Disconnect between Darryl and Management

[Canada 02]

This may have been lost in the Trade thread with all the Eichel talk.

Conroy interview on the FAN 960. You can listen for yourself and judge what he said. I've got a few bullet points, but sounds to me that he/management disagreed with how Sutter managed prospects during training camp

I have no problem with what Darryl did. He was brought in to win now, not develop prospects.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/960/boomer-...-expectations/

Originally Posted by Canada 02

Sure, I provided one sentence for a 6 minute segment. Context can be had by anyone who wants to listen to it.

Semi-verbatim of the key points, and anyone can judge for themselves:

"I would have liked young guys play with veteran guys"

"...with some teams you see a young guy with two stars to see how he does. With our team, we didn't even scrimmage to see [prospects] mixed in"

"Darryl wanted to start practicing as a team, we have a lot of turnover, [Darryl] want to work on things right from the beginning ... I understand why he wants to do it, but the management side, you always want to see the young guys get a chance with the big group"

"If we would put Ruzicka with Johnny and Tkachuk, or you always want to see him with NHL players so you can get a gauge."

Darryl was all business. He wanted to play a certain way, and certain guys and certain lines, so did we give prospects a ton of PP time or PK time? We didn't even see the young kids or even the AHL guys who were pushing. You would have like to see them in a few better positions"

"I understand, Darryl wanted to get ready for the regular season, and that was his main focus"

[KootenayFlamesFan]

A little late now. They wanted him to come in and save the day, he's going to do things his way.

[Manhattanboy]

Can’t say Conroy inspires a whole lot of confidence.

Is he being groomed to take over for Treliving? Why?

[3thirty]

At least we know Darryl is doing it his way and not getting forced one way or the other from above.

[TheoFleury]

Pretty much all those guys are fringe, if they make it at all it will be as depth players. If they need our stars to help them get an idea, well I don't even know what to say to that.

Sent from my SM-G988W using Tapatalk

[Jay Random]

The way Conroy wanted to run training camp was the way the Flames have run their camps for many years past. Every year, they ran a mix of rookies and veterans till quite late in the preseason, throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if anything stuck. Every year, they had a slow start, and often they never recovered from that.

Sutter has made it clear that he wants the veterans to be ready for opening night, so he put the prospects on a separate track. This makes sense; veterans and prospects have different goals in camp and those goals are better served by different practice routines. If that makes for bad optics, well, if the plan works the results will take care of the optics, and if the plan doesn't work the optics wouldn't have helped.

Sutter was brought in to fix a broken team. Conroy's comments make it sound like he doesn't want to see some of the damage get fixed.

[PepsiFree]

This is a pretty dramatic interpretation. Coaches and management want different things from training camp. One is focused on evaluating the team as a whole, the other is focused on preparing the team for the season.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Blown out of proportion and out of context. Conroy is saying that for him the preseason is like a video game and he wants to try all the wacky line combos. He’s actually giving Darryl credit for being so hyper focused on the season.

As AGM Conny is focused long term so of course he doesn’t share Darryl’s focus. I see it as a compliment that Darryl isn’t ####ing around and getting down to business.

Conroy knows exactly what Darryl is like and the idea that he’d go on the radio to publicly badmouth him is absurd.

[DeluxeMoustache]

If Sutter views preparation and winning as priorities, that is a good thing

[Hack&Lube]

Obviously Conroy wanted to see how his prospects fared and if anything stuck to the wall because that's his job. He's not being pushed into the GM direction but more in the scouting/development side of the business He wanted to see the fruits of his labors.

I think Darryl picked the right approach. Get the real team we have playing as a group and warmed up out of the gate. We can slot in some prospects throughout the year as the inevitable injuries appear.

[SeanCharles]

I honestly don’t have much of a problem with what Darryl did because I don’t think any of the guys that were sent down were ready to make the NHL, aside from maybe Mackey but he had to go down given the situation we are in on D.

The only ones that are ready or are close are still on the team in Kylington and Gawdin or were sent down last in Duehr. Zary is probably the only guy I think that would have pushed for a job up front outside of Gawdin and we’ll never know how he would have been handled in camp.

Our two best prospects weren’t in camp so I have no issues with how things went down because guys like Kylington got a tonne of icetime and Gawdin made the team. We will see Duehr when injuries strike and I’m sure Ruzicka will get a chance as well.

[TurdFerguson]

Seems like a nothing-burger to me.

[Burning Beard]

Good. We finally have a coach who is whipping these softies into shape. Maybe the team will actually come out of the gates hot this year.

[dissentowner]

Title is totally misleading

[AustinL_NHL]

If Darryl Sutter can't make this team succeed, literally no one can. Best coach in the NHL imo

That's all I'll say.

[stang]

Pretty sure Management is already on thin ice. Sutter can do what he wants

[bubbsy]

I'm sure if a pelletier, Phillips, zary, had incredible moments justifying more ice, they'd have been given some looks.

Zary got hurt, and other than dueur, the forward prospects did diddly squat with their prospect/preseason games and camp to get noticed.

Dueur did things to get noticed and magically got more looks till late.

I really think this is more an indictment on the weak prospects we have than the coaching/management staff

[Savvy27]

I'd agree that there is a bit of a disconnect. However, the high amount of turnover from year to year made Darryl's approach reasonable. At least 3/4 forwards lines are different as are 2 of the D pairings.

Usually there would be more carryover and less teaching/polishing but with the instability of recent years, using training camp as part development camp wouldn't be prudent.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

I'm sure if a pelletier, Phillips, zary, had incredible moments justifying more ice, they'd have been given some looks.

Zary got hurt, and other than dueur, the forward prospects did diddly squat with their prospect/preseason games and camp to get noticed.

Dueur did things to get noticed and magically got more looks till late.

I really think this is more an indictment on the weak prospects we have than the coaching/management staff

These things are kind of related

But I get what you’re saying

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

I really think this is more an indictment on the weak prospects we have than the coaching/management staff

It isn't even a matter of weak prospects. It's just that the team's best prospects are either going back to junior or just turning pro, and simply aren't close to NHL-ready yet. (We saw this in camp with Pelletier, who has the skill and the hockey sense for the NHL, but just doesn't have the physical strength yet.) The older group was picked pretty clean by the graduation of players like Andersson, Valimaki, Dube, and Mangiapane.

Then you have Zary (broken leg) and Coronato (NCAA), who could be the two best prospects in the system – certainly the two best forwards – and weren't in camp at all. Any team's prospect pool will look worse if you subtract the top two forwards.