Of Nonis, Babcock & who the heck is going to be running this asylum on draft day

[Kin]

But that is management. One guy cannot do everything or know everything.

On draft day for example, I really doubt Shanahan is going to make the calls. They're not going to turn to Brendan and say "Who are you going to pick this round, Brendan?" Mark Hunter or one of his people will make those calls.
...

Of course they're not going to turn to Shanahan and ask him that question. What management structure works like that? You present your findings or opinions to the manager with options as required and they make the final call. If that final call is "I'm comfortable with you making the decision" then there it is. Somebody makes the call.

I'm a little confused by the point you're making. Any GM, regardless of how authoritative, is going to have scouts and subordinates who have input and opinions and findings but someone is ultimately going to make the choice on, say, Hanifin vs. Marner if that's who the Leafs have to choose. I buy that the later rounds are ones where a GM will be less inclined to overrule anyone or even where he leaves the ultimate decision to a subordinate but even then I think it makes a pretty big difference who he leaves that call to(and here specifically, whether or not that delegation will even be Shanahan's responsibility once a GM is in place).

edit: or are we saying the same thing?

 

[Bullfrog]

I'm responding specifically to the question that cw posed: "Who are you going to pick this round, Brendan." That fact he posed that questions suggests he thinks some people believe that's what could happen.

My point is simply that it is goofy to even present that as an argument when everyone knows it doesn't work that way.

 

[Kin]

I'm responding specifically to the question that cw posed: "Who are you going to pick this round, Brendan." That fact he posed that questions suggests he thinks some people believe that's what could happen.

My point is simply that it is goofy to even present that as an argument when everyone knows it doesn't work that way.

Yeah, I eventually picked up on that. I threw in an edit on my last post.

 

[cw]

I'm responding specifically to the question that cw posed: "Who are you going to pick this round, Brendan." That fact he posed that questions suggests he thinks some people believe that's what could happen.

My point is simply that it is goofy to even present that as an argument when everyone knows it doesn't work that way.

But that is management. One guy cannot do everything or know everything.

On draft day for example, I really doubt Shanahan is going to make the calls. They're not going to turn to Brendan and say "Who are you going to pick this round, Brendan?" Mark Hunter or one of his people will make those calls.
...

Of course they're not going to turn to Shanahan and ask him that question. What management structure works like that? You present your findings or opinions to the manager with options as required and they make the final call. If that final call is "I'm comfortable with you making the decision" then there it is. Somebody makes the call.

It may not be the perfect example but it was to address this concern:

I have to be honest, that makes me more confused as to who has the final say, not less.

Any GM may defer to one of his subordinates whether it's who they pick in the draft, what trade they make, what contract/UFA they sign, etc.

Shanahan as president has complete authority according to what many have said/reported. He has the authority to decide how much toilet paper to buy and from which supplier. But since like all GMs, he can't do everything, he's going to delegate.

Mark Hunter will probably make a lot of the final calls at the draft and he does so with Shanahan's blessing. Pridham may be presenting influential contract info to Shanahan and the management team with recommendations on what are good deals along with input from Dubas and his analytics group. I don't know how much weight any individual is going to get but the right things seem to be happening in general.

We don't have a GM but I don't see grotesque exposure or dysfunction in the present arrangement. We have a president in place that has the ultimate authority with assistant GMs who seem to be plugging away, getting along, having typical debates and going about the business that needs to get done while delegating authority and decisions.

I'm not concerned. As I said before, it seems fairly normal to me.

 

[Kin]

We don't have a GM but I don't see grotesque exposure or dysfunction in the present arrangement.

Who's claimed otherwise?

 

[cw]

What strikes me as potentially less normal or more awkward is how a real GM is going to ultimately fit into that group. That's actually where it gets a little weird for me and the question of who makes the decision gets blurry.

Often in the past, many hockey presidents have been closer to figureheads/financial guys - not so hands on in the hockey decisions. The lines were fairly clear and the GM typically had a good measure of autonomy when it came to hockey personnel.

In this case, we've got a hockey guy as President, who doesn't have tons of financial or hockey personnel management expertise, who is also right in there on the hockey personnel decisions. That's not so usual in the hockey world historically. Sakic tried it as executive VP and wound up as GM - pushing his GM down to an assistant.

When they hire a GM, that will be a more interesting discussion depending on what role Shanahan maintains. And as some have mentioned, it could make finding such a person more difficult.

 

[moon111]

I would expect they've already made their list and everyone has had a chance of their say way before the draft.

 

[cw]

Of the 29 other NHL teams, these are the only ones where a GM like hockey man is president over their General Manager

* Some might add John Davidson to the list but to me he evolved from the media and fit closer to a figurehead as opposed to working his way through the ranks of hockey personnel management - though that's obviously very debatable/questionable. If you disagree, there are 7 other NHL teams with hockey men over their GMs.

Most teams either have a VP GM who doesn't have a president who was a hockey man over him or the GM is also President.

For most of these six teams, it's a new arrangement - having a hockey guy over their GM
Oilers Kevin Lowe (succeeded Laforge -non hockey guy), Craig McTavish GM
Flames Brian Burke (succeeded King - non hockey guy), Brad Treliving GM
Flyers Paul Holmgren (succeeded Peter Luukko - non hockey guy), Ron Hextall GM
Bruins Cam Neely (succeeded Pres & GM Sinden), GM ? TBA
Hurricanes Don Waddell (succeeded Pres & GM Rutherford), GM Ron Francis
Canucks Trevor Linden (suceesed pres & GM Gillis), Jim Benning GM

In those arrangements, a pattern seems to be that the GM was a rookie in that role or pretty inexperienced. Even Davidson if he's on the list supports inexperienced GM Kek?l?inen.

So the structure of having a president with hockey personnel expertise over a GM is not typical in the league but is increasing as an option teams are trying - maybe for helping break in their inexperienced GMs.

Maybe that will be the best fit after Shanahan's search - another inexperienced GM. These guys do have to start somewhere.

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

No idea what three to put this in, but here's Shanahan responding to a (female) heckler during the '02 finals against Carolina:

 

[Al14]

No idea what three to put this in, but here's Shanahan responding to a (female) heckler during the '02 finals against Carolina:

Our leader teaching feminine hygiene!  Perfect!

 

[Arn]

So Chiarelli as GM and McLellan as coach?

 

[Highlander]

I would prefer Babcock as both, with Dubois and Hunter on his wings as GM

 

[Al14]

I would prefer Babcock as both, with Dubois and Hunter on his wings as GM

Who is this Dubois character?  When was he hired into the organization? 

I think you might have meant Kyle Dubas.  :

 

[Highlander]

Yep can't spell worth a damn :'(

 

[Frank E]

Carlyle's coaching tenure was marked by stubbornness. The team's record after he left isn't a testament to his wisdom, it's to the fact that he had a hand in many of the frankly baffling personnel decisions made while he was around. Grabo, Kulemin and MacArthur would have been good players under Horacheck but they were sacrifices on the altar of their coach's obstinacy. When he got fired and someone else got brought in and the team that was shaped to his way of doing things didn't do well under another way of doing things? The idea that it vindicates him in any way is insane.

Dysfunction runs top down. Quite honestly it's amazing it took as long to get into the locker room as it did.

I can't agree with this snippet of your statement.

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

The management, which included Dubas, Shanahan, and Nonis, put together a team this year that just wasn't talented enough.  I think the added pieces of Santorelli and Winnik worked out pretty well.  I don't think they tried to put together a Carlyle team, I think they tried to put together a playoff team.  They failed, and Carlyle couldn't maintain any momentum that would track the kind of necessary point production to be playoff bound.  He lost his job, and many had been calling for his head around here for a couple of years.  And let me be clear, I don't think firing Carlyle was a bad decision.

Horachek takes over in early January, and things got worse.

I don't buy the argument that Horachek was toast from the start because the Leafs "gutted the roster."  The only notable pieces moved were Franson, Winnik, and Santorelli...none of them were core players.  And they only moved those pieces after Horachek's Leafs went backwards in terms of results in the 2 months or so worth of games between his takeover of the bench and the trade deadline.

When Horachek took over, I was optimistic that a more responsible style of play would net them more points, even given the same roster.  I think they played reasonably well the first couple of weeks, but the results were a 5-19 (if my math is close) between then and the trade deadline.  Things had already fallen apart before they "gutted the roster" at the trade deadline.

I think there is a certain amount of vindication for Carlyle in that.  I wouldn't argue that Carlyle was a great coach, but I think it's fair to say that the team's record over the past couple of seasons may not have been because of his coaching style.  Maybe his coaching style helped them tread water when they should have sunk.  I think this spring shows that the group just isn't talented enough, no matter what style of play they wanted to implement. 

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

Well MacArthur was on record as saying his scratching in the playoffs by Carlyle made him decide he wasn't returning.  Grabovski clearly clashed with him (his ice-time decreased by around 2:00 from 2011-12 to 2012-13).

I think there is a certain amount of vindication for Carlyle in that.  I wouldn't argue that Carlyle was a great coach, but I think it's fair to say that the team's record over the past couple of seasons may not have been because of his coaching style.  Maybe his coaching style helped them tread water when they should have sunk.  I think this spring shows that the group just isn't talented enough, no matter what style of play they wanted to implement.

I don't think the 42 games after Carlyle was fired proves too much long-term, just as the Leafs making the playoffs in a 48 game season in 2012-13 didn't mean that they were on the upswing. 

Carlyle had 188 games as Leafs coach, the team had 43.9 CF% and gave up the 3rd most ES goals in the league.  That's pretty much exactly what the team was in the 2 years before he showed up too, only the CF% was 48%, the SH% & SV% were slightly lower.  They were "treading water" when he showed up, with many of the same "core" pieces.

At best you can say he did nothing to help improve the team.  That's not all on him.

 

[Kin]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.

It's pretty hard to get around that when you look at how the top line was used, how Phaneuf was used on the PP, etc. Pretty uncontroversial statement.

  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.

All coaches will have a hand in personnel decisions because it's an inherently collaborative process. Aside from the MacArthur example Potvin used, consider Grabo. Grabo went from getting 17+ minutes a game under Wilson with all manner of offensive opportunities to 15 minutes and very few under Carlyle. The decision to buyout Grabovski was done knowing that Carlyle would probably continue to use Grabo as a third line checking centre, a position that can't credibly command 5.5 million a year.

So Nonis could either fire Carlyle at that point, something he really didn't have the juice to do in his first year as GM after the team had just made the playoffs for the first time in 9 years, or he had to put together a roster that actually reflected how Carlyle would use the roster and that meant walking away from Grabo and Mac, signing Bozak and Clarkson and so on.

The management, which included Dubas, Shanahan, and Nonis, put together a team this year that just wasn't talented enough.  I think the added pieces of Santorelli and Winnik worked out pretty well.  I don't think they tried to put together a Carlyle team, I think they tried to put together a playoff team.
Horachek takes over in early January, and things got worse.

The idea that the team was built to Carlyle's specifications is largely based on what Nonis did in the off-season after they made the playoffs, not this past season so Shanahan and Dubas had nothing to do with it.

When Horachek took over, I was optimistic that a more responsible style of play would net them more points, even given the same roster.  I think they played reasonably well the first couple of weeks, but the results were a 5-19 (if my math is close) between then and the trade deadline.  Things had already fallen apart before they "gutted the roster" at the trade deadline.

I think there is a certain amount of vindication for Carlyle in that.

Why? Because you were optimistic? Because you thought it would be easy as pie for players to adapt to a brand new system of hockey midseason?

Again, the team chased away the players who would have fit well under Horacheck because Carlyle decided they weren't worth keeping around. To shape the team to the way Carlyle wanted to use players the talent level on the club dropped and likewise their adaptability suffered. Horacheck had fewer legitimate options.

Horacheck wasn't toast from the start because they gutted the roster. He was toast from the start because he was asking a bunch of players specifically chosen for their ability to play a certain way to instead play a different way and they didn't adapt very well. That doesn't reflect well on Carlyle no matter how you try to spin it.

 

[Frank E]

Well MacArthur was on record as saying his scratching in the playoffs by Carlyle made him decide he wasn't returning.  Grabovski clearly clashed with him (his ice-time decreased by around 2:00 from 2011-12 to 2012-13).

I remember Grabovski struggling somewhat, and maybe Grabovski didn't like criticism.  Carlyle was known to be pretty tough on some guys.  Again, I'm not sorry he's not the coach anymore...I'm just not convinced that he was a major problem, and their record since supports that somewhat.

I don't think the 42 games after Carlyle was fired proves too much long-term, just as the Leafs making the playoffs in a 48 game season in 2012-13 didn't mean that they were on the upswing.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "long term", but I think it does support the assertion that the team's performance in 2014-2015, or lack thereof, wasn't necessarily a coaching issue. 

I remember being pretty excited about watching Leaf playoff hockey, but I was never thinking that they'd make any noise.  I think most of us around here saw a pretty flawed roster with little to look forward to.

 
At best you can say he did nothing to help improve the team.  That's not all on him.

I guess my point was that I don't think the problem with this team was as much Randy's coaching as it was a relatively less talented roster than the other playoff bound teams, and that I think he took far too much of the fans' blame for the team's failures.  I don't think Babcock could have made this bunch a playoff team.  The fact that they fell even harder when Horachek had every incentive to show some improvement is why I feel as though that last half of the season vindicates Carlyle a bit...not entirely, but somewhat.

I wasn't a huge Randy Carlyle fan, but I'm not willing to put much blame on the coach of this bunch.  For the same reason, I don't think Horachek is a disaster of a coach.

I think the talk of this team being built to suit Randy's coaching style is nonsense...I think Randy's coaching style had to adapt to a lousy roster without any depth.

 

[herman]

Carlyle may have been stubborn, I don't know.  What I do know is that buying out players, and not re-signing players is a GM responsibility, not a coach's one.  I didn't see too many sad posters when Kulemin walked for $4mil in NYI.

I'm with Potvin and Nik on this. Carlyle basically ran those players out of town. Nonis didn't move them at the deadline because those players kept us in the playoff hunt. So after the failure, they walked for free + Grabovski buyout because he clashed with Carlyle.

The management, which included Dubas, Shanahan, and Nonis, put together a team this year that just wasn't talented enough.  I think the added pieces of Santorelli and Winnik worked out pretty well.  I don't think they tried to put together a Carlyle team, I think they tried to put together a playoff team.  They failed, and Carlyle couldn't maintain any momentum that would track the kind of necessary point production to be playoff bound.  He lost his job, and many had been calling for his head around here for a couple of years.  And let me be clear, I don't think firing Carlyle was a bad decision.

I never got the sense that (new) management was even aiming for the playoffs. It was a 'show-me' season from the get go when Shanahan replaced all the AGMs and assistant coaches. He bolstered the existing core and extended the GM and Coach to see what he had to work with.

The goal was to establish a sustainable style of successful play and develop the youth in the lineup to elevate their games (play the right way). Carlyle went with run'n gun/dump'n chase because he knew that was the only way this core could play and insisted on rolling only 3 lines to earn him wins. It worked as long as the goalies and shooting percentages held out.

Horachek takes over in early January, and things got worse.

I don't buy the argument that Horachek was toast from the start because the Leafs "gutted the roster."  The only notable pieces moved were Franson, Winnik, and Santorelli...none of them were core players.  And they only moved those pieces after Horachek's Leafs went backwards in terms of results in the 2 months or so worth of games between his takeover of the bench and the trade deadline.

When Horachek took over, I was optimistic that a more responsible style of play would net them more points, even given the same roster.  I think they played reasonably well the first couple of weeks, but the results were a 5-19 (if my math is close) between then and the trade deadline.  Things had already fallen apart before they "gutted the roster" at the trade deadline.

I think there is a certain amount of vindication for Carlyle in that.  I wouldn't argue that Carlyle was a great coach, but I think it's fair to say that the team's record over the past couple of seasons may not have been because of his coaching style.  Maybe his coaching style helped them tread water when they should have sunk.  I think this spring shows that the group just isn't talented enough, no matter what style of play they wanted to implement.

I shared your optimism when Horachek took over, but he was starting at the bottom of the steepest hill, on a losing streak heading into a West Coast road trip. After half a decade of run 'n gun, this core wasn't able to play real structured hockey. Only Winnik and Stanorelli showed they could play that way because they're from other systems. When they were moved out, there was no one left to hold the fort on responsible 200-ft play.

Talent wasn't really the issue in my mind as they can all skate and shoot. But they had no development in playing an effective system at the most basic level. Defensemen rarely had forward support, which led to giveaways or mismatches down low, exposing goalies to high quality chances night in and night out.

The way this season played out was for the best.

 

[Leaflifer]

I give RC credit for knowing what this team was, and wasn't capable of. I'm not sure what a better(?) coach could have accomplished with this group. He had to leave, but the state of the team isn't likely because they were coached poorly.