Countdown Poll - Flames GMs Rd2

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

100% agree. Darryl's cap mismanagement also had the Flames icing just 15 skaters for multiple games down the stretch in 2009.

There were a lot of problems with that 2009 team, but you can't really blame him for that situation.

That was all about the wording in the CBA where you can't use LTIR space the replace players who are going to miss less than 10 regular season games. If a player suffers a season-ending injury with 9 games left in the season, you can't put him on long-term injury reserve and replace his salary.

No one could have predicted that the Flames would lose three of their top defencemen, all with less than 10 games remaining. If any one of them had been injured with 10 or more games remaining, there wouldn't have been a problem.

I guess Sutter could have anticipated the problem and left himself a bigger cushion under the cap, but then if those injuries don't happen (and they almost never do), he would have been criticized for leaving too much space.


The League changed the CBA to add the Roster Emergency clause after the Flames got stuck there. It could have happened to any team, the Flames just happened to be the unfortunate team that it happened to first.

[getbak]

Interesting to see who put together the only two teams to have any playoff success since Fletcher left (all players who played at least one playoff game or a significant number of regular season games, and were still members of the team at the end of the season).


2003-04

RISEBROUGH (2 players)

Drafted

• Clark
• Gauthier

COATES (5 players)

Drafted

• Lydman
• Saprykin

Traded

• Iginla
• Regehr

Signed

• Montador

BUTTON (12 players)

Drafted

• Kobasew
• Lombardi

Traded

• Commodore
• Conroy
• Donovan
• Ference
• Leopold
• McAmmond
• Turek
• Yelle

Signed

• Gelinas
• Lowry

SUTTER (8 players)

Traded

• Kiprusoff
• Nieminen
• Nilson
• Reinprecht
• Simon
• Warrener

Signed

• Evans
• Oliwa

2014-15

SUTTER (6 players)

Drafted

• Backlund
• Bouma
• Brodie
• Ferland

Traded

• Stajan

Signed

• Giordano

FEASTER (13 players)

Drafted

• Gaudreau
• Granlund
• Monahan
• Wotherspoon

Traded

• Byron
• Colborne
• Jones
• Ramo
• Russell
• Smid

Signed

• Hudler
• Jooris
• Wideman

BURKE (1 player)

Signed

• Wolf (signing was announced after Treliving's hiring, but all indications were that the deal was done long before)

TRELIVING (9 players)

Drafted

• Bennett

Traded

• Bollig
• Shore

Signed

• Diaz
• Engelland
• Hiller
• Potter
• Raymond

Claimed

• Schlemko

[jayswin]

^^^^^^^^^^^^

really shows Feaster's fingerprints on our current line-up. I knew it was big, but hadn't looked at it listed out like that before.

Wow.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Now, the biggest 'con' people have (other than the 'one-week of madness' trip) was his drafting. Well, let's examine this a bit more closely.

My argument has always been one of "It is difficult to measure drafting by a GM with the start and the stop of any GM's tenure". Why? Because GMs have to make corrections in their draft philosophy, hire and learn to trust (or not) the scouting staff, etc. I think it isn't particularly easy to just look at the tenure of a GM as the beginning and end date. One has to look at the trajectory before and after the GM's tenure.

I see all the time where people say that Sutter improved our drafting but the fact is that his drafting sucked really bad. Maybe he left things improved in the end but he crapped the bed while he was actually picking players.

Darryl Sutter April 11, 2003 – December 28, 2010
Notable draft picks (200 games played)
2003 Dion Phaneuf
2004 Brandon Prust Dustin Boyd Adam Pardy
2005 None
2006 None
(100 games played)
2007 Mikael Backlund Keith Aulie
2008 Lance Bouma TJ Brodie
(50 games played)
2009 Tim Erixon
(Too soon to tell)
2010 Bill Arnold Micheal Ferland

That is downright horrific for 8 drafts.

Originally Posted by Flamescuprun2018

Treliving for sure. Tireless worker, sensible, and a good communicator. He will end up neck and neck with Fletcher within 3 years. Each of his moves so far has improved our asset base. Glencross for 2 picks, Baertschi for 2nd, Hamilton, reasonable term and amount contracts. Each move very calculated. In Tre We Trust!

Recently he has been great but you can't ignore his first moves when taking over. While it hasn't hurt the team (yet) Raymond, Setoguchi, Bollig and arguably Engelland have been bad deals. He also inherited a great prospect base, almost no bad contracts (SOB but his cap hit would have helped reach the floor) and some great vets on great deals.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Jacks

I see all the time where people say that Sutter improved our drafting but the fact is that his drafting sucked really bad. Maybe he left things improved in the end but he crapped the bed while he was actually picking players.

Darryl Sutter April 11, 2003 – December 28, 2010
Notable draft picks (200 games played)
2003 Dion Phaneuf
2004 Brandon Prust Dustin Boyd Adam Pardy
2005 None
2006 None
(100 games played)
2007 Mikael Backlund Keith Aulie
2008 Lance Bouma TJ Brodie
(50 games played)
2009 Tim Erixon
(Too soon to tell)
2010 Bill Arnold Micheal Ferland

That is downright horrific for 8 drafts.


Recently he has been great but you can't ignore his first moves when taking over. While it hasn't hurt the team (yet) Raymond, Setoguchi, Bollig and arguably Engelland have been bad deals. He also inherited a great prospect base, almost no bad contracts (SOB but his cap hit would have helped reach the floor) and some great vets on great deals.

I don't know how it compares to other teams during the same time period but considering that it's good if one or two prospects make the team each year, it's not bad. You should also throw in Giordano and Ryan Wilson although they weren't drafted, they were signed by Sutter out of junior.

Also as has been mentioned he traded 2nd round picks for players who were very useful while the normal 2nd round pick is lucky to make the NHL.

To me he was always playing a catch up game in that he didn't have the player resources to build a solid foundation, so he needed to trade to make up the deficiencies while needing to make the playoffs.

Treliving has come into a much better situation as the expectations from ownership and fans was very low while he has a fine minor league system and scouting organization which I give credit to Sutter for establishing. I'm not saying Treliving is only lucky, he's made some good moves as well.

[dissentowner]

Hard to pick here, all I can say for sure is PMM needs to give his head a shake for that 1 vote.

[transplant99]

Happy Birthday to Cliff Fletcher who is 80 years young today!

[Matata]

Voted Sutter and instantly regretted it, 'Sutter the Coach' is the good one.

[killer_carlson]

Sutter the coach/gm brought accountability and respectability back to the franchise when it was at its darkest time.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by flameswin

^^^^^^^^^^^^

really shows Feaster's fingerprints on our current line-up. I knew it was big, but hadn't looked at it listed out like that before.

Wow.

That lineup doesnt include Harley et al either.

[To Be Quite Honest]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Sutter very easily for me.

One very terrible week aside, I think he did very well. Looking at when his tenure started, and when it stopped, two things can be said:

1) He made the SCFs
2) The team was a much more talented one than when he first took over.

Now, the biggest 'con' people have (other than the 'one-week of madness' trip) was his drafting. Well, let's examine this a bit more closely.

My argument has always been one of "It is difficult to measure drafting by a GM with the start and the stop of any GM's tenure". Why? Because GMs have to make corrections in their draft philosophy, hire and learn to trust (or not) the scouting staff, etc. I think it isn't particularly easy to just look at the tenure of a GM as the beginning and end date. One has to look at the trajectory before and after the GM's tenure.

When Darryl took over, the scouting staff was tiny. The team was sharing an AHL affiliate (IIRC). The drafting and development program had already experienced massive cuts and had already become one of the smallest in the NHL - a far cry from being one of the better programs in the 80's. Remember, these were the 'terrible 90's' that Canadian teams had the displeasure of working within.

Well, Sutter came in and encouraged management to increase the scouting budget and hire more scouts. He also convinced them to have their own AHL franchise to control for player development. Now, remember, Darryl was a rookie GM - he didn't have the advantage of having relationships with existing scouts.

So, drafting was atrocious. However, it did start improving. There are various players on the Flames today that are Sutter-players - Giordano, Backlund, Brodie, Bouma and Ferland (if he makes the team - which I personally expect him to do). The drafting philosophy became established under Sutter (just search a Todd Button interview where he was stating how the philosophy of 'High Hockey IQ' and 'Character' became important, and he mentioned the 2008 draft as the turning point).

Yes, Sutter made a point to draft the 'big western Canadian kids' - but one has to look as to why. Remember, the scouting staff was small and under-funded as compared to most teams. They simply didn't have enough eyes everywhere. However, Sutter did take a number of Euros (Backlund, Taratukhin, Erixon, etc) as well as some guys from the OHL (Brodie), etc. None of these guys were "Sutter-type" guys that people expect - they were all for the most part more skill than brawn. People just fixate on the "Pelechs" that he did pick.

Another reason why he wanted to select players from the WHL was that he felt it was easier to retain that talent at a good cost. They were more likely to have pride wearing the Flaming C, and would be less likely to leave as FAs or hold-out. Though people may disagree on the extent to which this actually benefits the Flames, there must be some measurable benefit.

I think Sutter had some absolute 'magic' trades. Definitely had a few misses, but definitely had some magic trades. People do fault him on constantly trading away 2nd round picks (and during his tenure, the Flames were without a 1st round pick only once - and that was his attempt to finally address the '1st line center' hole which, in hindsight, obviously didn't work out). However, 2nd round picks - though valuable - weren't exactly valuable on the Flames. What I mean is that due to being a smaller-scouting team (which he was revamping), those 2nd round picks would have had lower than average percentages of working out for the Flames. He brought guys in like Bourque (who was a very, very good player for a number of seasons) and Kipper with those 2nd rounders.

I don't really fault him for the trades - I think he was a strong trading GM. I don't fault him for the UFA signings - he got some high-profile UFAs. I don't even fault him for the drafting and development program (which was terrible when he took over, but was definitely better by the time he left).

What do I fault him on?

The one glaring - and to me, was his single biggest fault as a GM - was his coaching selections.

Playfair was obviously not ready to handle an NHL team - at least not a Veteran-laden team. Keenan was already semi-retired and did nothing at all to 'correct' anything at all that was wrong with the Flames. Brent Sutter was great in the media, but (to me) constantly appeared to be trying to fit square pegs in round holes over and over again instead of trying to adapt any strategies to make use of the Flames' strengths.

Another fault - and this is a tough one to really get any insight on - was Sutter succumbing to the 'pressure to win'. The team did need to be rebuilt, and it just wasn't happening. Now, I don't know if the ownership group wouldn't support a rebuild, so I can't firmly stamp this fault square on Sutter's shoulders'. He may indeed have argued for a rebuild. Who knows? Do I think so? No, I don't think he argued for one, but I do think he was timing for that possibility with how the contracts were at the time.

I do think that he left the Flames 'rebuild ready' in a way - the drafting and development program was essentially in place, and I really do believe that if he didn't do a good job in those areas, Calgary's rebuild would probably be as bungled as that of the Oilers'. Though there were some big contracts to get rid of, etc., those departments were definitely ready for the rebuild challenge as evidenced by how many good late picks there were through the end of Sutter's tenure and into the official rebuild. Oilers were not, and fell (and keep falling) on their faces.

All in all, I thought Sutter's first stab as a GM was extremely successful. Mistakes? Heck ya. Did the Flames have grounds in replacing him? I think so - I think GMs sometimes just need a change to get their heads screwed on straight again. I do think he did do a good job when you view his entire body of work (at least, when you view the things we at least have visibility on). I bet he gets another crack at the position somewhere else eventually.

This is a great post and a fantastic way to help people look at Sutter's position from another viewpoint .

[dammage79]

Feasters drafting (or the hands off approach to the scouting staff) has secured a very bright future for the Flames. #2.

[jg13]

nvm