Do you think you would have outperformed Dorion?

[Sweatred]

I'm shocked you don't feel the same way. You comment like you have every situation figured out and it's all too easy for you.

I bet I can name 1 thing you think you would have handled much better!

Oh for sure … I’m very critical of Dorion in his first few years … some terrible decisions there but I don’t spend much time thinking I’m better at his job than he is.

 

[aragorn]

Exactly what I came here to say. The only positive about this front office seems to be the drafting, but after last year I'm not even sure about that. It would be interesting to compare (over many years) the drafting record of an inanimate object that would just use Bob's list vs what the Sens did.

Didn't they used to have a monkey on TSN throw darts at a list & he did fairly well at drafting?

 

[aragorn]

I think people underestimate the diffiulty of bringing players here unless they draft them & keeping players all the while trying to stay within an internal budget over seen by a dickhead owner. Even with this new board in place, while it's not EM any more they will likely still have to live within an internal budget & most likely it will be tied to revenues & ticket sales. It's easy to criticize, it's much harder to build a team under these circumstances without some luck with the draft & lottery & some luck with very good players still in their prime wanted to play here. Much easier said than done.

 

[Xspyrit]

spicy question, leave your modesty at the door.

No, but my dog would have

 

[Sweatred]

I think people underestimate the diffiulty of bringing players here unless they draft them & keeping players all the while trying to stay within an internal budget over seen by a dickhead owner. Even with this new board in place, while it's not EM any more they will likely still have to live within an internal budget & most likely it will be tied to revenues & ticket sales. It's easy to criticize, it's much harder to build a team under these circumstances without some luck with the draft & lottery & some luck with very good players still in their prime wanted to play here. Much easier said than done.

We gloss over this challange .. especially when we are the type to to grind for streams and we haven’t justified buying a ticket “for a while”…

 

[Wallet Inspector]

Answered yes but the Karlsson trade makes things tricky.

At the time the trade had a typical crappy Dorion return, but Norris surpassed expectations and the Sharks collapsed in 2020. That trade basically saved our rebuild.

 

[KingAlfie11]

No, it's totally different being GM of a real NHL franchise, then being GM in a video game!
Dorion was right about trading Karlsson, I knew that with all his injuries he was not worth an 8 year $11,5M contract
The same with Stone, his got back problems now and who knows what will happen with him
The only players I would've kept is Zibanejad
All in all I think Dorion did a pretty good job, with the budget he has!

 

[Sweatred]

I wonder how may of the 4000 posters who hated the EK trade answer YES ?

I wonder how many of those who voted yes have ever held any position in hockey volunteer or paid.

We should change the vote to include a qualifying point … like..

I think I’m smarter than Dorion and my experience includes:

I was my kids Atom house league manager 7 years ago or .. I assembled a winning roster on EA 2018.

 

[Knave]

"You don't know what you're talking about, you would make a terrible GM. Also knowing everything about Dorion's situation I think he's done a great job given my critical eye". Does anyone else not see the hypocrisy on display here?

 

[Samsquanch]

LOL @ the majority voting yes. Your saying you are literally better than Dorion and a whole TEAM of people . Because we dont know who your Trent and Troy Mann is to draft and develop our team, right lol? And were not sure how well you will simultaneously deal with Melnyks craziness and money problems either LOL.

Not surprising and I do appreciate the honesty that a hidden poll provides. At least we know what we are actually dealing with on the side thats not delusional.

Playing devils advocate here, and pretend we lived in an alternate timeline from early 2017. Kyle Turris would still be making 6+ million per year here today in 2022.

And if we play around in make believe land for a bit more, then Turris along with Zibanejad (the mature superstar version). Karlsson, Stone and Pageau would be our core if we stay truthful to what they would have done at the time in Pierre's shoes.

Add in the star player they would have got in the Hoffman trade (or heck maybe they would have mediated and dampened the drama in the room before if went public.

Then assuming the collapse still obviously happened (Zibby and Turris are meh over Duchene and Brassard) - then add in Byram and Zadina in to the above - and thats the obvious core group of every person who voted yes to this poll.

And dont you dare count Chabot, Batherson, Pinto or Formenton either - those were not obvious picks whatsoever. Credit must go to PD and team.

Thanks but no thanks. Ill take the good with the bad. And we are much sexier with Stutzle, Tkachuk, Norris, Sanderson, Greig - and the guys above + + many other not obvious picks that you and me would not have made.

 

[Sweatred]

"You don't know what you're talking about, you would make a terrible GM. Also knowing everything about Dorion's situation I think he's done a great job given my critical eye". Does anyone else not see the hypocrisy on display here?

I’m sure at least 36 people agree with you here.

 

[Butchy Dakkar]

LOL @ the majority voting yes. Your saying you are literally better than Dorion and a whole TEAM of people . Because we dont know who your Trent and Troy Mann is to draft and develop our team, right lol? And were not sure how well you will simultaneously deal with Melnyks craziness and money problems either LOL.

I said “no” but this is an argument for yes. If I have a team of experts, then it really is about managing and decision making. Successful CEOs aren’t necessarily experts in their company’s domain, they are good at assessing risk and making decisions in a landscape full of constraints, pitfalls, opportunities, with a view to near and long term success for their company (and possibly shareholders). Is Dorion CEO material? I’m not sure about that. Would I be better than Dorion? I’m more of an expert in my field (more expert advisor than manager), so maybe not. But I’m not convinced, I have a lot of leadership experience.

I’m not changing my answer, but I don’t think it’s far fetched to think a non-hockey executive would do better than Dorion has if surrounded by hockey minds.

 

[Sweatred]

Imagine trying to have hockey discussions on a site where a vocal majority and over half the people think there smarter than our GM despite never working in the industry let alone volunteering for their kids IP team.

That probably accounts for half the arguments on this site - when ground neutral begins with “I’m smarter than the games tops exec’s” it doesn’t leave a lot of room to find any realism.

We should show those names - the first 10-15 are obvious … it would make close conversing easier one it was explicitly stated.

 

[lancepitlick]

Pretty sure I'd have been better than Mike Milbury too. How could you be any worse?

 

[Sens Vader]

Imagine trying to have hockey discussions on a site where a vocal majority and over half the people think there smarter than our GM despite never working in the industry let alone volunteering for their kids IP team.

That probably accounts for half the arguments on this site - when ground neutral begins with “I’m smarter than the games tops exec’s” it doesn’t leave a lot of room to find any realism.

We should show those names - the first 10-15 are obvious … it would make close conversing easier one it was explicitly stated.

Im smarter than Dorion, this dude couldn’t even graduate with a sociology degree at Ottawa U

The bar is literally 5 bottom 10 finishes and making a complete fool out of yourself in front of the media every time you’re in front of microphone. Ticket sales tanking and massive churn rates.

If the Mann brothers were with me, I could sit on my hands and shut my mouth and I would run a better organization.

You’d have to define your measure of outperformance, but his managerial skills are quite literally pathetic

Performing worse on ice is almost impossible, so really you’re measuring your ability to manage people and public speak. Two things he is horrible at

The bar for outperformance is so low it’s hard not to say you’d do better. Doing nothing for 6 years would be better. Are we gifted 6 years in the role too in this hypothetical situation?

 

[Sweatred]

Im smarter than Dorion, this dude couldn’t even graduate with a sociology degree at Ottawa U

The bar is literally 5 bottom 10 finishes and making a complete fool out of yourself in front of the media every time you’re in front of microphone. Ticket sales tanking and massive churn rates.

If the Mann brothers were with me. I could sit on my hands and shut my mouth and I would run a better organization.

You’d have to define your measure of outperformance, but his managerial skills are quite literally pathetic

Performing worse on ice is almost impossible, so really you’re measuring your ability to manage people and public speak. Two things he is horrible at

No doubt you believe that.

Im smarter than Dorion, this dude couldn’t even graduate with a sociology degree at Ottawa U

The bar is literally 5 bottom 10 finishes and making a complete fool out of yourself in front of the media every time you’re in front of microphone. Ticket sales tanking and massive churn rates.

If the Mann brothers were with me, I could sit on my hands and shut my mouth and I would run a better organization.

You’d have to define your measure of outperformance, but his managerial skills are quite literally pathetic

Performing worse on ice is almost impossible, so really you’re measuring your ability to manage people and public speak. Two things he is horrible at

The bar for outperformance is so low it’s hard not to say you’d do better. Doing nothing for 6 years would be better. Are we gifted 6 years in the role too in this hypothetical situation?

You may be smarter than Dorion but we aren’t talking about IQ or different forms of intelligence. We’re talking about hockey IQ and what’s required for him to be a GM. He isn’t a manager of people in the typical sense of manager.

If you were smarter than Dorion in hockey IQ you would have been offered a job in the industry.

The hockey world is broad and it finds the people it wants. So think of the sum of your involvement in hockey and that’s a good indicator of what the hockey world thinks of you.

I think we should get you (and the others a special badge). Perhaps Mickler could admin it and give special badges out to those posters who deserve it. It would be wonderful to know when we are talking with someone “smarter than Dorion”.

 

[R2010]

Didn't they used to have a monkey on TSN throw darts at a list & he did fairly well at drafting?

One thing to keep in mind. Our drafting group hasn't really used analytics. And other groups are using them. Teams like Tampa use analytics with their scouting groups to improve things.

Just using a simple single algorithm Bader showed that his algorithm could outperform most NHL teams in drafting over a 10 year period.

What Could Have Been: A Decade Of Drafting With Hockey Prospecting

The Hockey Prospecting model is a new and unique concept. It’s a whole different way of looking at players and evaluating who they are and their potential. It’s also a very new concept …

hockeyprospecting.com

I actually don't agree with his analysis or think that it should be based on an algorithm etc... but if you're scouting staff isn't using that information at all then it starts to be an issue. For posterity sake last year Sillinger had the 2nd highest chance of becoming a future star according to the algorithm.

 

[Knave]

LOL @ the majority voting yes. Your saying you are literally better than Dorion and a whole TEAM of people . Because we dont know who your Trent and Troy Mann is to draft and develop our team, right lol? And were not sure how well you will simultaneously deal with Melnyks craziness and money problems either LOL.

No. The poll is if you would do a better job than Dorion. Not if you could replace 30 people within the organization at once.

Who here is delusional again? I only see a strawman coming from one side.

 

[Sweatred]

Let’s get names and cross check with who opposed the EK trade. I bet there is a 90%+ correlation between those who screamed about the EK deal AND believe they could do better than Dorion.

We could go further and correlate between drafting Brady, Pinto, Sanderson etc etc.

That single trade alone is enough to tip this debate. In the end we end up with 39 posters who think they’re smarter than Dorion who would have drafted Zadina and Signed EK … and that’s before they learn their first lesson in hockey management.

 

[BoardsofCanada]

I am so impressed with the experts on this board who know all the right moves with hindsight. It's so impressive.

So, yes, I do believe the majority who voted yes, but at least acknowledge you need the benefit of hindsight.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

Any regular poster in here that gets a GM or high end, front office job in ECHL, OHL, CHL, AHL, or NHL
I will donate $10,000 to a charity of their choice

 

[Sens Vader]

No doubt you believe that.


You may be smarter than Dorion but we aren’t talking about IQ or different forms of intelligence. We’re talking about hockey IQ and what’s required for him to be a GM. He isn’t a manager of people in the typical sense of manager.

If you were smarter than Dorion in hockey IQ you would have been offered a job in the industry.

The hockey world is broad and it finds the people it wants. So think of the sum of your involvement in hockey and that’s a good indicator of what the hockey world thinks of you.

I think we should get you (and the others a special badge). Perhaps Mickler could admin it and give special badges out to those posters who deserve it. It would be wonderful to know when we are talking with someone “smarter than Dorion”.

I like this badge idea, I think it would make me feel better about myself if I could wear it around everywhere I went.

It would be nice if that Badge also had a button you could press that would have an audio recording of “I’m smarter than Dorion” too. That way people at Dorion’s level of intellectual capacity could understand it too, since the brother can’t read.

It will be interactive and educational. The total whammy

 

[Sweatred]

Any regular poster in here that gets a GM or high end, front office job in ECHL, OHL, CHL, AHL, or NHL
I will donate $10,000 to a charity of their choice

Heck … I was debating something similar if a poster could get picked for novice house league sortout evaluations.

 

[Knave]

Let’s get names and cross check with who opposed the EK trade. I bet there is a 90%+ correlation between those who screamed about the EK deal AND believe they could do better than Dorion.

We could go further and correlate between drafting Brady, Pinto, Sanderson etc etc.

That single trade alone is enough to tip this debate. In the end we end up with 39 posters who think they’re smarter than Dorion who would have drafted Zadina and Signed EK … and that’s before they learn their first lesson in hockey management.

Some of you people are bottom of the barrel.

If the best thing you can say about a GM is he made a trade 4 years ago and it hasn't had any noticeable impact on our standings 4 years later (still in that 25-35 points outside the playoffs range)... the GM sucks.

If a does-nothing-for-us trade tips the scales for you, maybe your critical eye is a lazy and blind eye.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

Imagine trying to have hockey discussions on a site where a vocal majority and over half the people think there smarter than our GM despite never working in the industry let alone volunteering for their kids IP team.

….

This is true of virtually every sports discussion I’ve ever been involved in, on every platform you can name. Everybody always thinks they’re smarter than the teams management.

I actually recall a quote from an American sports journalist from several years ago “There are three things that every American man thinks he can do better than anyone else: drive a car, build a campfire and manage a baseball team.”

So, if you think it’s unique to HF Sens, you are mistaken.