Flames Management Confidence - Vision

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Do coaching hires fit in vision?

Yup. If you have a vision of how you want your team to play, get the players you think can play to meet that vision, but your coaching staff implement a game plan that does not use the talent of the players, that is a major problem. It is the coaches don't align with the vision, the team is going to be a mess.

[Enoch Root]

Of all the poll questions, this is the one I gave the lowest score. Not because I think they lack vision, but simply because I am uncertain about what their vision actually is.

[Macindoc]

The overall vision of what the franchise wants to be is a bit muddied for me. I like the team's commitment to recruiting players with good character and to serving the community, but its approach toward replacing the Saddledome was clearly not well considered and still comes off as a "my way or the highway" sort of deal.

[Hey Connor, It's Mess]

I see roster building as working toward the GM's vision. You can have confidence in the GM's ability to build the roster to fit that vision, but you may not have complete confidence in the vision itself. That's how I see it at least.

[DeluxeMoustache]

I gave it a 1. For several reasons. Identity, if they have one, is poorly articulated. What the heck was Gulutzan? What is Peters, a less jerky GG?

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

I gave it a 1. For several reasons. Identity, if they have one, is poorly articulated. What the heck was Gulutzan? What is Peters, a less jerky GG?

The best guess I can come up with is that they want to be a team with good underlying numbers (i.e. fancy stat darlings). Both Gulutzan and Peters seem to be in "that" mould.

Other than that I'm not quite sure myself what the vision is supposed to be. The Flames as a team aren't that young but not that old either. The defense is ok, the forwards are ok, the goaltending is ok. No big star power to be found anywhere, just a squad of guys who are perfectly average for the position they hold in the lineup pretty much to a tee, if all goes well.

I see it as a club built to be "well-rounded" but I think what we end up with is what we're all to familiar with over the last 15-odd years: a bubble team that could land anywhere from 6th to 10th in the conference. I would call into question whether it's wise to build a team primarily off of fancy stats, when more and more it's becoming a game of "whoever has the most star power up front wins" but this is what we've got.

[Remember1989]

Gave a 2 here. The Flames vision has been a moving target imo. A few years back Burke was adamant we’d play “black and blue Alberta hockey” but that never came to fruition. Also, they’ve been all over the map on the approach to goaltending. They went hard after Bishop and then when that failed they did a 180 and decided that one of the young goalies was the future and brought in a stop gap option rather than a long term #1. Struck me as scattered.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by mrdonkey

I see it as a club built to be "well-rounded" but I think what we end up with is what we're all to familiar with over the last 15-odd years: a bubble team that could land anywhere from 6th to 10th in the conference. I would call into question whether it's wise to build a team primarily off of fancy stats, when more and more it's becoming a game of "whoever has the most star power up front wins" but this is what we've got.

Is it though?
The last couple of teams to get to the final in the East have had star power at forward, it's pretty hard to get a duo like Crosby and Malkin or one of the best goal scorers ever in Ovechkin though without some major luck. Even tanking doesn't guarantee you a superstar player anymore thanks to the idiots up North.
The last few teams from the West to make the final haven't been loaded with stars up front.
Vegas didn't really have any major stars.
Nashville has a great defense corps but their forwards aren't superstars.
San Jose? over the hill Thornton and Marleau and a bunch of pretty good players.
If the strategy is to get a generational player it takes more luck than vision.

[mrdonkey]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Is it though?
The last couple of teams to get to the final in the East have had star power at forward, it's pretty hard to get a duo like Crosby and Malkin or one of the best goal scorers ever in Ovechkin though without some major luck. Even tanking doesn't guarantee you a superstar player anymore thanks to the idiots up North.
The last few teams from the West to make the final haven't been loaded with stars up front.
Vegas didn't really have any major stars.
Nashville has a great defense corps but their forwards aren't superstars.
San Jose? over the hill Thornton and Marleau and a bunch of pretty good players.
If the strategy is to get a generational player it takes more luck than vision.

All of those teams ended up losing though.

[ricardodw]

I was going to give them a 1. Their vision has been that the team is a contender and it was not close. Trading away first round picks and bringing in journeyman to fill the missing draft picks.

There was no vision involved . This team has been run as though the management team was on a 6 month contract. All the moves were to win it all this year. The single move to prepare for the future was keeping Jankowski a full year in the AHL so he would be be better prepared for the NHL.

The other attempt at vision was hiring GG as coach a system ideologue with a poor track record. Suffer through a coaches growing pains to have an innovative coach grow on the job???

They had a veteran team that was being paid as much as possible. This team needed a coach that demanded respect and was a leader and could adapt to the teams strengths.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

This is a difficult question, and I am reticent to answer with any confidence like in your other polls.

Bingo, can you add a few sentences about your understanding of "vision" in this context?

I thought of that but didn't as the article posted didn't describe any of the categories.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flashpoint

Rated it a 1.

If you have a long term vision for your team, you don't bring Gary Bettman to town to threaten the team is leaving to get a new building.

That was a BS, and unbelievably stupid move.

To a lesser extent:

If you have to choose a coach between Darryl Sutter and Bill Peters, I cannot fathom why the 2 time Stanley Cup winner is still sitting at home on his ranch. I don't care what your plan was from before Glen G. when Darryl wasn't available. One is clearly superior to the other.

They have failed to retire #14 for no justifiable reason, other than someone in ownership has hurt feelings.

The "Forever a Flame" malarky. What, suddenly you need numbers available? Honor a player, or don't. Stop fudging it.

To each their own, but I don't see any of those three things as having anything to do with the vision of a hockey ops group.

[CaptainCrunch]

You could argue about the other stuff, the retiring of Fleury's number, or the building debacle but honestly, at this point is this poll about the overall competance of the hockey department, the entire office including the corporate, sales, Flames foundation as a whole.


Because I'm pretty sure that you can then take the building debacle and the 14 debacle and off set it with sales (Building sells out) and the Flames foundation which does amazing work.


Maybe there has to be a poll separating hockey and the rest out, but the corporate side of things just doesn't really matter when you combine it with the other excellent polls.


On the Sutter vs Peters debate, I love Darryl Sutter, but lets be honest, sometimes in the sports world people get overly romantic when someone is available, but there were more then a few people here that felt that the game had passed Darryl by over the last three years of his coaching career where he missed playoffs twice and got bounced in the first round the other year.



Is Darryl the guy that we want to bring in, the Darryl that was running a slogging defense first grinding system, and would he be the best coach for this group of players? The Darryl Sutter that had become a veterans coach instead of a coach that did a whole lot of development?


I love Darryl, but with this core of players, and the age of the group, I just don't think that the Darryl system would work, unless you bought in a co-coach that would actually do the tactics and game plan, and Darryl would be the director of intimidation.


This is a different NHL then it was even a couple of years ago, and I don't think that the Flames wanted to take the chance of bringing in, with all due respects, a guy that a look back to a bygone era.

[Bingo]

No GM is going to come out and provide a powerpoint as to what his vision is; that's not done.

So you have to take queues from what he says....

Build from the middle - Centers and Blueliners

What he does ...

Locking up core pieces to contracts that are right in the middle of max and short length getting a mix of term and dollar value that he is comfortable with.

A huge focus on progression and making sure the next wave is backed up by drafting in late rounds to fortify shorts.

I agree that a coach is part of a vision and he made a misstep in either Gulutzan's ability to lead or his players ability to lead themselves.

Also agree that they seemed to be moving too quickly based on a lucky playoff make in 2015.

With that mixed bag of good and bad I gave him a 3.

[cral12]

4

More hits than misses. I like how he evolves the "vision" when some of the decisions didn't go well.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I can see Treliving's vision clear as day, but I think it's completely incorrect. What do I vote?

Not sure I understand your confusion. It's not asking if you understand what the team's vision is, it's asking you to rate their vision. You think the vision is completely incorrect so therefore you would be best suited giving them a low score.

[Jay Random]

Frankly, I don't see it as Treliving's job to have a vision. He strikes me as a pragmatic manager. He tried building a team one way, and when it didn't work, he sacked his coaching staff, let go about a third of the roster, and is now trying to build the team another way.

If ‘Figure out what works and do it’ is a vision, he's got one. I don't think it is; but I don't think it would help if he had one. The surest way to build a winner (and the only legitimate use of ‘advanced’ stats) is to identify players that are undervalued by the market, and use that as leverage to gain an advantage over the competition. It isn't pretty and it isn't visionary. You can't just decide (for instance) to have a fast team, or a tight defensive team, or a ‘truculent’ team; you have to figure out how to make the best use of the assets you can acquire with the budget you have. You don't get to choose which kind of players other teams undervalue.

The only time ‘vision’ is likely to help is if the Divine Lottery Balls present you the gift of a generational talent. Then your vision is dictated for you, take it or leave it. The Penguins' vision is, ‘Build a supporting cast that makes the most effective use of Crosby and Malkin.’ The Oilers' vision should have been to build a supporting cast for McDavid, but instead they chose, ‘Do whatever, because Connor can win championships all by himself.’ A distorted vision is worse than no vision at all.

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

This is a difficult question, and I am reticent to answer with any confidence like in your other polls.

Bingo, can you add a few sentences about your understanding of "vision" in this context?

I'll use this as a starting point as I faced the same issue. I'm looking at "vision" in terms of the overall - ownership, executive and management - and I find two of the three very sadly lacking.

Ownership: Maybe the allegedly expat owner is a good guy and has terrific vision for his hockey club. It doesn't show in public. He comes off via...

Executive: ...as spoiled, churlish and greedy, unwilling to negotiate and unwilling to engage in a meaningful manner, unlike his General Manager who ...

Management: ...clearly has a vision - which may not agree with fans' vision - but he absolutely has one. Getting "there" has been his failing so far. Hopefully this last season has made the transition for him.

So overall: -3 for ownership and executive and 4 for management. Comes out as a 1.

[Flashpoint]

Originally Posted by Bingo

To each their own, but I don't see any of those three things as having anything to do with the vision of a hockey ops group.

I took "vision" to mean for the franchise, not the hockey ops, since those seem covered in the other questions.

[Aarongavey]

Gave it a 1, when your vision is Gulutzan and Peters, tough to have any confidence. Hopefully Peters is more successful than Glen was.