The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 171: GM Rankings, Front Office Hierarchy, and Playoff Parity

Episode Date: May 30, 2017

Chris Watkins joins the show to discuss the changing landscape of NHL front offices, his and Carolyn Wilke's rankings of all 31 GMs, and the pros and cons of the NHL playoff system compared to that of the NBA. The topics covered include: 0:30 GM Rankings Methodology 7:10 Group Think Front Offices 13:26 Cautionary tale of the Lame Duck GM 19:30 Jim Benning and Being stuck in mediocrity 26:25 Ken Holland's flawed player evaluations 29:25 Chiarelli, Sweeney, and the Bruins Model 34:00 Garth Snow's wide range of outcomes 36:15 Shero, Rutherford, and divvying up credit 40:25 Doug Wilson's longevity 43:30 Marc Bergevin's window to win 51:05 David Poile and The Endowment Effect 55:45 NHL Playoffs vs. NBA Playoffs Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Demetri Filipovich. and sitting across from me in an unnamed conference room, let's call it, is my good buddy Chris Watkins. Chris, what's going on, man? Not to much, man. Trying to get the new Icy Paiso's nickname popping off on Twitter. Yeah, usually when we do these things, I plug my guests' Twitter handle and all their online work. But in your case, I don't think I'm going to plug your Twitter handle. No.

First off, because I don't want to say the word yolo. And I guess I just did it. And the second thing is I don't want listeners to think that I, the HockeyPedio cast advocates some of your retweets on occasion. No, no, not at all. Please, please do not follow for that. Find me in more official forums like this. But, yeah.

But then that everything's going good, man. All right, let's, we're going to do a little bit of a change of pace because a lot of these podcast have been doing recently have been sort of playoff central which makes sense it's what's going on right now and everyone's interested in it but um here in new york you're here as well and you and a friend of the podcast caroline wilkie recently did a um court sort of a comprehensive GM ranking uh for hockey graphs um do you want to first sort of set the table a little bit in terms of the methodology and how you guys got to do it and then we'll actually get into the rankings themselves yeah so uh yeah big shout out to caroline uh

for helping me out with that. Definitely couldn't have done it without her. Basically, it was just an idea. We, I had been throwing around an idea of just, like, creating some sort of model of trying to project, you know, how each GM sort of approaches building their team. Do they lean more towards defensemen or forwards when they're drafting?

You know, do they lean on free agency or trade market in terms of acquiring talent? And so we talked about it, Carolyn and I talked about it, realized that was a little bit. of a hard task to sort of tackle in the time frame that we had. So we did a little bit more of a simpler exercise, but I think one that worked out well for us. Basically, we took six different categories.

So drafting, signing unrestricted free agents, college free agents, player development, and excuse me if I'm forgetting a couple here. But basically stack ranked those categories to add some weight to them. and then looked at East GM's moves since the beginning of the new CBA in 2012, 2013,

and just created a certain ranking across the board. So we put more weight on things like drafting, cap management contract extensions because we felt that had more of an indicator for success or failure for a particular gym. And then basically did that through every team in the league, spent a couple of weeks researching, and then figured out a couple. We also use a don't tell me about Hart's guard. metric as a way to sort of, you know, level set the ratings that we did. And so basically, yeah, put that together over three times span and then released it earlier

this month to much fanfare and back and forth and arguing with Kinnux fans on Twitter. But it was good. It was a fun exercise. Definitely try to be as thorough about it as possible. But one of the things that we really found in the exercise is that this is pretty hard to do in terms of looking at these GMs, especially for GMs without much of a track record and really saying, oh, well, they should get credit for this and not for that at the end of the day. But we feel pretty confident that we did due diligence and allocating the right credit for these moves and stuff.

Well, so I think that whenever you do a list like this, especially for GMs, there's two complicating factors. One, it takes a lot of time for this stuff to play out and manifest itself. So it's very easy to sort of like a great example. As you guys had Pierre Dorian really low on your list. And I have no issue with that at all because I've been highly dubious of some of the moves he's made. At the same time, obviously, the Ottawa Senator just had a lot of success. So it's very easy to sort of overreact and be like, well, maybe he's doing something great. But then you look at a lot of the key factors that were responsible for their run.

And it's guys he just kind of inherited. Exactly. Like he was on the staff, but he wasn't necessarily being. credited for drafting and signing Eric Carlson and trading for Kyle Torres and doing all that. Exactly. And a perfect example of that is Victor Hedman, you know, who Tampa Bay drafted number two in 2009. Right. And really took a couple of years to really get his footing in the league. And so you can say, you know, another big-time draft was Zach Bogosian. Yeah. Who was drafted, I believe, the year before. And number two. By your Atlanta thrashers? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, my beloved Atlanta thrashers,

rest in peace. And it was really hard to sort of, I mean, Hedman has always been a better player, but it was really hard to separate those two, and then all of a sudden he really took off. And now, like, five years later, after that draft pick is made, hey, this is a blue liner, you know, this is a number one guy and a Norse trophy candidate,

but there's no way to tell that in the preceding years at that point in his career. And so that's where it was really difficult. And that's actually why we set that 2012, 2013 cutoff point. I would say, you know, we can't go back infinitely in time and do that. Let's just say every move from here.

year on out, we'll give GMs credit or non-credit for. And you see actually quite a few GMs, the longer senior GMs, like Ken Holland and Chuck Fletcher, actually really lost out because of that, but we had to start somewhere. Well, and then the other thing, and we were discussing this before we went on, on air, quote on, I guess you can go on air podcast, is this, it feels like more and more teams are sort of taking this group think approach or mentality where you can't, necessarily just point to one guy like you may have done in the past and be like, this guy has pure autonomy, pure control, and everything, you know, good or bad is credit to him. We're seeing

a lot of teams like, you know, the Florida Panthers or the Toronto Maple East where there's a bunch of guys in house and it's tricky because, you see how, you know, the human mind can work sometimes and how biases are involved because, you know, for more analytically inclined people like you, Carolyn and myself, I think, you know, a guy like Kyle Dubas is so long. We all. We all point to it as, you know, he's paving the way for people down the road. And, you know, he's sort of our patron saint. Right. But the problem is you get into is every time the leaves do something that winds up looking or, or at the time or even in hindsight is a good move, you go, oh, well, that must, that must have been a Kyle Dubas move. But then when they do something for it's like, well,

this is just old school loo. He's lost his mind. There we go again. Throwing money in Matt Martin. And it's like, you know, it's, that might be the case sometimes, but sometimes it might be but just be us sort of not knowing exactly who's responsible for what. And you see this not only within teams. Florida is another great example of this where the lines of communication are very abstract to the outside world. But even within the league where Tim Murray was actually considered analytical GM at the time that he's hired, at least more analytically minded than the normal GM at the time he was hiring and did some things that would be considered, hey, Taint, Jack Eichol's in the next draft.

Let me just throw out as many games as possible and feel the worst possible team that could put it on the ice to guarantee myself a chance at one of these top two picks in the 2015 drafts. At a time, it was considered the right thing to do. It just didn't work out from the other moves that he was making.

But we also look at it and say, well, all the analytically minded teams are doing well and all the ones who aren't all these old school guys who stuck in their ways. And really, it hasn't necessarily quite played out like that. I think there's some positive correlation between sort of taking a more analytical approach and really just avoiding bad moves.

And you'll see that a lot in the rankings where we punish teams a lot for bad moves. Yes. But sort of taking that group-minded approach, there's less moves where everybody agrees, Evanton notwithstanding, where everybody agrees like, hey, that guy got fleeced. Like, I think we moved far away from that era

of the NHL. And I think teams are just much smarter about these decisions nowadays because they have so many voices in the room where someone's going to raise their hands say, hey, that might not be the best idea. Now they may get fired if they talk about it publicly. You're not referring to any Montreal, Canadian. No, no, no, no, no.

No, none of my, you know, friends on Twitter. But I think people are much smarter about these decisions nowadays just because there's not that one dominant voice in the room that's saying, hell or high water, we're going to make this decision. Well, I do think that's an interesting point that you brought up there because it applies to many different walks of life and jobs where, you know, you can make a lot of good moves in succession, and that's great,

but if you make one disastrous move, that can have like a much, a much higher intensity effect and longer term ramifications. Like if you sign a guy to a really long term big money contract, and he just flames out. Exactly. All of a sudden, you're like,

that can be crippling, whereas you can sign a bunch of really productive players for cheap, but that it's going to, you know, it's funny how those that dynamic works and yeah and it's one of the things we noticed in when we did a sort of post-mortem of the rankings is that we looked at for example the the category that had the lowest average rating was signing on research or free agents right and when you think about it it makes sense you know you're signing guys who are either past their prime

or aging out of their prime to the big money extensions that they you probably would be able to negotiate a hometown discount that guy was already on your team and so you see something like that happened. It's like, oh, well, now, you know, Milan Lucia going to the oilish, yeah, hopefully those first two years work out because this is really going to set the team back long term. There's just a weight down on the team's cap space. Same thing with the Dustin Brown extension. One of the, literally the day that we were releasing the rankings, Toronto announced that they signed Zice up to, you know, that seven-year deal. Yes. And I want to say 80, 20, the feedback on it was like, hey, nice player, good guy, you know, good guy to have a round, but seven years for,

you know, second parent of defensemen, that might not age very well, you know, at the tail in that contract. And it's like, why are you making that decision? So we actually moved Toronto a couple of spaces back based on that one, you know, it's hard to judge right now, but we're going to say, you know, from first glance, it's probably not the best move for the long-term future of the team, especially in the direction that they're going. Well, and that's the trick. and I don't necessarily think there's necessarily one right answer, one way, one solution.

But like for a lot of GMs, I mean, at NHL is really like a what have you done lately for me business. And if you're looking out for yourself and for your job and for your future career, you're trying to win as many games as you can. Maybe more so as a coach than a GM. But at the same time, like you can't, if you go, I mean, we just saw this with Tim Murray. If you go like three, four, five years with nothing really to show for it, like you're probably. going to wind up losing your job and you're going to lose some of that luster you might have had. Remember how people were talking about Tim Murray when he was just, when he just went to Buffalo? It was like, you know, oh, this guy is going to revolutionize the game.

Like, he's the new waves. And then now, like, he got fired by the sabres and I didn't really see anyone, you know, bemoaning it. And there was no Sam Hinky memorials. I don't hear much buzz right now about like, oh, like, my team needs to fire RGM and hire Tim Murray immediately. There's a home viking funeral for him. And you see that a lot. And I think that creates a moral hazard for teens. But also, I mean, you understand the incentives, as you said.

A GM is looking like, hey, that's why the coach is often the first guy to go. It's like, hey, I can get fired. This other guy in place of winning on him. It's like, hey, just give me another couple years. You know, let's actually implement my system, so on and so forth. And Tim Murray's, I think is a great example. I've gotten in a lot of trouble comparing Tim Murray and Sam Hinkie. I think in my eyes there's a lot of parallels I think so.

Yeah, a lot of similarities, but I think at the end of the day, the biggest similarity between Hinky and Murray was not only the tanking, but it's like, okay, we have that one-star player, but what about the other 22 players on the roster? What about the other 11 guys around Joel and Bede? Right. So he's like, hey, you have this great magical rookie, but okay, there's other players on a team.

You've done the tanking part now. Right. What's the next step? And I don't think either one of those guys figured it out in the NBA or in the NHL and now they're out of a job. Now, people are, you know, much more high. Sam Hinky than 10 Murray, but I do think Murray was on the right track, but there wasn't any other track record of success to say,

hey, this guy can lead us to a championship five years from now. Right. Yeah, it's definitely much easier to, you know, to send me down and destroy than it is to actually build something back up. I think another good example of that point we're just talking about is a guy like Dean Lombardi, for example, because it's pretty clear, especially towards the end of his run, that he was making moves with the mindset of,

well, if we can keep this window we have open right now and maybe win another cup, none of it's going to matter, then I'm going to drive off into the sunset. And so now you have, you know, what is it, Rob Blake and Luke Lopetat taking over. And they're kind of handcuffed here because there's just a lot of bad contracts for Asian players. And it's like it's going to take them a few years probably to dig out of this

And then at that point, are they still going to have enough staying power or a long enough leash within the organization to see it through? And that's like, that's such an interesting dynamic here because it was pretty clear for anyone looking at it, regardless of how much inside knowledge you had, what Dean Lombardi's motives were, regardless of how potentially harmful they could be for the franchise long term, right? And now they're in such a weird spot. And a perfect counterpoint, and I'm sure Dean will love this, is I said similar things about Stan Bowman and sort of, you know, his past couple years where this sort of sheen has worn off a little bit of, you know, his regime and the team's management in the meantime. And so two moves I look at really are the Andrew Ladd trade where, you know, that just traded, Brandon Saad got back, I believe, a first in Marco Dono. Yep. And then flip that over to Winnipeg. for Andrew Glad and

that move didn't work out. It just didn't work out. But my justification at the time was Marco DeNoe is not going to be part of the next Black Ox contender by the time that guy, if he ever becomes something of value, he's not going to be part of the next championship team. And so to me that made sense where it's a work for all

risk to say, hey, we like this player, but our window is right now. I'm going to go all in for that. So that's a key component of it. And then you look at the extensions that they signed Taves and Kane to. Yes. And my argument, well, I didn't necessarily agree with those.

I believe those are some make-right deals. I believe those two underpaid in their prime, especially Kane. We still played at a very high level. They were underpaid a couple million dollars a year. Right. Now they're overpaid a bit. But my argument was, okay, well, that championship they won in 2015 against the Lightning. Well, if they won that this year after they signed the contracts, they were like, oh, yeah, this is great extension as it worked out.

And so it's funny how we sort of retroactively. We look at those sort of moves and stuff. It's still not a great move, like at the end of the day, but people would be more, oh, yeah, they signed these guys these crazy extensions, but then they won championship the next year, and we're all for it. And so it's something, you know, you'll see this play out throughout the GM Americans, where it's like the Canadian's justification for the Shade Weber trade was, well, if we win, you know, the next couple years with Shade Weber on the team, well, we can live with the fact that, you know, he'll suck, you know, at age 39 and pay, you know, ungodly amounts of money. Right. Unfortunately, it just hasn't played out quite like that. But you understand the reasoning and justification behind it. And it's like as a fan, you sort of have just to make peace with it.

Yeah. Do I want to win a championship or go for, you know, make myself a contender for the next five years, but never really, you know, get over that hump. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you, I mean, you do have to, like, it's tough because it's kind of thinking with your head versus your heart because it's really tough to, like, even if you stack the deck in your favor, It's still really tough to win a title in NHL.

So you can make all these win now moves and you could easily just run into a hot goalie and lose in the first round. And then you're like, well, we now have nothing to show for. We didn't win a title this year. And now our future is compromised. But at the same time, your window to do so is so short with the current system. And we'll see, I think the lightning will be fine. And I think that they're going to bounce back next season and make the playoffs and be a contender again.

But it's funny, like just looking at how much. much has changed in a year where they make that run. Yeah. And they lose their Blackhawks. And then all of a sudden people are like, well, but look at the age of all their players. They're going to be back. And then next year, and then last year, you know, they were really close. They were within a game of making it back.

Right. But then all of a sudden, things just go wrong. Guys get injured. Maybe guys don't continue progressing the way you thought they were. And all of a sudden, that window closes for you. Not that it's closed for them. But it's funny how one year or two years can change your sort of perspective on a team. team so you can't really just take it for granted if you, you know, if you're kind of just

sitting back and being conservative one season going, well, we'll be back next year because you very well might not be. Which is why, and I agree with the sentiment that a lot of people were pushing for Toronto and Edmonton to go all in, you know, this year, you know, hey, you have Conradivant on an entry-level contract. You have Austin Matthews on an entry-level contract. These guys are going to provide value that you will not be able to recoup at any point of time in the future.

So why don't you go all in now and make a couple moves? And I can understand, hey, we don't want to sort of overextend ourselves. We may not be, we're not one move away. And so it does not make sense to sort of sacrifice that future upside to go all in right now versus Evanton, which you sort of did see that play out with the Taylor Hall trade. It's like, yeah, you know, you may have brought the team, you know, 3% closer to winning the cup this year. But the overall expected amount of cups that you'll win in the next five years has gone down without having. You're going to look, you're going to be looking for a guy like Taylor Hall on the market anyway. within the next five years, and now you just lost the best way to get one,

which was to keep the one that you already had. And so you sort of see a contrast between both thought processes, and it's like, well, which one is going to be better? Well, we'll see five years from now when, you know, Edmonton is raising this third straight cup banner. Yeah. You know, I'm just predicting a whole bunch of doom and gloom for some rounds, because that's all I know in my lifetime for them in particular.

But you can definitely see what, you know, a different set of GMs taking a different approach. to either one of those two teams in that situation. Yeah, yeah, you really got to pick your spots. Okay, so I think we've set the table here pretty well. Let's get into the GM ranking. Okay. So I'm going to pull it up. I haven't, like I read it when you guys released it.

I obviously didn't memorize the full order. There's 31 GMs. Okay, so I'm looking at the back half of this, and I don't think that anyone is going to really take much issue like Canucks fans are mad that you guys at Jim Benning Benning 31 of course I don't see any argument that anyone has been worse of their job than he has Unless your argument is going to be

Well it's too early to tell Right and so for Jim Benning in particular You know I think I think this situation That he's walked into It's kind of hard to to parse out how much of it is His own doing how much of it is management And this is the other thing just in general is like when you have management support, you do whatever. So Arizona is a perfect example where, you know, any other GM that had the season of Arizona probably has, you know, it's the first year for John Cheka.

But any other GM has that season, they're probably getting fired. Right. Or they're on the hot seat. Something has to change dramatically or else you're not going to be here anymore. But, you know, Cheka has management's explicit approval to sort of go in that manner and you build a team in that way. I'm not sure if Jim Benny has that same edict to go and do that. With that being said, one of the things that we included in the rankings was, you know, its total goals above replacement metric and started tracking that from the time that GM took

over to the current day. And his is by far the worst one. It starts of what the talent level of the team was when he took over and what it was currently. And his, you know, the team just has gotten much worse in the current day and then doesn't have really much in the pipeline. in the future to say, well, you know, they're getting worse. Well, you know, they're going to turn things around quickly.

There's not much to say that that's the case. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I definitely think there's been a lot of clamoring or there's been noise in Vancouver that, you know, ownership medals a lot and they're involved. And they release about Jim Benning, to be honest, you know. And they, they don't want to go that Arizona Coyote's Buffalo Sabres, Philadelphia, a 76ers route of, let's blow it up and just suck completely for five.

five years. The problem with that is you get what the Canucks are right now, where they're clearly not good enough to compete. I mean, they're the second team, second worst team in the league this year, but at the same time, they don't have the types of high upside assets that you would hope a team that hasn't been good for a few years now would have. And that's the issue where, like, there isn't, that's been my entire argument with what's wrong with the Canucks right now, where it's, like, it's fine that they suck right now. The problem is there's no. real reason to be excited about being a Canucks fan or going to the games or caring about the team because they took all these conservative steps in the draft and in free agency and in trades

where they it's like they were trying to get guys who could step in immediately and sort of be these band-aid fixes and what you're left with is a bunch of mediocrity and that's the worst place you can be in in pro sports exactly and i think one of the areas that we were considering looking at for the rankings was this sort of franchise sort of direction and strategy. Like, you know, where's your franchise going? You know, Pete Blackhawks, you know, we're all about speed. You know, Pete Kings, we're all about, you know, beating people up on the boards and sort of chasing the puck.

And just even in terms of, hey, we're rebuilding or we're contending. We're going all in. No one has any idea what it is for the Canucks right now. And so you sign Louis Erickson where you're like, hey, let's play the young guys. Like, what are you doing? And so there's no real clear direction to say this, the team is clearly building towards this. like at least in Ottawa, which is why we appear, you know, a little bit of a bump-up a rank is like, we know that, you know, the owner is incentivized to want to get as many

playoff games as possible. I'm fine with being mediocre because it brings us additional revenue of money. You know, I'm looking at a cap value per capita. Right. That's the key metric in Ottawa. We know that. Cost per point. Exactly.

So that makes sense. And so we understand like that's the teams moves are incentivized that way. We don't really know that about Vancouver, and so we can't just give them the benefit of the doubt. They're saying, like, oh, well, in a different situation. And that's the other way to look at these rankings is, you know, you spin the wheel, you put any of these gems on any of the other 30 teams in the league, how many more, how many of these teams are going to improve with this guy in place rather than the current one? I don't think any teams being approved by Jim Bennett and being in the driver's seat.

Yeah. Yeah, no, and that's fair because I think, you know, even if there's individual moves you might disagree with, if there's an actual like sort of coherent plan in place, you can at least defend the move and to be like, well, it fits with the plan. Whereas if you're like, you draft Jared McCann in the first round, one pick or two picks or whatever ahead of David Pasternak,

and then you like force him into the lineup when he's not ready and he struggles, but he shows potential. And then you trade him for Erica Branson. It's like, what are you trying to do there? And I think that is where, people can take real issue with what Jim Benning's done because like if he was trying if he was going the Ottawa Senator was route of we need to make the playoffs yeah um and he just kept making

moves to do that that's one thing but it's like there's all this like autopsy term up and down back and forth and that's that's indefensible and yeah and quickly to to end on that I think that trade is a perfect example of the one of the things that we looked at and one of the things I've actually been critical of a lot of jams for is like I haven't really seen a lot of people make moves that were like, okay, you know, me playing my NHLG on franchise mode. I wouldn't have made myself like, okay, that's a little bit off the cuff, but I can see the thought process behind that. A lot of moves are sort of like, okay, like 7% your fan base would have voted for that one if you had a cell phone phone phone phone. The good.

The good ransom would trade is like, okay, well, that seems a little bit off the cuff, but if it works out on the ice, then I guess we can defend it. It clearly didn't. So it was like, what was the logic behind that? I still haven't seen a defendant plan as to making moves like that. And so this is one of the things that we've got the way we look at GM, GM's making moves, you know, the top-range GM, you know, David Poil. You know, he- Hey, why do you spoil the list like that?

Okay, we're counting down here in order. You can't. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's in the- Why are people going to keep listening? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, but there's some moves that he made where it's like, okay, I'm not sure about that, you know, the trade, Seth Jones for, you know, Ron Johantson. But, okay, now you start seeing play now.

on the ice where it works out. Trust me, there's plenty of other intrigue and stuff further down the list. But, you know, I think that's a clear and consistent message that Carolyn and I came up with about these players going forward. Yeah. So Kenny Holland at 29. Yeah. I think here's the thing.

If you were, if you're like just looking at the totality, it's fair that he's not the worst GM. I think if you're looking at sort of like a five-year window or what he's done lately or where the team is headed moving forward, I think there's an, like if there's one argument to be made that Jim Benning shouldn't be the worst on this list, I think it might be for Ken Holland because he's sort of, he's done all the bad things we just said about like Dean Lombardi, who's right just ahead of him on the list, but without the actual recent success where like he gave out all these loyalty contracts to guys like Darren Hell and Luke Lennan. And you go on down like Danny de Kaiser

Nicholas Cronwell, Jonathan Erickson and you all of a sudden have like all this money devoted to guys that aren't good but you don't have the high end guys to sort of like you're not in a position to go for win now yeah yeah and Ken Holland Ken Holland is actually

probably the best example of this where there's a survivorship bias of the guys at the lower you know basically if you look at it in tiers you know the sort of bottom tier is Jim Benning and Pierre Diora, these other guys who have actually accomplished a lot in their careers but just not recently.

And Ken Holland be a perfect example of that where we almost gave them a benefit of doubt. It's not like this guy's an idiot. This guy clearly is a Hall of Fame and it's got to do who's made amazing moves and even still with the current direction of the team. You have Dylan Larkin who, you know, had up and down sophomore season, but an amazing rookie year.

Andreas, I think of C. You know, my favorite player who I'm my girlfriend listed as in my phone. You know, you have plenty of players to be like there's some level of excitement they may not have been developed correctly or brought along correctly where you can sort of see there's like still some of the magic that's left there whereas opposed to Jim Benning is like okay I'm not really sure what is there like yeah he has nothing to hang his hat on exactly and so and so we sort of gave a little bit more credit to people

who have done it and have a track record success and just have had it few or five or six bad years right over guys with no track record and a couple of bad moves yeah no I think that's fair And I've made this point a number of times before on the show and in my writing. But like if you want to make the argument that Ken Holland should still be like their vice president or whatever where he's like in he's sort of, he's not involved with personnel moves, but he's involved like in bigger picture stuff and sort of who gets hired and sort of making sure everything still run smoothly. Perfectly fine with that. It just like the track record, the recent track record of who he thinks is good at hockey and not is maybe not not his strong suit anymore. game is passed them by a little bit on that regard. Well, and you also have to remember the Mike Babcock effect.

And you'll see this with another controversial name on the list of Dean Lombardi. Yes. Yeah. Well, you said, so you, so let's let's run this through an order here. Jim Benning 31. Yeah. Pierre Doran 30, Ken Holland 29, Dean Lombardi, 28. Peter Schrelli 27. Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, there's been, I went on this brand recently, about what's going on with Jordan Eberley right now because it's pretty clear that, you know, the wheels are in motion here for sort of like a little bit of a severe campaign. You're hearing now that he's not taking it seriously.

He wasn't, he wasn't practicing hard this year. He might like, he might like, I've heard, you know, he likes partying a bit too much. It's like, hmm, I'm sure all this stuff was true back when he scored 34 goals. Unfortunately, unfortunately for him, he was shooting like 20% that year. And this year he shot under 10. And it's funny how that can change the way, the light you see the guy in.

And so it's very easy to envision a scenario repeating itself from last summer where now they're going to sell low on Jordan Eberle and they're going to spin it as, you know. It's for the better monster. Yes. Yes. And if he has a good year, wherever he goes, it'll be, well, he needed a fresh start. He couldn't do that here.

And, you know, it's very, we've seen this time and time again, not just with Oilers with our teams. I just, the funny thing with Shirelli is he's in a perfect spot here where ultimately none of it may matter because having Connor McDavid right now for cheap is such a luxury that it raises their baseline where he might not be optimizing their team to win a cup but it's going to be hard for them to suck with how cheap Connor McDavid is right now like there's so much wiggle room for error and and that's basically it I mean I think to be honest you know we were to be perfectly objective like yeah surelli would be a little

bit higher. I mean, he has made some decent moves. Yes, yeah, the Cam Talbot is a great. That was a great move. The way, sort of as we talked about before we got on, the other way that we looked at it was not only if you did a roulette one and it attached his got to any of the other 30 teams in the league,

but, you know, how much closer or further way did this person move their team to a championship? And it can be argued, hey, you know, the Oral has made us to game seven in the second round this year, but who knows how far they could have made it with Taylor Hall, Adam Larson.

Right. And heaven forbid if they signed Chris Russell to a big long-term extension this year, you know,

that might be moving the goalposts even further away. And so, you know, while I think Shirelli has made some good trades

at his GM and I apologize someone called me out on it. I said he traded away three first number one picks. Second was the number two pick

in that drive? Yes. So apologies for that to the Shirelli family. But there's clearly been a track record of moves that have sort of

hurt his teams in the future and left Boston and not the best place for Don Sweeney to take over because of... Who's next on the list? Exactly. Because of short side of moves like that. Right.

Yeah. Don Sweeney. Oh, boy. Yeah, it's interesting because, obviously, whenever you think of Don Sweet, I feel like he's always going to be linked to that famous, infamous draft, where he had the three picks back to back to back, and he somehow has nothing to show for any of those three guys at this point. Yeah.

And I think the exact quote I said was the guys picked directly after, I think he picked 13, 14, 15. Each of the guys picked 16 through 20 all have either have already played in the league or are much closer to playing in the league than any of the guys that Sweeney drafted. And, yeah, that, I mean, even on the day that those trades were being made, so the Dougie Hamilton trade and then the certain Martin Jones trade was like, okay, like we said before, it's like, I see where you're going with this, but now, don't see where you're going now. see and then like it just jumped so far back and forth that I had no idea what the hell was going on and they really haven't panned out for him and as well as the lot as the other moves is in the meantime either so I mean I think he stepped into it not a great situation of Boston where the team's clearly on the decline right but it's not much to say that you know the moves that he's made since then has put as put the team on the back on the right track and especially with firing claud julian this year yeah I'm not really really too sold on him being there for the next supreme championship. team. Yeah, that's the thing where it's like, yeah, they are on decline, but there's also, like, they were a pretty good team this year, and there's a definite, like, you could brainstorm a realistic scenario in which, you know, you can make a few moves in the margins that really would have helped that team. And I don't think you make the argument that he did that. And so I think having him

down on the low on this list is fair, even though he hasn't really been running the team for that long. Exactly. So you guys have Garstinawa 24. And I don't think, you know, I made this point, I did a preseason podcast in the GM rankings. And like over the past five years, if you polled me at certain points, I don't think any GM would have more volatility in where I personally viewed them in the hierarchy than Garth Snow where it's like, you know, for a while there, he, I was like, you know, this guy isn't long for this job. I don't know what he's doing. And then all of a sudden, like they drafted really well. They made all these like savvy moves, like trading for Nick Letty. and all this stuff, like taking advantage of other teams that were in compromising positions.

And I was like, you know, this is really like I see a plan here. I like this year, just the wheels just fell off everything Islanders related so badly that now I'm just wondering like where, where does he stand in this? Where do they go as a team moving forward? Well, the biggest concern I would have for the Islanders especially is what does John Samar's think of all of this and sort of looking at the direction of the team? is this the team? I mean, it's very rare for a big-time free agent to move in the NHL to be honest. So I don't really expect much to happen on that front.

But, you know, as you said, I think the 2014-15 team have a couple of different models out there. And that team was like the highest ranked on all of my models in like the past 10 years, which made no sense to me whatsoever. I had a double-check and recalibrate to make sure that was correct.

But as you said, lots of savvy moves, lots of great, you know, great signings at the time or great trades at the time. And it just didn't work out. this year, can you do it again? It remains to be seen. I think where we are in the rank is really that sort of morass of 15 to 24 where any of GMs are interchangeable and the differences between Garstow and, you know,

wherever we have a number 15 is probably negligible at best. But, yeah, it's a way to see an approach with him to see if he can recapture that magic. Yeah, no, it's, I'm sure that I'm going to change my opinion on Garstow as a GM, at least like 10 more times between now and the end of his tenure and at the long island. So I want to talk a little bit about Ray Shiro and Jim Rutherford here. And let's lump them together because even though, you know, Shiro is in like the low 20s, I guess high 20s depending on how you look at it and Rutherford's much higher, it's interesting to me.

You know, we talked about how a guy like Pyridorian, for example, inherits certain players. and like Ray Shiro was around and responsible for putting much of this Penguins team together. Obviously you can make the argument that, you know, Jim Rutherford's done some really good stuff in terms of coming in and, you know, acquires Nick Benino, Carl Haglin, you know, Trevor Daly. Like he makes all these moves for guys that have been very useful and what the team really needed because they had Crosby and Malkin for all those years. but they really struggled with finding guys to support them. And they were always like really banking on these veterans, like a gin line, Morrow and Douglas Murray. And it was all the stuff where you're like, you have the important stuff.

Now just make all these smart little moves. But sometimes those ones can be the most elusive for some of these GMs. Exactly. And so Cheryl is an example of someone who was really hurt by the 2012, 2013 cutoff. A lot of those moves they made, you know, Chris Littang and, sorry, escaping the Oli Mata You know Draft picks like that

Don't show up in this And so you know What moves did he make in the last two Two years in the time With Pittsburgh And you know Things that really didn't move the needle And right

You know Actually pulled the team further away From a championship contention And so when we looked at that In aggregate Plus also his moves in New Jersey You know most of the moves are relatively decent But New Jersey hasn't really done anything

To say oh that's a much more improved team other than the Taylor Hall trade, you know, the rest of the team was, like, declining or just boring because all get out. And so it's really hard to say, you know, allocate credit to him for that. So I think, yeah, so we had a sort of longer window. He'd be much higher than rankings, but over the last five years, we really can't say, like, yeah, this guy, we traded. If he switched places with Bob Murray and Anaheim, that team would be much better in that

time span. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I mean, it's so tough for him because obviously he inherited a pretty, bad situation in New Jersey and that team isn't necessarily looking poised to make any sort of relevant noise for a few years here. But at the same time, I look at most of the moves he's done. And it's funny how it's changed because towards the end of Sherro's tenure in Pittsburgh, I was like, they need to replace him because he isn't doing the job to put them over the hum, which is what Rutherford did. But now I look at most of his moves in New Jersey and I like them.

It's all small stuff, right? It's like, you know, you get Bo Bennett for nothing and he's like a useful third line or like you know you sign johan obitu out of like he's playing in finland and you know they didn't really use him as much as i would have liked but it's like small interesting little stuff that he's done really well obviously uh the taylor hall trade is a home run it'll be interesting to see if they do wind up you know cashing in uh cori schneider for future pieces now and as well as value still really high and to me and to me that's a perfect example of a move that probably should be made and it's like a okay like can you actually you know commit to doing it given the direction of the team.

That, to me, jumps them up, at least five, six spots in the rank is because you recognize the direction of your team. You got assets for, you know, a great goalie who could probably give you a lot in the market right now. Can you do what is necessary to make her team a better contender for long term?

The Taylor Hall of trade was definitely a great first step. And as you said, there's a lot of incremental moves along the way that I think had put the devils in a position to be able to succeed in the future. Right. They just haven't panned out quite yet or happened quite yet.

Even the Taylor Hall straight, you know, as far as this. I mean, Taylor had a sort of down year. We also just look at the talent around and was like, well, you didn't put him in the best position to succeed because you don't have the other players there quite yet. So will he be there long enough to see it through? Hopefully for him. But, you know, that's a way to see approach as well. I think that's fair. I think I haven't had, you know, too many issues with this list.

I think it's, you know, obviously the methodology is well thought out. And I agree with most of it. I think you guys had Doug Wilson a bit. too low. He's 17th. Yeah. Listen, I get the argument against him. At the same time, I'm such a sucker for, you know, we see this so rarely in pro sports where there's like patience involved and actually seeing stuff through.

And often, you know, some of these guys like Dean Lombardian and Ken Holland get praised for loyalty, but like it's for all the wrong reasons where they're just like signing these guys who aren't actually worth the money to long. long term deals as a sign of good faith for what they've done for the franchise. Whereas I think we should be more praising like the type of loyalty that Doug Wilson has actually and the San Jose Sharks organization has shown in terms of like they had so many opportunities to just completely blow everything up about year after year of unfortunate playoff disappointment. And you know last year it was finally rewarded.

They made that magical run obviously fell short. but still it was, you know, took the franchise to a whole new heights. This year with injuries, I think it didn't go as planned or as we would have hoped. But like, I don't know. I like the job he's done. So that one was definitely a difficult one. But, you know, your interpretation and loyalty in my mind of inertia and sort of, you know, wanted to make a move, which is not, you know, finding the market to do.

That is fair. Yes. I think if he had his druthers about it. Right. And Doug Wilson couldn't move Joe Thornton and Patrick Marlowe after they lost a series of the Kings. I think he would have. Yes. And we're talking to a very different story.

With that being said, I 100% agree that you just look at those players outside of Thornton and Marlowe. You take Logan Couture, Favilski, you know, Thomas Hurdle, you know, there's sort of Brent Burns' acquisition and signing. extension. You know, those moves, even the Martin Jones trade, like those moves have all made that team relevant much longer than they should have been in comparison to the rest of their peers. Right. You know, one of the arguments I had in Marquisition in Van Hack was that San Jose was

able to sort of hold the fort while Chicago and L.A. just sort of fell by the wayside. Yeah. Last year, which is why they were able to make that cup run, is because he's been able to sort refresh that pipeline over and over again with his infusion of talent. That's made it seem much better, you know, for the past 10 years. You look at the possession stats, all the advanced numbers, San Jose is either top two or three in literally all those top metrics. And so he deserves a lot of credit.

And once again, we're sort of in that area where all of the GMs, you started to shuffle them, and you really start to get, you're going to get a pretty good GM no matter what. You know, there's a reason why these guys still have jobs, even at two ups and downs of the team. Yeah. So I'm looking further down this list, and, you know, it's a lot of the names you're.

to expect. Like I, it's interesting because there are some guys like Mark Bergerna, for example, where he's like the range of outcomes for all his moves are so diverse where he makes moves that you love. Yeah. And you're like, that is a fantastic smart move. And then he trades B.K. Sue Ann for Shea Weber.

So the big, so the big pushback we got for Berger's in particular was we had his strength as player development. Yeah. And Canadian Twitter is like, oh my God, what the hell is like this song, listen, listen is invalidated. And I can understand the thought process, especially around Alex Galchayneuk, and sort of, you know, even PKK, sort of how that saga ended for the team. But when you look at the team in comparison to 2012, 2013, you know, you basically carry prices peak, whereas just carry price and a bunch of other guys on the team in PK. The team's possession metrics have gotten significantly better over the past couple years.

So the five-on-five numbers It got much better And even in the year that Price went out last year The team was actually pretty good on ice They just had horrible goalotining And pretty unreliable And a lot of that was made

Without sort of big-time free agent signings Big-time trades It was sort of just in-house development So we gave them a lot of credit for that But I could definitely see The argument where, you know, Canadian fans said these guys deserve to be fired We would have won two or three championships by now

If it had not been him at the helm So it's kind of hard to tell. I mean, like the Claude Julian signing, you know, I think most people agree that's upgrading coach. We didn't really put a rating for that in the rankings. But, you know, I think that's the right direction for the team. And it's just hoping that, you know, even with this wherever trade and the contract that will sort of hang around team for the long term, you know, can they build around that.

Well, I think even beyond, obviously, I agree that going from Michelle Tarian to Claude Julian as an upgrade, the thing that I love about it and, you know, if you were a pro-Bershman guy this is the point you'd be making is that I like the boldness of it where it's like they were like a pretty successful team up until that point in the regular season and all of a sudden like you you you just don't see teams typically do that where they just fire their coach while they're still winning and replace him with another guy like you just teams don't do that it's like it's not classy it's not it's not it's not it's not a conservative approach and that's why guys generally refrain from doing that and he saw a chance to strike and he realized that if i don't if i don't

snatch up cloud julian here is someone probably else well within the next week or whatever. Like I remember there was a report that I think Florida was talking about. Like I'm sure Vegas was interested. Yeah. And to your exact point, you know, as we served earlier, GM sort of have this incentive to, you know, make moves that maybe aren't best for the long-term future of the franchise to save their jobs. And as you said, it's a very conservative approach. And Virgin Man took the opposite attack and said, make this very aggressive move to upgrade my coaching significantly.

And, you know, I'm at risk getting fired anyway. So what's the worst that could happen? He has no downside in that particular situation, so I think it makes perfect sense. I do think, you know, the argument against him, like, beyond, like, specific trade and stuff is that, like, they had this pretty clearly defined window where, you know, like, Price and Patchretti were making way less than they probably should and will. So they had this, like, window where they could take advantage of that to build around them. And I don't think that they clearly didn't take advantage of that. I mean, some of it is, you know, Price gets injured, for example, and all the stuff that, unforeseen stuff that we've been. mentioned earlier happens but now like you know they have one more year of price and then they're

probably going to have to pay a lot to keep him and patty ready two more years and he's like the best one of the best values in the league right now making like four and a half million per year he's going to like nearly double that as well and all of a sudden now what i'll say in defense maybe not in defense but you know uh goaltending is the beer goggles of an hlgm yes you look at situations significantly differently depending on how your goaltending's play out i can guarantee you that Ottawa is probably looking at this year's like cup run or Nashville's looking at this year's cup run and saying, yeah, you know, Pecker-R-R-Nas has a couple of good years left. And, you know, let's hold off on juicy sorrows.

Like, goaltending skews a lot of evaluations of sort of the team quality. And once that bottom falls out, you know, you start to say, oh, there's a panic. Like, you know, the team's actually pretty good or pretty bad. You just had great goaltending. I think Kerry Price sort of, you know, diluted. And Bersivant is thinking he had a better team than he did. probably preventing them from making the correct moves. And then now that he realized that I can't use carry price as a crutch,

well, now you start to see movements in the other direction. It's like, okay, I need to sort of build around it. It just made me too late, as you said. Yeah, yeah. You know what's interesting? I've come around on Brian McClellan quite a bit. You guys had him at 10, which is a perfectly reasonable ranking. I think, you know, for example, if they get over the hump

and they win the cup last year or this year, he sort of gets that, Jim Rutherford, Bob, I feel like, where he's, yeah, he's, he's top three to five.

The thing that I found interesting is like you had, the best attribute is UFA's for him. And, you know, we mentioned earlier in the show how tough it is to rely on that as being your skill because you're generally like

overpaying guys at the wrong point of their career and it's not something you want to get into their business to doing. But he, you know, he was the assistant GM, so he was obviously around for, for building this team with George McPhee. But George McPhee's undoing

undoing was not being able to supplement Ovechkin and Baxter with the complimentary pieces, you know, makes the Forsberg trade, you know, gives up a guy like Cody Eakin, for example, for like a year and a half of Mike Ribeiro, he does all this stuff that doesn't wind up working out and he's out. And Brian McClellan comes in and, you know, someone else brought up this point. But like every summer he's been on the job, he's sort of like, he's kind of called his shot where he's like, this summer we really need to improve

our, you know, top six right wing. and he gets Justin Williams gets T.J.O. She does all this stuff. He's like, we need to improve our defense, gets Matt Niskin in, like we need to improve our third line center and he trades for Lars Eller. So he does all this stuff. So he's kind of a badass in that regard,

which kind of maybe might be biasing me, giving me a little bit of bias. But also like, it's so, it's so tough. It's so tough having these discussions about the capitals always because it's like all this stuff and you factor it in and then it's like, yeah, but they have, then they haven't won. Soundifuri signifying nothing.

Yeah, no, it's very difficult for the capitals because there's very few people who view that, you know, Penn's Capp series outside of game 7 and thought that the caps didn't deserve the win. Right. As they said in the wire, deserve and got nothing to do with it, you know, we really like the, especially like the aggressiveness for the Shad Kirk trade, whereas like, hey, you know, was that, you know, was that, I wasn't of the idea that Shack Kirk was the ideal fit or the need that they needed to fix. for that team particularly. But at that price, you know, the downside risk was minimal. I mean, they basically got the worst case scenario out that trade. But it was the right move to make at the time. And that's really where we looked at a lot of these things where even if it didn't pan out,

did that move make sense to Justin Williams move? You know, even Justin Williams would have been an anchor and stuff and wouldn't have performed, you know, he's like 36 now. So that very easily could have gone the wrong way. However, it's worked out spectacularly for the team. So it's like, okay, well, you got the best case scenario. that but that was a right move to make regardless of the outcome and so I think McClellan in particular has been able to sort of out of the nine or ten moves you know nine moves got nine out of ten of them

right and I think like we try to credit him for that but but also acknowledging that you know they still haven't been able to bear the fruits of that labor in particular yeah um okay one final thing and then we're going to move on to a different topic but I do want to talk a bit about David poyle who you guys said number one yeah um and there's a few interesting things with him. I mean, if you're going to be a detractor or a negative Nancy here, you could point to the fact that he's had nearly 20 years to accomplish what they've accomplished right now, which I think, you know, we've made a lot of snap judgments in the

show so far about guys like Jim Benning and Don Sweeney and all and going so on and so forth after just like three or four years of them being at the helm. Maybe in 15, 16 years, if they had the luxury of maintaining that job, we'd be doing them differently. So you could definitely make that argument. At the same time, here's my counter. And he said this yesterday, which is really funny, because it happened so recently. But during the media availability scrum for the Stanley Cup final, he talked about the trades he's made. And he basically, I don't think I've heard a GM other than Daryl Morey discussed the endowment effect as eloquently as he did, just discussing that, you know, it's very easy to fall in love

with your players and we make a concerted effort to sort of evaluate them critically without all of these biases involved and I just it just spoke to me so much because that's like the issue that I have with so many of these trades and moves and teams being conservative it all comes from the place of like just overvaluing your own assets exactly yeah and and you're 100% right that that's something that you know be fails and pretty much every GM across all sports Like, hey, I love the guy. I looked him from junior. You know, picked him in the back round, the second round.

And this is my guy. A perfect example was when the Spurs acquired Kauai Leonard, you know, was the top five, you know, top five MVP. Actually, I think top two MVP candidate this year. And to get him, Greg Popovich had to trade away his favorite player. And he cried. And it was, you know, it's a very soft story about trading away his favorite point guard to get this unknown guy that no one ever heard of and no one really expected.

what the player is today. But he did it and the team is much better for it. Bill Belichick does this every year where basically outside of time, Brady. Like, if you don't have Brady and 12 on the back of your jersey, more than likely you're not going to be on the Patriots for more than two or three years. So it has its turnaround every year. And same thing with Poyle, where he looked at a guy like Seth Jones. Hey, this guy's number four pick.

Probably should have went number one in 2013. You know, way I can give him up. He's going to be a replacement for Shea Weber and, you know, decides that the market was right to move him for Ryan Johanson. Same thing for Shay Weber. Hey, this guy's the heart of the franchise. No way we can trade them. Except the market was right to move him for a better current player

and better player in the long term for P.K. Subon. A lot of GMs can't do that. And a lot of GMs don't have the organizational support to be able to do that. So that as you alluded to. But as I said, we also looked at it specifically for the last five years. And even those trades and acquisitions and draftics in the last five years, you know, Forzburg and Arbiton and all those guys.

You know, that's on his track record as well. well. And so that sort of made it, you know, basically a one to almost a virtual tie between him and Steve Arismid. But because he's willing to make those moves, it sort of worked out for the team. And now they're reaping the fruits of that labor. Yeah. No, listen, I mean, I get it. Like, it's, it's very easy for us with nothing on the line here to be like, you know, you need to value players this way or you need to make these moves. But it's, like, very understandable, you know, spend, you're around these guys every day. There's, like, a legitimate emotional attachment, especially, like, imagine what it must have taken.

for David Poyle to come to grips with trading Shay Weber. Like it's like you drafted this guy in the middle of second round. He's been there for a decade. He's like the face of the franchise. Like he fits in perfectly with everything. And then, you know, you realize that the value is, like you have to make this move because you generally not can be able to get a P.K. Suban for Shay Weber. But at the same time, like it must be tough to actually pull the trigger on it. And more importantly, how do you go into the locker room and have guys now look over

their shoulders and say, well, they can trade Shay, they can trade me. and are you going to get all in by and then we sort of undervalue chemistry especially in an analytics community but that's something that people think about I work in HR like people ask me about that all the time like hey do I say I have a job like it's something that's important but

when you are able to go to the team and say hey we're doing this for this and it's clearly a win and you're able to sort of package it in the right way and then they can see the on ice effects and the results of it then that's sort of easier to do and I think he has built up enough track record in that 20 years for people to give them the benefit of doubt and you know

go predates. Yeah, I think that's fair. Before we get out of here, I did want to talk with you a bit about, it's sort of like, it's been a subplot of the NHL playoffs. You know, especially as they've gone along here, people, you know, have been making the comparisons to the NBA playoffs, for example. And there's, there's, it's, it's been in the backdrop for a few years now, this idea of parity and the differences between the two sports and which is the better

alternative or what you'd prefer as a fan. And I think it's a fascinating discussion. I don't, you know, it's all sort of personal preferences, subjective. So there isn't like, I guess you could view it based on, on revenue and ratings. And you could, that would be an objective approach. But in terms of a fan interest, you could, it's all personal preference. Yeah. But I think that, you know, in NHO, we see a lot of, it's like the king of parody where it's,

anything can really happen. As long as you get into the playoffs, you know, get a hot goal, you get a few bounces, maybe some injuries. like there's so much volatility involved whereas an NBA playoffs for the third straight year we're the same final but it's also like there's been a running joker it's like wake me up when the finals come because you know the cabs lost once on the way the warriors still undefeated yeah and it was it was it's it's been like it's been written already like we knew this was going to happen um so i don't know like where are you at with it which which system do you prefer and is there a solution if you think it

even needs it. I mean, so I will agree with the critics that this year's playoffs have been not, the NBA playoffs has not been as exciting. Like last year's playoffs, which had ended up with the same outcome, were much more exciting, especially from the Golden State standpoint, where they

had to their clear rival to get and overcome before they played the Cavs. They had to play Oklahoma City in one of the great series. I remember watching. There was that clear number two team in the West. And so, the half of them has been pretty easy. So yeah, it was pretty predictable and people could have, you know, you put money down to Vegas.

All the money would have gone towards this matchup in particular. My counterpoint to that was for the NHL fans, you know, the please like my sport fans were no one was complaining when the Islanders won 19 series in a row in the 80s. And then they followed that up with four straight Oilers championships and stuff. And everyone's harkening to go back to those days. It's like, oh, Greske, you know, oh, uh, Mike Bossie, you know, and the Canadians right before that. And so, as you said, it really depends on your personal preference. I don't think, in particular in the NBA, I don't really think there's a great way to say, oh, you know, we shouldn't have all the best players on one team. Right.

We're going through these GM rankings, and, you know, people were talking about going to save the super team. Well, look at how they got these players. You know, Seth Curry was a guy that failed number seven in the draft, was passed over twice by Minnesota, who picked two clearly inferior point guards to not get him. and then, you know, pick Clay Thompson, Drayman Green is the second round pick. You have all these moves

that sort of went right for that team because they had a clear vision and direction. And then they were able to have Kevin Durant, but they won 73 games last year without him.

So, you know, it's not like, you know, NBA just concocted, hey, I'm going to make Oakland and Cleveland the centers of the universe. Yeah, it just sort of happened that way. Same thing with the Bronn.

He played from 2003 to 2009 in Cleveland without winning the championship because they couldn't find players around him. Now that he has him, oh crap lebrons a really good player and with other good players around him he's even better yeah and so i don't really see a clear clear path forward for the NBA and then the nchel like you know do you

outlaw goading i mean i think with more scoring i think you sort of minimize the fact of one hot goalie in a particular series but until you do that i don't really see something better and i think both systems work for both both sports i'm sure the nashel will love to have more predictability and sort of builds narratives around the stars i'm sure that NBA would love to have a little bit more excitement and drama and leading to the end conclusion. But I don't think either one is going to straight off, you know, sort of what the outcome was for this year.

Yeah. I think I'm pro-super teams. Because, like, I see the argument that, you know, it's not interesting. And the thing that NHL has going forward that, you know, fans of every team, as long as you make the playoffs, you can hold out hope that your team could eventually make a long run and win the cup because they have a like a fighting chance and an NBA you know if you're a fan of the Indiana Pacers or something like you you weren't going to beat the Cavs this year in the first round so it's what's the what's the point really right but like I think we're in agreement

that stars drive fan interest right and and from a storytelling perspective like I just think that it's a far more interesting and engaging plot that you know you're you're watching greatness You're watching these teams that are capable of stuff that is like the absolute pinnacle of the sport as opposed to just settling for a lot of like not mediocrity, but, you know, it's below in terms of quality, I think. And I think actually to let me correct, I said the NHL couldn't do anything to fix it. I would say what the NHL could do is sort of free agency and NHL is just broken to me. To be honest, you know, I can't think of the last top 10 player in the league who's actually moved as a free agent. And so when Stephen Stamco's, for example, came up for a contract extension with Tampa Bay, I would have loved for him to potentially go to Toronto, you know,

imagine him and Matthews on the same team or, you know, sort of floated services to the different teams to have their sort of free agent meetings and everybody's flying in and out of, you know, Tampa or wherever he lives and sort of have that intrigue and say, hey, you know, even the, we see this with the Pink was now when they got Phil Kessel, who's clearly by far, you know, that they're best player on that team. But that added some excitement. having an intrigue and hey Sydney Cross is a really good player

maybe we should add other great players around them and really see that on the national stage and so I think improving that process and sort of removing that owner as restrictive free agent restrictions and tricking gods and Hamas Linholm and something like six year contracts and have their value

I think in the long run that HERSA NHL product because not only during the championships in the playoffs but even in the summertime there's nothing to talk about because everything is a fail uncompleted and everyone knows so that everyone knows the outcome for a free agency but doesn't know the outcome for playoffs and I think the NBA model is a little bit

better where hey you have no idea if Chris Paul's going to stay with his team or you know if LeBron's going to leave oh when he went to Cleveland no one saw that coming but now the league is in a much better place for it well I think that you know this could probably be like a full topic for a full podcast

but I think that the you mentioned the restricted free agent system and I think that there has there hasn't really been a recalibration yet and like there's an advantage there for teams to take advantage of it right now until there is but like you know recently the compensation structure was released for what you have to pay what you have to give up in terms of picks if you sign a guy and it hasn't like nearly adjusted enough for how valuable the guys in question are because of

what we know with aging curves and the most productive years where like if you're able to just pluck a guy who's 22, 23 or whatever and is about to like hit his peak right then for a few years, that's way more valuable than whatever these, whatever these picks you're going to wind up giving up for them, right? So it's, but then you reach the issue where it's like, I don't want to say necessarily collusion, but it's like you see this where the NHL is all about class and sportsmanship and stuff. And so you don't see GMs trying to steal players from their peers in that manner. You know, when we saw the Ryan O'Reilly thing, it was like a whole whole thing.

Like, I can't believe this happened. Like, it's like, I think the sooner we reach a level where teams are willing to do that sort of stuff and we see more movement like that, it's going to create so much more fan interest and relevance. And I think the entire process is going to be so much more engaging. And ultimately, that is a good thing for the NHL, even if, you know, you know, there's some hurt feelings involved. Yeah, I mean, that's exactly it.

I think, you know, the Ryan O'Reilly sock was, you know, interesting to see play out. But it's like, I was hoping that, you know, Truba or Kuturoff or Lenthoam, but someone would push back and their agent would push back and say, no, I'm worth, you know, if I was out on the open market today, I'm worth $8 million a year. Yeah. You know, give me, you know, $7 million or whatever.

I'll give you a hometown discount. But it's supposed somebody sort of puts their neck on the lawn like that. I mean, I hope John Savaris can do that to sort of push. because, you know, the rising top lifts all boats and we see this in every other sport but the NHL where, you know, this sort of big-time free agents sort of sets the market and everyone benefits in the long run because of it, even the owners. But until somebody does that and someone has the guts to do it, it's not going to happen. Yeah.

Well, I'm holding out hope. I think, you know, as we see, to put a ball on this, we were talking about GMs and front offices. we were talking about how they're becoming more progressive and we're seeing more people involved and it's headed in the right direction slowly but surely and I think that eventually we'll reach that point. I don't know, it's fascinating because I'm looking, so like last year, for example,

the RFA compensation for a guy from 5.6 million to 7.5, which is presumably what like Anakita Kucharov fairly should have gone for was a first second and a third. Yeah. if you called if you called the Llambo Bay Lightning and you're like I'm going to give you a first second and third

for Nikita Kutrov see if I's going to probably hang up instead Right exactly So it's funny to me that He wasn't signed to an offer sheet and Yeah I mean And yeah as you said There's a lot of conservatism within the GM ranks

And so even you know just a quick example To wrap it up was when Martin Hansel was traded from Arizona to Minnesota, you know, Minnesota got, or Arizona got back in the first and second round pick. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. But why wouldn't you sort of backload those and wait a year or two to get those? You know, Minnesota's okay this year. But, you know, wait a year or two, wait for Souter and Paris to age out

and basically do what the Boston Celtics did, where they're the number one team in the league this year and also have the number one pick and the drive because they were smart enough to say, hey, five years from now, this team that's going all in. it's probably not going to be that great. But, you know, that's just not how GMs think. And so you sort of disconservatism sort of, you know. Well, and you want instant rewards, right?

Yeah, exactly. We talked about maybe if you do that five years from now, when those picks come to fruition, you're not going to be there. Yeah, but I think you can't, no one should be going through their jobs. Like, I'm not trying to get fired. You know, you're trying to. Speak for yourself. Well, yeah.

You try to go for glory. And at the end of the day, you go to win a championship. And if you don't ultimately deliver on that, you know, you may get the lifeline that Dave Poe got, but for most part, you know, you're not going to be long enough to see to see it through anyway. I think every time I pull up my Twitter app on my phone, I say it to myself, don't get fired to me. Oh, well, yeah.

With this while we don't hang out as much of me. Chris, man, thanks for, thanks for taking time. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, appreciate you, man. Yeah, we'll get you back on sometime here down the road. And, you know, if you ever get on Twitter, please let me know, and I'll blog that Twitter handoff. Okay.

The hockey. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and all. SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash HockeyPedioCast.