Is Joe Sakic the worst GM in the league?

[calgaryblood]

I feel he doesn't get a lot of heat because he was an all time great but his track record as a GM is one of the worst I've seen ever. His roster is atrocious. You aren't going to win much games when you have Bourque, Comeau, Colborne, 39 year old Iginla playing significant roles on your team. Take a look at their roster, its actually worse than Edmonton somehow.

I can see why Roy left if this is how management wanted to go.

[dying4acup]

Joe Sakic is not the GM.

[White Out 403]

No, Chevy is

[calgaryblood]

Originally Posted by dying4acup

Joe Sakic is not the GM.

Ha? Yes he is.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by dying4acup

Joe Sakic is not the GM.

Yes he is. But to the question: No he isnt.

Its a strong group, but ol' Joe just doesnt have the legs to compete.

[sureLoss]

Originally Posted by dying4acup

Joe Sakic is not the GM.

He has had the title since 2014

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2014...tant-gm/19401/

Although I think Roy has put a lot of his fingerprints on the team and only resigned once it became clear the rest of management was starting to tune him out

[Locke]

Come on! Dim Jim has to be the frontrunner!

And eventually Chia Pet's qualities are going to become irrefutable.

Remove McDavid and is Edmonton the worst team in the league? Yes. So right now Connor is papering over Pete's mistakes. Granted, there have been so many mistakes its hard to pin what on whom, so its entirely fair to ol' Pete.

[1qqaaz]

Jim Benning, Don Sweeney, Joe Sakic, maybe Garth Snow.

Many of the GMs with the better records of success (Lamoriello, Armstrong, Lombardi, Bowman) did not have pro hockey careers.

It seems genuine intelligence is more important than a playing career.

[GreenLantern2814]

Garth Snow still has a job. John Tavares is going to waste his career playing for that man. Calvin Johnson style.

[BigTuna]

Unfortunately for him, the Avs players they picked high have underperformed. Mackinnon is a nice forward to have, but thus far not nearly as good as hoped. Same with Landeskog. That guy is very overrated.
Sometimes high picks work, sometimes they don't.

[Poe969]

We end the pic of dim Jim with the caption "Sakic isn't a player anymore??"

[Geeoff]

Originally Posted by BigTuna

Unfortunately for him, the Avs players they picked high have underperformed. Mackinnon is a nice forward to have, but thus far not nearly as good as hoped. Same with Landeskog. That guy is very overrated.
Sometimes high picks work, sometimes they don't.

I disagree. MacKinnon and Landeskog are the least of the Avs worries. MacKinnon leads the Avs in scoring. The Avs are just an all-around poorly constructed hockey team with too many past their prime vets.

[BigTuna]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

I disagree. MacKinnon and Landeskog are the least of the Avs worries. MacKinnon leads the Avs in scoring. The Avs are just an all-around poorly constructed hockey team with too many past their prime vets.

They are big worries though. The Avs thought they were stars they could build around and they are not reaching the levels they thought they were. They expected Mackinnon to be a stud #1 C.
You have to draft top picks in the right year and I don't feel their core pieces are turning out as good as most thought. Mackinnon looked his best still in his first 40 NHL games. Hasn't reached that level 3 years later. Landeskog looks like a pricey 50 point player. To have any chance to contend, these guys need to be better. Duchense I'd argue is in that category as well.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

If not for Carey Price, Marc Bergevin would get more rocks thrown his way.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

I disagree. MacKinnon and Landeskog are the least of the Avs worries. MacKinnon leads the Avs in scoring. The Avs are just an all-around poorly constructed hockey team with too many past their prime vets.

They might be Colorado''s best players, but are they producing like elite level players?

Given where they went in the draft and their ages...I think they have been underwhelming.

Really Jay Feaster signing O'Reilly to that offer sheet which Colorado emotionally matched too fast seemed to start the dysfunction there. Since O'Reilly left they've been an absolute mess.

[Yamer]

There's something in that organization that seems to breed complacency. When players like MacKinnon, Duchesne, Landeskog, Barrie, Varlamov, etc. are motivated they are absolutely elite talents in this league.

The acquisition of players like Comeau, Tanguay, Bourque is beyond strange. Comeau has shown he has the incapacity to be a reliable NHLer. Tanguay is done, but when they signed both he and Iginla it made absolutely no sense for the trajectory of that team.

The Roy saga probably didn't help things much, but that roster screams of breaking it down or making a severe shake-up. A team with those young, elite pieces should not be floundering in mediocrity like that.

[Machiavelli]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

If not for Carey Price, Marc Bergevin would get more rocks thrown his way.

Why? Every off-season move seems to be working out just fine, and the Habs are near the league lead in goals for

[Dogbert]

Originally Posted by Machiavelli

Why? Every off-season move seems to be working out just fine, and the Habs are near the league lead in goals for

Carey Price makes a huge difference in the team's style as a whole. I have no doubt that Therrien would've brow-beaten all their skilled players into grinding things out by now if he didn't have Carey back there to bail out any mistakes or turnovers.

If I were a beloved star player for a professional sports franchise, the last thing I would want to do would be to come back in a management role after retirement. For every John Elway, there are so many more examples of guys who don't know what they're doing and wind up pissing on their legacy.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

If not for Carey Price, Marc Bergevin would get more rocks thrown his way.

The Weber trade was huge for them. Just hard for some people to admit.

[The Fonz]

Chiarelli

- traded 16th + 33rd overall picks for Griffin Reinhart. Laughable trade the moment it happened, and has looked worse with each passing day
- traded 26yo pending RFA Anders Nilsson for peanuts, then signed Jonas Gustavsson 4 months later (1st UFA back-up taken off the market, IIRC). How do they compare this season?
Gustavsson 1W 2L 1OTL - .893SV% - 2.90GAA
Nilsson 5W 2L 2OTL - .932SV% - 2.38GAA
The Oilers have Nilsson behind Talbot this season and they're likely still 1st in the divison.
- Signed Milan Lucic for $6.0M x 7yrs. Even in isolation, this deal is horrible. Factor in that he's going to need to re-sign McDavid for ~$12M in 2018, and Draisaitl for ~$6.5M in 2017, and this Lucic deal becomes a serious issue only 2yrs into it's 7yrs of term.
- Traded Taylor Hall (10th in points/game), 24yo and on a good contract for 4 more years, for the very average 2nd pairing defender Adam Larsson.

This is in only 18 months.



As for Jim Benning, his incompetence may be over-blown. A 2nd for Baertschi? At the very least, he got a 3rd line LW. Shinkaruk for Granlund? At this point, Granlund is out-playing Shinkaruk. Juolevi over Tkatchuk? Sure, Tkatchuk looks fantastic already, but you can't evaluate a decision like this until atleast 5yrs down the road, IMO.

Benning did make a fantastic trade in moving McCann for Gudbranson.