What can be done to create a winning culture?

[Northendzone]

Too bad that jay does not have a Stanley cup ring or something........

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Too bad that jay does not have a Stanley cup ring or something........

He is Anders Eriksson of GMs

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

There are a litany of great/good general managers that didn't play hockey at a high level. I really don't think that's the problem. A whole host of great hockey players have made terrible managers too.

Exactly. I wish this 'not a hockey guy' self effacing crap would go in the rubbish bin where it belongs. What did Scotty Bowman accomplish on the ice that made him arguably the greatest coach ever and successful advisor to his son?

I have shared the ice with players who have on ice accomplishments to rival Scotty, and many an NHLer, even Rocky Thompson, has accomplished more on the ice than Scotty. Just saying

[metroneck]

Feasters so called 'blunders' prove he is more of a crappy lawyer than clueless hockey guy.

Negotiating and understanding of complex documents, like the CBA, are at the heart of what most complaints about him are.

Every strong business has built a winning team. Not all strong businesses have a former high level athlete at the helm. It starts with ownership entrusting the culture to a small, yet diverse group of guys. Yes that includes some hockey guys, like Conroy, but it also needs guys who took a different path, but still have the same drive to win.

I don't think you can question Feaster's competitiveness or personal drive.

[FAN]

You develop a winning culture by winning. You win by acquiring players who not only have ability but hate to lose. You acquire guys who help you win not only in the regular season but in the playoffs as well. So a guy like Sarich who is a proven winner and still gives it his all is better than a guy like Butler who just sucks, even though neither have the ability to win games for a team. A guy like Cammalleri who might suck in the regular season but has a proven playoff record is a better acquisition than a guy like Wideman who is generally good in the regular season but has proven to be a liability in the playoffs.

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

There are a litany of great/good general managers that didn't play hockey at a high level. I really don't think that's the problem.

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Exactly. I wish this 'not a hockey guy' self effacing crap would go in the rubbish bin where it belongs. What did Scotty Bowman accomplish on the ice that made him arguably the greatest coach ever and successful advisor to his son?

There is a difference between not being an accomplished hockey player (which has a lot to do with physical ability) and not playing hockey at all.

Feaster is a guy who NEVER had ice skates on with a hockey stick in hand prior to becoming the GM of the Hershey Bears. I bet every one of us who grew up in North America have played dodgeball more than Feaster has played ice hockey.

Feaster has certainly been involved with this game for a long time but he has made no effort to learn the talent evaluation aspect of the business. The GM of this team doesn't even go on scouting trips. So most decisions, including important ones, are made without Feaster confirming it with his own eyes. Take Feaster's last year in Tampa. The Lightning were clearly headed for the #1 overall pick and did he go and watch Stamkos play once? Nope. Feaster emailed Stamkos after the draft lottery asking to meet. You would think that the GM of a team heading towards the #1 overall pick would go and watch the top 2-3 prospects play? Nope. You want to hire a supervisor who doesn't supervise? If you want a guy like that making important decisions that's fine. I don't.

[Sylvanfan]

I don't know about the Supervisor not supervising thing. Tampa had meddling ownership at the time too, so that probably played a role there. Really a GM who let's his scouts and talent evaluators do their job without meddling is fine by me. I would expect a GM who has control of personnel decisions to interview the player, to ensure this player would fit within the organizations objectives though.

Really I think you have to have a clear defined objective for what type of team you want and be consistent with that objective. Sutter wanted a big physical team that was tough to play against. Give the players defined roles to play to and be consistent with the message throughout the organization. Right now the Flames have no identity, henceforth they will continue to flail away and go nowhere. They spent two years trying to become a skilled puck possession team, now they realize they don't have the players to do it effectively.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cole436

What we've complained about so long is what we're missing now. We need those "Sutter players". The big, bottom six players who bleed for their team, shift after shift. We need the,Yelle's, Simon's, Primeau's and Clark's of the game, who make it difficult for a team, every night.

This. We have to bring in competitive guys who hate to lose.

[troutman]

If I have learned anything on CP this year, the only thing holding us back is finding the proper goal song.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I don't know about others, but I know in 2004 before the playoffs, we all had that feeling that if the Flames could somehow get into the playoffs, they would be a real threat. I haven't had that feeling the past few years.... yes it would be nice to win, but I don't think thats the only thing. I think the part that fundamentally is missed here, and I know this is a topic beaten to death, is Feaster isn't a hockey-guy; he's not a sports-guy. I think one has to be at least some working knowledge of the sport to really understand all the dynamics; it doesn't have to be the NHL or pro hockey, but at least have been part of a team and played at a decent competitive level.

With Feaster, it just doesn't seem like he's got that understanding - he seems out of phase with whats going on. Sure he's organized and got the PUCKS program going and convinced owners to spend more money on scouting, but I really can't see how someone who has never played the sport can evaluate something like hockey sense. Just lots of loosy-goosy open ended mistakes like Modin and Cervenka, both of which didn't have much consequence but really highlight the fact that Feaster is out of phase with whats going.

Going back to Darryl, the day Darryl was hired, Darryl had a log book of ideas and criticism of the Flames and had a game plan of what to improve. You really got the feeling that Darryl bleed Flaming C, that he loved hockey more then anyone and if he only had 13 hours of hockey that day, he'd pull up Game Center and watch some more hockey before packing it in for the day. Feaster doesn't seem like that type of guy, he seems more like a guy who takes marching orders and tries to do what he can within the 9am-5pm he works or the 40 hours he puts in a week. Hockey fell into his lap, and he put in his due diligence to learn his job, but its not the love of his life the way it was for Darryl. I doubt Feaster had a book on the Flames before the job was first brought to him, and its obvious he didn't have very much working knowledge of the Flames before he came on board.... Feaster doesn't "bleed the Flaming C" ... this is just a job for thats better then his underwear blogging.

Maybe its asking too much, but I would just rather have that GM who really knows the in's and out's of the dressing room, and hockey is really his passion.

/ rant over

Lots of assumptions there, several of them unfair IMO.

Feaster's been in hockey longer than some people on this board have been alive. He is a hockey guy now even if he wasn't when he first started working in Hershey decades ago. Methinks you vastly overrate the importance of having played. I haven't played and I can evaluate hockey sense just fine.

Terrible post IMO

[moon]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Lots of assumptions there, several of them unfair IMO.

Feaster's been in hockey longer than some people on this board have been alive. He is a hockey guy now even if he wasn't when he first started working in Hershey decades ago. Methinks you vastly overrate the importance of having played. I haven't played and I can evaluate hockey sense just fine.

Terrible post IMO

But how much of that time in Hershey was he spending doing hockey related stuff and how much of that was running a business?

In his 15(?) years in Hershey how much time did he spend evaluating young players, scouting pro guys for trades, evaluating the hockey skills of his own team, being involved in a draft etc.

He certainly got that experience in his time with TB but it seems (and I could be wrong) that his time in Hershey was more of a guy running the business and not doing a whole lot of hockey stuff.

I mean Rollie Cyr has a ton of time in hockey but I am not sure I would say he is a hockey guy or a guy that should be a GM based on his many years with the Flames.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Lots of assumptions there, several of them unfair IMO.

Feaster's been in hockey longer than some people on this board have been alive. He is a hockey guy now even if he wasn't when he first started working in Hershey decades ago. Methinks you vastly overrate the importance of having played. I haven't played and I can evaluate hockey sense just fine.

Terrible post IMO

You can evaluate hockey sense just fine? Can you evaluate amateur talent and figure out who will become NHL stars? Pro talent? Can you break down a team's system and tell whether a player is playing it? Can you do those evaluations at a high enough level that if you were offered an opportunity to be an NHL team's scout or hockey executive you would do a fine job? My guess is that you can't do it any better than most casual hockey fan on this board, and that's not a slight against you.

Feaster was a contracts guy before he became Tampa's GM. After that, he was a blogger. I've said this many times. Feaster is the only GM I know of that doesn't go on scouting trips (maybe he'll read the boards and go on a scouting trip next season). He relies on his scouts, which is fine for taking a chance on guys like Cervenka or Byron but not for major decisions. I remember there being a thread about Brian Burke having attended the Ducks and Blackhawks game. A couple months later, the Lupul and Gardiner trade was made. That's what you need to do as a boss in any line of work. You need to confirm with your own eyes your employees' work and not just take it on blind faith.

It's all about talent evaluation and Feaster doesn't have the skills to evaluate talent because he never learned it. Look at the GMs around the league. If they didn't play in the NHL, they either have scouting background, coaching background, player agent background, or all of the above. They either know the game real well or they learned how to be a talent evaluator. Ray Shero never played in the NHL, but he played hockey all his life, he coached, he was a player agent, and he did a lot of scouting when he was an assistant GM.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

For me rebuilding starts with winning in the AHL.

I think you have to start winning at the AHL level with younger players (with a mix of vets) and then when those younger players make the NHL they have confidence. Then get rid of the older "losers" off the NHL club by replacing them with the younger "winners".

Unless players are true superstars, forcing them into the NHL prematurely, under a losing environment, is a recipe for disaster (see Oilers).

I'd like to see someone actually back up this developing winners in the AHL stuff with some cold, hard facts. Is there actually a correlation between winning AHL teams and the future NHL careers of their players? I highly doubt it, but people trump it out there like it's fact.

And being in a losing environment hasn't really hindered the Oilers' ability to develop good NHLers. The Oilers problem isn't that their young guys aren't contributing in the NHL - it's that the rest of their team beyond them is AHL quality at best.

[FlameZilla]

I love all this bollox about players who 'hate to lose'. Everybody 'hates to lose'.

It's very easy to assemble a team of players who hate to lose. Making those loss-hating individuals perform as a collective winning team is entirely different.

[Lanny'sDaMan]

Personally I am sick of hearing the "Just make the Playoffs" mantra. That should go as a given. This team needs to stop just trying to make the show. They should be gunning for the Cup, as part of the team mentality. The Wings *KNOW* they are making the Playoffs. It's a given in their dressing room. This is the mental start the Flames need to embrace.

[boggledepot]

Originally Posted by FAN

You can evaluate hockey sense just fine? Can you evaluate amateur talent and figure out who will become NHL stars? Pro talent? Can you break down a team's system and tell whether a player is playing it? Can you do those evaluations at a high enough level that if you were offered an opportunity to be an NHL team's scout or hockey executive you would do a fine job? My guess is that you can't do it any better than most casual hockey fan on this board, and that's not a slight against you.

Feaster was a contracts guy before he became Tampa's GM. After that, he was a blogger. I've said this many times. Feaster is the only GM I know of that doesn't go on scouting trips (maybe he'll read the boards and go on a scouting trip next season). He relies on his scouts, which is fine for taking a chance on guys like Cervenka or Byron but not for major decisions. I remember there being a thread about Brian Burke having attended the Ducks and Blackhawks game. A couple months later, the Lupul and Gardiner trade was made. That's what you need to do as a boss in any line of work. You need to confirm with your own eyes your employees' work and not just take it on blind faith.

It's all about talent evaluation and Feaster doesn't have the skills to evaluate talent because he never learned it. Look at the GMs around the league. If they didn't play in the NHL, they either have scouting background, coaching background, player agent background, or all of the above. They either know the game real well or they learned how to be a talent evaluator. Ray Shero never played in the NHL, but he played hockey all his life, he coached, he was a player agent, and he did a lot of scouting when he was an assistant GM.

I will have to agree with the previous post. The assumptions some make about about Jay Feaster are incredibly ignorant. We can judge a GM's effectiveness by whether the team wins or lose, but very few people have the slightest the clue of what Jay Feaster's job actually entails.

It's funny though. Jay Feaster (quite like Gary Bettman) will actually encourage criticism, as he recognizes that its part of the business; and, negative criticism is better than no criticism, as the NHL is about making money and earning a living.

[Matty81]

Winning "culture" is bull#### in my opinion. Chicago and Pittsburgh were brutal teams that were getting their butts kicked every year. They didn't have some magic mentality shift, they added some of the best players in the game to their roster.

Winning is hiring a coach with an effective strategy and filling your team with talented players who have the skills to execute it. I've seen players with pitbull never lose mentalities miss the playoffs for most of their career on bad teams and wishy washy guys who's mind is off hockey the minute they get knocked out of the playoffs like Jagr win multiple cups.

The Oilers have bad management. They have drafted and traded poorly and have a team with no balance/capacity to keep the puck out of their net. The notion that they have a losing culture and the Flames have a winning culture is just backslapping to make ourselves feel better.

[FlameZilla]

Originally Posted by Matty81

Winning "culture" is bull#### in my opinion. Chicago and Pittsburgh were brutal teams that were getting their butts kicked every year. They didn't have some magic mentality shift, they added some of the best players in the game to their roster.

Winning is hiring a coach with an effective strategy and filling your team with talented players who have the skills to execute it. I've seen players with pitbull never lose mentalities miss the playoffs for most of their career on bad teams and wishy washy guys who's mind is off hockey the minute they get knocked out of the playoffs like Jagr win multiple cups.

The Oilers have bad management. They have drafted and traded poorly and have a team with no balance/capacity to keep the puck out of their net. The notion that they have a losing culture and the Flames have a winning culture is just backslapping to make ourselves feel better.

I agree on absolutely everything. However I don't think anyone on this board would argue that the Flames have a winning culture.

Our 'culture of losing' over the last few years can be attributed to poor asset management, scouting & player development. We lost this season because, amongst other things, we only had 2 NHL calibre centremen & the softest team in the league, plus our franchise goalie put up a save % below .9.

No, to develop a 'winning culture' we have to develop a winning team. A winning team is a talented, balanced hockey machine. A winning team has a set of forwards & defenceman who are used efficiently in areas where they excel & can dominate opposition. A winning team is deep and has options to fall back on when Plan A & Plan B don't work, or when the top players are in a slump or on the IRL.

[rollie619]

I think the biggest thing for me is I need to be proud to be a flames fan again. I know this may sound cynical, but the last day I that pride in the flames was when we re-acquired Cammy. Really even that was in faint hope that Iggy and Cammy could re-capture the magic from 08-09. The day Darryl blew up the team was tough for me as I'm sure it was a lot of people because it was the day I realized our guys weren't good enough to win it all. I like a lot of people was calling for Darryl's head in fall 2010, but in hindsight I have to believe that a sound hockey mind like Darryl wouldn't have let our team become so soft. I really hate in my OP that I had to blame Feaster for being a "non-hockey guy," but it just makes me sick that a team can walk into our building run over our goalies and get away with it. I think that's the first step to creating a "winning culture." Even if we suck, we need to intimidate other teams especially at home. I really don't hate Feaster. I just don't buy his b******* any more. I want a GM/President that can be the face of the franchise while we don't have one. A guy like Burke. Something to make me proud to be a Flames fan again.

[macrov]

Originally Posted by FAN

There is a difference between not being an accomplished hockey player (which has a lot to do with physical ability) and not playing hockey at all.

Feaster is a guy who NEVER had ice skates on with a hockey stick in hand prior to becoming the GM of the Hershey Bears. I bet every one of us who grew up in North America have played dodgeball more than Feaster has played ice hockey.

Feaster has certainly been involved with this game for a long time but he has made no effort to learn the talent evaluation aspect of the business. The GM of this team doesn't even go on scouting trips. So most decisions, including important ones, are made without Feaster confirming it with his own eyes. You want to hire a supervisor who doesn't supervise? If you want a guy like that making important decisions that's fine. I don't.

I use to think like this until I got a job that required a lot of management analysis (yes its an actual job; I got paid to meet and analyze managers and executive strategy and processes). And, what you find is that there are 2 basic systems of decision making:

1) The superstar
2) The Team

Both these systems require strong leadership.

I think Sutter was a Superstar; look at his coaching record. Top notch. Look at this first years in Calgary; top notch trades. The guy is incredibly knowledgabl about hockey, seeing talent, developing talent, and pushign buttons. He's a star. There is no doubt about it. But left unchecked, its not always stable. Its hard to keep superstars in check. Talent, luck, and opportunity leads to successes, and successes lead to more slack to make decisions, which leads to more success because the star is less constainted, leading to more slack. But at some point, human nature is such that hubris can develop. And hubris leads to poor decisions, which can quickly snowball into cluster-puck. Which is exactly what happened.

Now we have a different kind of leadership. Is feaster a star? No. But he doesn't act like one, and his leadership style doesn't require him to be one. His leadership style requires his ability to create a decision making system that collects, analyzes and synthesizes information at a high quality level. He relies on his qualitative and quantitative scouts more, on his capologist, on his special assistant, and assistant GM. He seeks input from coaches. He doesn't have to be Sutter to be a better GM if he can better utilize the people, processes and expertise around him.

I'm not saying Feaster is amazing at his leadership style, or that he's terrible. Im just pointing out that his leadership style does have proven merit. You knock a few less home-runs out of the park than the star, but when you do swing you're more likely to hit. And you're less likely to blow up.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by FlameZilla

I love all this bollox about players who 'hate to lose'. Everybody 'hates to lose'.

It's very easy to assemble a team of players who hate to lose. Making those loss-hating individuals perform as a collective winning team is entirely different.

Anyone who has been a fan and student of the Flames Flames knows there is a lot of evidence to counter this belief. There are plenty of players who don't mind losing and will acknowledge it (losing) is part of the game; there's nothing to get upset about. These are the guys who will repeat the same tired cliches and not invest themselves in the game or in the team in ways that matter. These are the guys that continue to believe that nothing is broken and that another five or ten games will turn things around. Many of these guys have been fan favorites which has prevented the team from making the appropriate moves to rid the organization of these cancers.

Historically when the Flames came from Atlanta they were filled with guys who didn't hate the "hate to lose" attitude. Eric Chouinard, Eric Vail, Willie Plett, Ken Houston and Kent Nilsson were all pretty young guys, but they had the loser mentality. They learned their game from guys on the downside of their careers who never amounted to anything. All of these guys had carefree attitudes about the game and it showed on and off the ice. Cliff Fletcher recognized this and actively looked for players to change the team attitude by trading for guys that had winning experience and hated to lose. This is why Fletcher brought in Mel Bridgeman, Lanny McDonald, Doug Risebrough and John Tonelli. These guys hated to lose and they instilled that attitude in every young player that came into the room after that. Additions of Brad McCrimmon and Doug Gilmour, both very vocal leaders, only furthered that for the team as they marched towards the cup.

Sadly, when Fletcher moved on this important facet of player selection and development was lost on the team. Guys that hated to lose as a team, like Doug Gilmour, Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts, were cast aside for players like Theoron Fleury who were more concerned about personal success than they were about the team. This negatively impacted a generation of players and only began to change after Darryl Sutter was hired by the organization.

Sutter hated the mix on the hockey club and, until he was sacked, Craig Button began to make changes to improve the attitude and leadership on the team. In came Shean Donovan, Andrew Ference, Ville Nieminen, and Chris Simon. None of these guys were great hockey players, but they hated to lose and they would do anything for the team to win. When these foot soldiers play hard and sacrifice it shames the stars into doing the same. This type of play becomes contagious and why coaches love their role players so much.

This is why everyone associated with the team has come in and stated the solutions to the problems are in the room. The leadership has supposedly been there, but refused to surface and take the team in the direction they needed to go. The only way to move this team forward was to remove that leadership piece by piece and try to have the leadership step up and change the attitude to that of win at all cost and hate it when they lose. Dion Phaneuf and Robyn Regehr were both sent packing so the only core leader left in the room was Jarome Iginla. The same problems continued leaving only one guy as the leadership challenge. We know how that played out.

Going forward the Flames face a challenge of injecting new leadership into the dressing room. They need to find some veteran presence that will show some true leadership and instill a feeling of team and a hatred of losing. I do not believe that player is in the dressing room and I feel that it will take a couple of players to really affect change. I think the Flames need to go out and find a veteran leader up front and on the blue line who hate to lose and will leave it all out on the ice every game. As much as I like Giordano he isn't a leader and he has the stench of the problems from the past five years all over him. They need someone to come in and lead on and off the ice. An Adam Burish or a Troy Brower and an Andrew Ference or a Deryk Engelland would be a start. A player from a winning organization who has worn a letter would be better. But the Flames are in a situation where they need effective leadership immediately so they don't waste the quality youngsters coming into the pipeline. The loser mentality is contagious and the Flames need to make sure that it does not spread through the team to the new players. The Flames need to find their Doug Risebrough and John Tonelli to make the next generation of Flames players that much better.