm for example who all exceeded their draft positions. Plus several others that went on to have decent NHL careers considering where they were drafted.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by HitterD

I do agree that Reisbrough is the worst, followed closely by Button. As for Sutter, his penchant for big=good got the better of him for most of his tenure as gm, both in drafting and team construction, like mentioned previously in an era that soon saw speedier teams seeing success.

I remember at the time in 2007, when Sutter deviated from his norm of drafting bigger players, his selection of Backlund was mostly applauded, yet he rarely replicated that behaviour again, save for maybe Brodie.

Nearly 20 years later and Backs is still with the team, still producing and of course now captain.

Looking back at all of these GMs work, it’s hard not to think what could have been if better decisions had been made across the board. I’m hopeful, and gaining confidence, that Conroy’s tenure will be right up with Fletcher once the chapter has been written. His moves thus far, as well as the drafting, have shown that he, more than most in this discussion, has a clear consistent direction and is building his way through that vision

I started to question his GM abilities when Travis Zajac was on the board and we traded our pick to New Jersey to get more picks that he spent assembling the 04 team. We ended up taking his teammate who was much worse.

For a guy who over valued size and western Canadians passing on 1 who was also a right handed center was baffling.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Riser for sure, although he is one of the few Flames GM's who got another GM job afterwards.

Actually Feaster was probably worse, but he stumbled his way into a couple of good moves and I guess deserves credit for that.

A big part of me just wants to say Treliving in order to trigger GioforPM and TOFan. Combined I bet those two posters have written 500 pages of material defending Treliving.

LOL. I argued for firing Treliving years before he left, mainly based on a lack of overall success - you can check the polls fromn the time. What you call defending I call just advocating for non-narrative based debates.

I think he's solidly a standard form GM who had plenty of bad moves and some good ones. You can argue pretty much the same about many man GMs, including ones who were touted around here. I distinclty recall people saying Jarmo was way better because he "made big moves".

Frankly I think there's few GMs who deviate from the standard GMing handbook. It's a copycat league.

[Lewis_D]

I just wish it were the other way around and Sutter stepped down from being GM instead of coach. It was just so painful to see the roster construction around that core of Iggy & Kipper. After a few seasons it was pretty apparent as a GM he couldn't or just refused to adapt to how the game had changed post-lockout, but as his tenure in LA showed he was still very effective as a coach.

In no way would I claim he's anywhere near the worst, I'd actually say he's one of the best from the sample size. Although I'd say he was one of the more frustrating ones.

[Red Slinger]

Worst to Best:
Risebrough (and it's not close)
Feaster- just embarrassing.
Button- the Savard fiasco was a major blunder but he also helped to build the team that would go to the Cup finals in 2004.
Treliving/Sutter tie- they both had some early wins but lost the plot towards the end. I think Treliving probably gets more heat due to some recency bias.
Coates
Fletcher

Didn't include Burke, Maloney or Conroy due to length of service.