[News Roundup] Garbage bag day: Monahan had 4 surgeries!

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Fair enough. Though a guy like Terevainen or Hertl would have eased that pain.

On Gaudreau, Feaster hadn't really heard of the guy but Button was persistent. In fairness, Feaster said "go ahead".

Also, every team has a late round pick that becomes a gem. Winnipeg is enjoying their 2012 5th rounder right now, Chicago has Shaw, Montreal has Gallagher, Nashville has Arvidsson and Ekholm, TB has Point, Ottawa has Stone.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Fair enough. Though a guy like Terevainen or Hertl would have eased that pain.

On Gaudreau, Feaster hadn't really heard of the guy but Button was persistent. In fairness, Feaster said "go ahead".

I don’t believe Button surprised him at the draft table.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

I don’t believe Button surprised him at the draft table.

That's not what I said. But here's what Feaster said:

The most excruciating call, it would seem, came in the fourth round when the team started giving some real thought to drafting Gaudreau with the 104th overall pick. The pressure was really on because the Flames did not hold a fifth-round pick, making it a now-or-never situation.

“The guy who was very much in (Gaudreau’s) corner and felt we just had to take him was (director of amateur scouting) Tod Button,” Feaster said. “Tod felt very, very strongly about it. He kept saying, ‘I know he’s not very big, but I’m telling you this kid can play and he’s the most exciting player we’ve seen.’

“I said, ‘If you feel that strongly about him as a player, let’s do it right now.’”

Feaster said he was OK with it because they already drafted Baertschi (LOL) and Granlund.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...hnny-gaudreau/

see also:

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...inded-gretzky/

and this:

But Button had a plan.

Presiding over that draft had been Jay Feaster, whose work-the-list mantra had been well-established. But Button convinced him to leave Gaudreau and Russian winger Nikita Kucherov as wild cards. In other words, don’t include them in the team’s in-house rankings of prospects.

“I said to Jay, ‘I’d like the latitude of not putting them on the list. Then when it’s time to make the call, let me make the call,’ ” recalls Button.

The Flames merrily made their second-round shouts — Markus Granlund, 45th; Tyler Wotherspoon, 57th — then groaned when the Tampa Bay Lightning nabbed Kucherov at No. 58.

“I turned to Jay and said, ‘We’ve got to take Johnny with the next pick,’ ” recalls Button. “Jay said, ‘Go ahead. Take him.’ ”

Unfortunately for the Calgarians, Darryl Sutter had already peddled their third-round choice to the Edmonton Oilers in the Steve Staios deal.

So Button perspired his way into the fourth round and got his man, 104th overall.

And the Bruins, as it turned out, did have an eye on Gaudreau.

John Weisbrod, perched at the Boston table that day in St. Paul, Minn., verified that interest in a March 2012 interview: “Calgary beat us to the punch. There were people banging their hands on the table, like, ‘Oh, we should have taken him a round earlier.’ It’s a calculated risk. The Flames got Gaudreau in a really good spot.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/...624/story.html

[CliffFletcher]

If we're going to criticize someone for the Flames drafting, we might want to look at the guy who has been the head of Flames scouting for the last 17 years. The fact Tod Button still has his job is one of the great mysteries of this franchise. The fact he's survived multiple GM regime changes suggests he has a patron higher up in the organization.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

If we're going to criticize someone for the Flames drafting, we might want to look at the guy who has been the head of Flames scouting for the last 17 years. The fact Tod Button still has his job is one of the great mysteries of this franchise. The fact he's survived multiple GM regime changes suggests he has a patron higher up in the organization.

I criticize Button for later round drafts and the GM for first rounders. It's also common knowledge that Sutter had given pretty firm marching orders on type of player to Button. Feaster was all about developing a list and not deviating, so Button would have had way more input.

Patron? If anyone would have been the patron you'd think it was Craig Button. But I don't think that was the case. I think TB has just made his case for himself out of later round picks:

https://flamesnation.ca/2012/05/15/t...of-tod-button/

[Calgary4LIfe]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Sutter improved the on-ice product at the expense of the long-term asset base.
That's part of the reason the franchise continues to have to rob peter to pay paul.

And indeed his drafting was god-awful.

Consecutive years of Chucko-Pelech-Irving-Backluknd-Nemisz-Erixon

One NHLers in 6 years of first round picks.

Late 1sts are hard but you should hit on more than 1 in 6.

I actually disagree with this assessment, and I disagree with it BECAUSE the drafting was poor. The chances that those draft picks that Sutter traded away would have amounted to more than what he received back in his trades was minuscule. Why?

Let's keep the following 3 things in mind:

1) Sutter was a rookie GM - as a coach who has moved into the GM role, what scouts does he have a relationship with? Who does he trust?

2) Calgary was very much a budget team with a very small scouting staff (one of the, if not the smallest in the NHL IIRC), when Sutter took over in 2002. The Flames were also sharing their AHL affiliate during that time. The scouting AND the development side of things was practically non-existent.

3) A pick is worth MORE to a team that can draft well, and less to a team that can't. Since the vast majority of players that enter the NHL draft don't get a sniff of the NHL, one must conclude that in order to reap actual talent that will eventually play in the NHL, a team must have a strong scouting staff AND a strong development program.

Had Darryl walked into a more established team with a good scouting staff in place and a good development program in place - including full control of their own AHL affiliate - then one could argue most correctly that Sutter was indeed trading the future for the win now. I think it is fair to criticize Sutter for taking too long in building his scouting team and for getting ownership on board with spending money on an AHL affiliate, but we also aren't privy to what ownership - having just gone through those rough 90's - were willing to spend.

The current drafting philosophy evolved and was set under Darryl's tenure - the same philosophy that Feaster followed and the same that Burke and Treliving followed as well. Todd Button spoke about this a few years ago in fact.

The drafting DID improve every year, especially around 2008 (when the philosophy was identified), and the body of work from the scouting team could actually be analyzed to see who is actually good at scouting, and who never hits on their picks.

I would have made a lot more trades with my draft picks if I was him, not less, given the environment he was operating under. I would have done so at least until I was able to have a scouting team in place that I trusted more (and it seemed he did just that as the years went on and his scouting staff grew).

[stone hands]

The fact that short term rentals were more useful in a pragmatic sense is more of an indictment on the organization he was in charge of, rather than absolving him of horrible drafting imo