The Athletic just published a (paywalled) piece ranking the "Classes" of General Managers in the salary cap era. (As in, "Here's the Class of 2014, when Brian MacLennan, Joe Sakic, Ron Frances, etc. became general managers.) It's a weird way to rank GMs, but whatever. BMac's class was #1 out of 18. Mostly due to success, but also due to entertainment value, seeing as how some of GMs (Hextall, Benning) ran total clown shows. (This is a worthless filler article/ranking, but whatever, it's the offseason.)
1. Class of 2014
GMs: Tim Murray (BUF), Joe Sakic (COL), Jim Benning (VAN), Jim Rutherford (PIT), Brian MacLellan (WSH), Ron Hextall (PHI), Ron Francis (CAR), Brad Treliving (CGY)
What sets this class apart was that seven of eight went on to hold their job for a while, with only Murray being short-lived. Everyone else was still going strong by 2018, when I
wrote a piece evaluating them. Not all of that has aged well, which is probably a lesson on counting chickens too early. Years later, we know this group combined for four Cups (and counting, I guess, since MacLellan is still on the job). The other theme here was retired players returning to their former teams; Francis and Hextall were both fine but not fantastic, while Sakic went from being viewed as
one of the league’s weakest GMs to maybe its very best by the time he stepped aside. Also, Murray bumps the entertainment score just based on his soundbites.
Impact: 7/10
Success: 10/10
Entertainment: 7/10, because how can you not love a GM who says
stuff like this?
Total: 24/30
