Hartley Interview in Swiss Newspaper

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by strombad

You're surmising his philosophy based on one thing he said, which granted is all you have to go on, but lets not pretend that GM's don't say things allll the time to appear completely confident and with an absolute direction. If anything, you could lay the job preservation claim on his original statement.

Either way, he didn't leap some philosophical chasm, he just took the team in a different direction once it was very obvious the current one wasn't working and (presumably) permission was granted from the owners.

GM's are salesmen. If you're putting that much stock in his "not the GM for a rebuild" speech, then you got sold hard. You even bought the extended warranty, you silly goose.

Again, not that I am looking to wade too much into this......

But from an outsiders POV (which 99% of us, are), we only see what is on the surface:
- old track record
- current record in the tenure with the Flames
- quotes

There are some posters in this thread that seem to get very offended when these 3 are the metrics used to judge Feaster/Hartley...... which I don't get, cause thats all we really get.

[Erick Estrada]

The ROR fiasco is all on Feaster. The Avalanche actually saved his ass because if they take the picks and the Flames end up with what is IMO at best a 2nd line center (franchise player lol nice try Jay) for the cost of Monahan and Kanzig and at worst nothing if the NHL would have made ROR pass through waivers. Maybe people have forgotten about that because it's in the past but that day could have been another dark day in the history of this franchise to go with the Gilmour and Phaneuf/Jokinen trades. Needless to say both Risebrough and Sutter lost their jobs due mostly to those deals.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Again, not that I am looking to wade too much into this......

But from an outsiders POV (which 99% of us, are), we only see what is on the surface:
- old track record
- current record in the tenure with the Flames
- quotes

There are some posters in this thread that seem to get very offended when these 3 are the metrics used to judge Feaster/Hartley...... which I don't get, cause thats all we really get.

I entirely agree. The only problem is when people look at part of the puzzle and say "this one piece speaks to everything, it's final." You can't really say that when pulling little pieces. There are contexts, situations, little things that really make it impossible for someone to surmise the philosophical position of a man based solely on what quote. Yeah, you can present a possibility, but you can't say "it must be this because he said this."

Just a bit of silliness is all.

I mean really, if owner's were stopping a rebuild, would it been better if Feaster said "I'm open to rebuilding, I'm just waiting until I'm allowed to do so!" It was going to be some form of sugar coating, how he verbally framed it is his business, but lets not put a whole lot of stock in one quote.

I mean, the guy talked about intellectual honesty and then refused the idea that we were rebuilding once we started rebuilding. And we're taking his words as gospel? Ight... I guess.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The ROR fiasco is all on Feaster. The Avalanche actually saved his ass because if they take the picks and the Flames end up with what is IMO at best a 2nd line center (franchise player lol nice try Jay) for the cost of Monahan and Kanzig and at worst nothing if the NHL would have made ROR pass through waivers. Maybe people have forgotten about that because it's in the past but that day could have been another dark day in the history of this franchise to go with the Gilmour and Phaneuf/Jokinen trades. Needless to say both Risebrough and Sutter lost their jobs due mostly to those deals.

I thought it was probably his worst move since arriving in Calgary. I do think that the work around would have been that O'Reilly wouldn't get exposed to waivers - but even so, I was not happy with that move. Flames would have likely not finished in the spot they did last year, but it definitely would have prolonged the rebuild by another year at least (and where would the value of Iginla be at as a free agent if the Flames were intent on making a run of it?).

Could have potentially been a huge backwards step, I agree. I didn't like the Regehr trade. I didn't like the 'hail mary' on Richards. There was a lot about Feaster's moves that I didn't like at all. I still don't like this last deal with the Avs, but I can at least understand it.

With that being said, since the rebuild, I have little to complain about in regards to Feaster. I do think that Calgary's drafting philosophy was built up by Sutter (yeah, yeah.. flame away), and Feaster is just carrying the torch and hired additional staff (and still is as he added 2 names this past off-season, and I didn't hear of any being let go). I haven't minded him as a rebuilder at all, thus far.

I hated getting Burke in, but Burke instantly puts another check in place between the trading that Feaster does, which is arguably his weakest point. Even though I don't like Burke, I do think he is a very good trader, so over-all, I look at the management team as being fairly strong, and the hockey-ops department overall as being a good one (for the time being).

I don't love the Burke/Feaster combo, but since the rebuild, I have a hard time disliking them at all either. I think drafting has been Calgary's only bright spot, and changing Feaster (and the addition of Burke actually) kind of scares me a little as I think scouting is going fairly well. Could always be improved, but judging by how well the Heat are doing and how old the team is (and which players are actually pushing that team along), I would hesitantly say that drafting not only has seemed to improve, but we are actually starting to witness the first tangible proof of it improving. Still too early to call it 'great', but it is hard to be pessimistic in this area now.

[cannon7]

Burke should've kept his mouth shut about Baertschi, he commented way too soon. This on controversy stems from that...you can't spout off about a 19 year old and expect good things to result from it.