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2019/20 Roster Thread XXIX | Page 7 | HFBoards - NHL Message Board and Forum for National Hockey League
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2019/20 Roster Thread XXIX

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BiggE said:
I have no doubt that Chuck Fletcher can build a solid team, a team that will finish with around 100-105 points and maybe win a playoff round now and then. However, I have little faith that he’s the guy who can build a perennial contender that can win a Stanley Cup.

I hope he proves me wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.
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Can you name me a GM who builds a perennial cup contender each year? I am not a fletcher guy but there’s an unrealistic version of a GM in fans mind out that doesn’t really exist in the real world. St Louis won the cup last year but Doug Armstrong would have been killed for the Schenn deal and especially for promoting Berube. Some would have even complained about acquiring the “overrated” Oreilly.

For the record, I don’t have confidence in Fletcher because I don’t think he will ever fix the forward position in time. But it will have nothing to do with him being a genius or a doofus. He needs to get insanely lucky at the draft and since he will never tank, he is lowering his odds of getting lucky.
 
So far Fletcher hasn't made the win now moves that led to stagnation in Minnesota, though to be fair he didn't inherit a deep prospect pool and he had an owner breathing down his neck.

Most of the complaints are pretty minor, a standard overpay for Hayes, who if they knew about Patrick was a "must sign," ($1M a year and all the top FAs got NM clauses), Braun was a slight overpay (if they wanted, they could probably get 2 3rd rd picks at the TDL for 20 games), Niskanen was a steal, TK and Provorov were great deals, Sanheim was the right move as he hasn't proven worthy of a big money long-term deal yet. Pitlick was a smart pickup, Stewart was a non-move (he cost Andreoff a few games). As far as NAK, his demotion lit a fire, that's the best he's played including last year and TC.

His best move may well turn out to be passing over Caufield to obtain York and Brink. Not sure Caufield will end up a better player than Brink.
If Millman pans out, that could be a draft up there with the 2015 draft that landed Provorov and TK.
 
The biggest issue with Fletcher is that he’s so quickly exposed his awful judgement and evaluation skills. So while he may not have done anything crippling to the teams future yet, there’s tons of cause for concern and no rational reason to have blind faith in him.

Nobody expects him to build a contender in a year, but even the low bar of simply showing that he can be trusted to do the right thing and recognize what matters hasn’t been cleared. That doesn’t mean he’ll do everything wrong, but it certainly shows that you can’t assume he’ll make the right choice for any individual decision.
 
Psuhockey said:
Can you name me a GM who builds a perennial cup contender each year? I am not a fletcher guy but there’s an unrealistic version of a GM in fans mind out that doesn’t really exist in the real world. St Louis won the cup last year but Doug Armstrong would have been killed for the Schenn deal and especially for promoting Berube. Some would have even complained about acquiring the “overrated” Oreilly.

For the record, I don’t have confidence in Fletcher because I don’t think he will ever fix the forward position in time. But it will have nothing to do with him being a genius or a doofus. He needs to get insanely lucky at the draft and since he will never tank, he is lowering his odds of getting lucky.
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Not here to shit stir, but there are some talented GMs out there that can do it. Obviously, there is a bit of luck involved but David Poile comes to mind as one of the better GMs in the league. He hasnt won anything, which is a shame, but hes built a small market in to a hockey mecca of sorts ( if you havent watched a game at bridge stone, put it on the list. It's an experience, to say the keast). Stan bowman did a hell of a job to keep the hawks contenders for quite some time. Likewise, Dean Lombardi, albeit to a lesser extent. Doug Wilson has kept the sharks contenders-competitors for what seems like forever. Kekalainen has done a great job of keeping the jackets at least competitive for a long time, even if last summer wasnt quite what he hoped. Bob Murray's has also done a fairly good job of keeping a competitive team for a lengthy stretch.

The NHL isnt a sport like the NFL where you can have lengthy dynasties, I dont think. The cap, coupled with short careers and short memories tends to lend itself to an environment where GMs get attached to players and overcommit to them. Bowman did a great job for the early part of the 2010s to keep the hawks a contender for the better part of about 7 years by not being attached to fan favorites ( and, to be fair, the fortuitous drafting that came before) . But a GMs job is to set a team up for success in the near, and more importantly, long term. Holmgren was great at short, hextall at long. Let them have a baby (dont ask) and that's one hell of a GM.
 
bobbythebrain said:
Not all that long ago players weren't even allowed to be drafted until they were 19,and didn't see the NHL till 21.

But sure, the kid w/ 40 pro games under his belt is clearly a huge mistake by the coaching staff

Seasoning rookies, unless they were exceptional, has garnered tons of amazing results. Rushing players has proven to be a mistake also
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Where do you come up with this stuff? Teenagers have played and excelled in the NHL since the beginning of time.

There is no evidence anywhere that "rushing" rookies has proven to be a mistake.
 
Starat327 said:
Not here to **** stir, but there are some talented GMs out there that can do it. Obviously, there is a bit of luck involved but David Poile comes to mind as one of the better GMs in the league. He hasnt won anything, which is a shame, but hes built a small market in to a hockey mecca of sorts ( if you havent watched a game at bridge stone, put it on the list. It's an experience, to say the keast). Stan bowman did a hell of a job to keep the hawks contenders for quite some time. Likewise, Dean Lombardi, albeit to a lesser extent. Doug Wilson has kept the sharks contenders-competitors for what seems like forever. Kekalainen has done a great job of keeping the jackets at least competitive for a long time, even if last summer wasnt quite what he hoped. Bob Murray's has also done a fairly good job of keeping a competitive team for a lengthy stretch.

The NHL isnt a sport like the NFL where you can have lengthy dynasties, I dont think. The cap, coupled with short careers and short memories tends to lend itself to an environment where GMs get attached to players and overcommit to them. Bowman did a great job for the early part of the 2010s to keep the hawks a contender for the better part of about 7 years by not being attached to fan favorites ( and, to be fair, the fortuitous drafting that came before) . But a GMs job is to set a team up for success in the near, and more importantly, long term. Holmgren was great at short, hextall at long. Let them have a baby (dont ask) and that's one hell of a GM.
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Fletcher left Minnesota with the second longest active playoff streak in the NHL — 6 straight.

It was his first NHL GM job. If you like Poile, there are a lot of similarities.
 
baudib1 said:
Where do you come up with this stuff? Teenagers have played and excelled in the NHL since the beginning of time.

There is no evidence anywhere that "rushing" rookies has proven to be a mistake.
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My apologies, poor wording. It wasn't that they can't be drafted, but teams generally didn't drat as many 18 year olds or push them into the NHL. I did state that exceptions were made . In 1980 only one 18 year old was drafted

Also, from before 87, there was a rule you could only draft 18/19 year olds in the first 3 rounds unless the player met a certain criteria, so teams generally were drafting older anyways

Evidence? How about Pit. Sheary, Guentzel, Rust, Dumoulin. And their current success of picking off 22+ year olds like Petterson, Marino, Kahun, Galchenyuk, Schultz, etc

Maybe the people screaming Sanheim was ready at 21, Frost is a 1st line C at 20, and Cart was a shoe in at 20 aren't 100% correct

So when a GM actually says something "stupid" like people claim Hex did with his marinating plan, or Fletch is sayiung about Frost..perhaps it isn't stupid at all?
 
Ghosts Beer said:
Yes, 4 points in your last 5 AHL games ( a pt in 4 of last 5) is hot & will probably help get you consideration for an injury call-up, especially if you play the same position as the guy who got injured.

4 points in your last 9 NHL games isn’t hot, & isn’t going to protect you from a demotion if they don’t trust your play away from the puck, you went pointless in 3 of your last 4, & have only 7 pts in 18 games overall in an important C role.

And of course points aren’t the only basis for call-ups & demotions.
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I understand people questioning Frosts's D in the NHL... he was not great in own zone.

BUT it is pretty hard to question his offense.

7 in 18 playing the minutes he did is about as much as you can expect. /60 he produced at 2nd line level. And per game at good 3C level.

He also created a LOT of chances while on ice.
 
Frost showed flashes and had some bad puck luck. The kid can create. His defense was shaky. But he needs to be back up sometime this season. He needs NHL time.
 
It seems like some people don’t understand what that cliche “the NHL isn’t a developmental league” is actually supposed to mean.

It doesn’t mean that players can’t develop there. They can and we’ve seen more than enough proof of that.

What it really means is that player development isn’t the main function of the league, like it is for the OHL, NCAA, USHL, or the AHL. The objective is winning and only winning. It’s not a league to prepare guys for the next level because it’s already the ultimate top level.

If a player can play at this level without being clearly overwhelmed and their presence is a positive net impact on the team, then there’s no reason for them to be anywhere else. There isn’t some magical force in the AHL that makes you develop further or quicker, especially when your coach is an absolute disaster. For some players it’s better but it’s not automatically better for all players.
 
Starat327 said:
Holmgren was great at short, hextall at long. Let them have a baby (dont ask) and that's one hell of a GM.
Click to expand...

You know what? Fletch is kinda that guy.

He’s more “action” oriented than Hextall. He”s less trigger happy than Homer.

He had a solid first draft and offseason by drafting a few high ceiling players (and making a shrewd trade to do it), and signed players that have had a positive impact on the team. Stewart is an exception, the experiment went on far too long, but he also did finally cut bait.

He also signed TK and Provy to great contracts. Love both those guys, and TK especially is the heart and soul of the team. Reminds me of a Hartnell type of personality. How good does that move up in the draft by Hextall look now, eh?

Bottom line is that I hope Fletch can be the guy to build a sustainable and relevant team. Homer was fun, always entertaining and competitive, but reckless. Hextall was no fun, brutal on-ice product, and overly cautious.

Maybe this bastard love child can get it done.
 
flyersnorth said:
You know what? Fletch is kinda that guy.

He’s more “action” oriented than Hextall. He”s less trigger happy than Homer.

He had a solid first draft and offseason by drafting a few high ceiling players (and making a shrewd trade to do it), and signed players that have had a positive impact on the team. Stewart is an exception, the experiment went on far too long, but he also did finally cut bait.

He also signed TK and Provy to great contracts. Love both those guys, and TK especially is the heart and soul of the team. Reminds me of a Hartnell type of personality. How good does that move up in the draft by Hextall look now, eh?

Bottom line is that I hope Fletch can be the guy to build a sustainable and relevant team. Homer was fun, always entertaining and competitive, but reckless. Hextall was no fun, brutal on-ice product, and overly cautious.

Maybe this bastard love child can get it done.
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Just about nothing about what Fletcher has done has made me think he is able to marry the two. I'm not going to go on an anti-Fletcher tirade, because some of the moves he's made have looked ok-to-good. I'm comfortable enough to admit that. But a lot of his deals/negotiations and contracts have looked mediocre at best. These debates have been had ad nauseam throughout the summer, so im not really looking (nor interested) in re-hashing them here today. Content to agree to disagree here, there's no point in going through this all again.
 
The second he signed Stewart should have been the second everyone on this board started to doubt him.

There's plenty of other mistakes, but that one should've been the easiest to avoid.
 
Striiker said:
The second he signed Stewart should have been the second everyone on this board started to doubt him.

There's plenty of other mistakes, but that one should've been the easiest to avoid.
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Yeah, signing to a PTO was whatever. Signing him and giving him valuable cap space (after squandering the overage we had) is an inexcusable mistake.

Specifically my issue with Fletcher is his inability to a) use negotiating leverage to his advantage and b) his inability to manage a cap. The fact that we're jumping through hoops for cap space due to injuries (and admittedly, we have more than you can really plan for) despite having so much available to us this summer is laughable. Until Fletcher learns how to build a team with at least a partial eye on the cap, I'll be extremely cautious about anything he does.

The TK and PRovy deals look good, but i don't even know that I give him credit for those, to be honest. They got paid the 'going rate' for players of their ability when they signed the contract. Those players outperforming their peers (so far this season) relative to the deals they signed isnt exactly a gold star for Fletcher. I have a hard time saying "Congrats on signing two players to market level deals, and having them outperform them already!" . Being better than Chiarelli shouldn't be a praise-worthy accomplishment.
 
flyersnorth said:
You know what? Fletch is kinda that guy.

He’s more “action” oriented than Hextall. He”s less trigger happy than Homer.

He had a solid first draft and offseason by drafting a few high ceiling players (and making a shrewd trade to do it), and signed players that have had a positive impact on the team. Stewart is an exception, the experiment went on far too long, but he also did finally cut bait.

He also signed TK and Provy to great contracts. Love both those guys, and TK especially is the heart and soul of the team. Reminds me of a Hartnell type of personality. How good does that move up in the draft by Hextall look now, eh?

Bottom line is that I hope Fletch can be the guy to build a sustainable and relevant team. Homer was fun, always entertaining and competitive, but reckless. Hextall was no fun, brutal on-ice product, and overly cautious.

Maybe this bastard love child can get it done.
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This team still had several holes when Hextall was fired. So far Fletcher has done a solid job filling some of these holes. Would Hextall have signed Hayes and traded for Niskanen and Braun? Maybe.
But he had enough time to make those moves and all he did was sign JVR.
 
Ghosts Beer said:
Fletcher left Minnesota with the second longest active playoff streak in the NHL — 6 straight.

It was his first NHL GM job. If you like Poile, there are a lot of similarities.
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if chicago and la didnt have any talent, minnesota would probably had an easier time to get to the finals and the flyers are no different, we are in a tough division until pittsburgh, boston, tampa bay, washington slows down, only thing fletch can do keep trying to keep moving up and getting more picks in the first round to get more talent. tanking wont work, there's too many holes to fill. hopefully when those teams slow down, all of the talent we aquired in the first round will be playing and we will be over those teams.

that's something i do give hextall credit to aquire more picks in the first round but if he done more we probably wouldnt be a wild card team.
 
Starat327 said:
Yeah, signing to a PTO was whatever. Signing him and giving him valuable cap space (after squandering the overage we had) is an inexcusable mistake.

Specifically my issue with Fletcher is his inability to a) use negotiating leverage to his advantage and b) his inability to manage a cap. The fact that we're jumping through hoops due to injuries (and admittedly, we have more than you can really plan for) despite having so much available to us this summer is laughable. Until Fletcher learns how to build a team with at least a partial eye on the cap, I'll be extremely cautious about anything he does.

The TK and PRovy deals look good, but i don't even know that I give him credit for those, to be honest. They got paid the 'going rate' for players of their ability when they signed the contract. Those players outperforming their peers (so far this season) relative to the deals they signed isnt exactly a gold star for Fletcher. I have a hard time saying "Congrats on signing two players to market level deals, and having them outperform them already!" . Being better than Chiarelli shouldn't be a praise-worthy accomplishment.
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And it’s not even as if he did anything special when he got into this cap problem. A decent but overpaid middle 6 center, an old(ish) defensemen who had a rough previous year and is already appearing to wear down this year, and then an overpayment for another old(ish) dinosaur-style defensemen who is blocking a superior player.

I know some people didn’t care about what moves were made, so long as there were moves, but that’s ridiculous and it’s easy to see the flaws here.

As far as the contracts go, we have to judge them based on what was known at the time because that’s what Fletcher had to work with. Both the TK and Provorov contracts were fine but not steals. TK is outperforming his but Provorov is much trickier to judge. Sanheim should have been long term.
 
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