Management Don Sweeney V

[LouJersey]

Dont even have a 5th after acquiring Liles last year.

Wait till round 2 of the draft and the realisation that we gave up our second this year for Lee Stempniak hits.

Ouch.

We have the EDM 2nd as well thankfully. As far as Stempniak in his defense he was very good in NJ, but was learning the new system here and never acclimated. He should have done better. That's why I'm not in favor of dealing for forwards as a low seed at the deadline, they just don't work here most of the time (Pevs and Kelly were not good reg season in 2011, but had extra time in the play-offs)/

 

[ap3lovr]

they just won 3 straight and the coach panicked and put in Rask back to back

I'm pretty concerned that Rask is suffering from a concussion from the puck he took off the noggin. He hasn't been the same since that game. He has just been average.

 

[bruinmann77]

just hope DS doesn't make a panic mode don't really think he will do something stupid.

 

[bp13]

they just won 3 straight and the coach panicked and put in Rask back to back

Not exactly sure what that has to do with my post or how it's a defense of Sweeney's work on this NHL roster.

But if it's a ding of the coach, it's not exactly a stinging indictment to blame him for playing his best goalie. Moreover, him getting ripped for this is pure 20/20 criticism. If he had played his backup and almost certainly lost, people would rip him or Rask for not playing when the team remains desperate for points, on a winning streak and fresh off the AS break. And if the theory is that he ought to have known he'd be injury prone on back-to-backs, the logic fails. Do you really think the coach/GM with the most to lose would choose to take an unnecessary risk and completely sink their season for one game?

 

[Blowfish]

Still no send downs sit downs are call ups. Unreal.

 

[PlayMakers]

The Condon hindsight is pretty funny to me. When Khudobin was signed, were there any "Dammit, we should have signed Mike Condon" comments.

Also, Dobby plays two games and gets hurt. A couple days later the Pens trade Condon for a 5th. So Sweeney was to give Dobby a whole 2 games into his new two year contract? Laughable.

First off, there were folks who were not impressed by the Dobby signing. I mean, he spent most of 2015-16 in the minors. I was pushing for Chad Johnson or Enroth, fwiw.

Second, yeah, when Debby got hurt some GM's would have traded for a replacement. ANA did, they picked up Enroth and when they got healthy they sent him down. If you recall, Rask also got hurt in that window. STILL no trade/help. Rask may still be feeling the effects of playing through that issue.

 

[PlayMakers]

He is gun shy. He made the same mistake with Hamilton that Chiarelli made with Seguin. And, followed up with Nash, Schaller, Hayes, Moore (he's been ok), and $$ to McQuaid and K. Miller. He is overmatched as GM. Good at youth talent - maybe. But, that may have been K. Gretz.

The paralysis is confusing.

I mean, I think you could make a decent case for him not to add to the forwards or the defense over the first half. I know some here saw signs of trouble ahead. Well done. I was actually fairly optimistic. I still am. I still don't think they're that far away from icing a team that could make the playoffs... They seem to have such a mish mash of parts... And a lot of this season seems to have been about trying guys in different spots and seeing what we have. I'm beating Sweeney up for a lack of moves but that angst (for me at least) has only been building up over the last month or so. During the first half I said I didn't think he should add to the forwards until after Vatrano came back and they were healthy enough to see what they have... So admittedly, this is a little bit of Monday morning quarterbacking on my part, at least with regard to the forwards.

The goalie thing, I think, is a legit gripe. A backup goalie going .500 would have this team comfortably in the playoffs. Whether you want to fault Sweeney for signing Dobby in the first place, or for not finding a way to bring in someone to help when he AND Rask were both injured I don't care. Bottom line is that goaltending in general hasn't been good enough. Rask was great early on but is now posting worse numbers than last year. He's tired. Or injured. And Sweeney's solution has an .892 in Providence. It's been like this for month now and...

crickets.​

 

[BNHL]

Rask was 1.68 up until Dec 5th and 2.5 since. He was 2.16 in Chara's absence.

 

[DKH]

My personal 6 favorite moves

1. Lucic in walk year for Colin Miller, 2 firsts, Sean Kuraly

2. Hamilton for a 1 and 2 seconds without waiting a year and fwiw exceeding the 1, 2, 3 compensation to initiate in the year following- adding in historically strong draft

3. Backes signing

4. Signing Marchand to a ridiculous deal

5. Projecting that Kevan Miller would get better by the month

6. Krug contract

 

[DKH]

Rask was 1.68 up until Dec 5th and 2.5 since. He was 2.16 in Chara's absence.

It's called burning him out by a coach who knows Cam wanted to fire him 2 weeks ago but was rebuffed

 

[Speed Shooter]

My personal 6 favorite moves

1. Lucic in walk year for Colin Miller, 2 firsts, Sean Kuraly

2. Hamilton for a 1 and 2 seconds without waiting a year and fwiw exceeding the 1, 2, 3 compensation to initiate in the year following- adding in historically strong draft

3. Backes signing

4. Signing Marchand to a ridiculous deal

5. Projecting that Kevan Miller would get better by the month

6. Krug contract

Playing devil's advocate here with 20/20 hindsight, but was DS really better off with getting the immediate package return of #15 (Senyshen), #45 (JFK), and #52 (Lauzon) for Hamilton?

If he let offer sheet route play out, he would've ended up with #6 (Tkachuk), #35, and #66.

Time will tell which package is ultimately better. Me? I would take the Tkachuk package in a heartbeat.

 

[bp13]

My personal 6 favorite moves

1. Lucic in walk year for Colin Miller, 2 firsts, Sean Kuraly

2. Hamilton for a 1 and 2 seconds without waiting a year and fwiw exceeding the 1, 2, 3 compensation to initiate in the year following- adding in historically strong draft

3. Backes signing

4. Signing Marchand to a ridiculous deal

5. Projecting that Kevan Miller would get better by the month

6. Krug contract

I like all of those except Backes. That was and is a terrible signing.

And Miller is a fine signing he just didn't need to duplicate it with McQuaid.

And the other is that the list of misses dwarfs this list because it's basically every other guy he has re-signed or acquired via trade or signed as a UFA. Beleskey, Hayes, Nash, Liles, McQuaid. Arguably all poor to terrible adds. And that's not to mention the lack of good adds, or not one single trade that has improved the NHL roster over the last two years. Not one, unless you want to talk about the 4 weeks of Liles/Stempniak being marginal upgrades in a lost cause.

 

[DKH]

I like all of those except Backes. That was and is a terrible signing.

And Miller is a fine signing he just didn't need to duplicate it with McQuaid.

And the other is that the list of misses dwarfs this list because it's basically every other guy he has re-signed or acquired via trade or signed as a UFA. Beleskey, Hayes, Nash, Liles, McQuaid. Arguably all poor to terrible adds. And that's not to mention the lack of good adds, or not one single trade that has improved the NHL roster over the last two years. Not one, unless you want to talk about the 4 weeks of Liles/Stempniak being marginal upgrades in a lost cause.

If Backes sucks I can add it to my trade Krejci instead of Kalus and other gaffes

Crow actually taste good dipped in honey mustard

 

[ap3lovr]

2. Hamilton for a 1 and 2 seconds without waiting a year and fwiw exceeding the 1, 2, 3 compensation to initiate in the year following- adding in historically strong draft

After seeing the way that Winnipeg handled the Trouba situation. I don't consider this a win anymore. Had we handled it the same way, we would have gotten a hell of a lot better return for Hamilton. All our GM had to do was say that we would match any offer sheet. Sweeney got spooked and I'm fairly certain we missed out on getting an impact player in return for Hamilton because of this.

 

[DKH]

Playing devil's advocate here with 20/20 hindsight, but was DS really better off with getting the immediate package return of #15 (Senyshen), #45 (JFK), and #52 (Lauzon) for Hamilton?

If he let offer sheet route play out, he would've ended up with #6 (Tkachuk), #35, and #66.

Time will tell which package is ultimately better. Me? I would take the Tkachuk package in a heartbeat.

Sweeney from accounts wanted Hanifan and having all those picks seemed like would get him

Lucky or good Sweeney is going to come out of this well because all 3 picks are coming along

Also watch and see if Sweeney goes back at Hanifan this offseason he's struggled and the picture is a lot clearer

I don't think there is ever an offer sheet from anyone including Chiarelli

 

[DKH]

After seeing the way that Winnipeg handled the Trouba situation. I don't consider this a win anymore. Had we handled it the same way, we would have gotten a hell of a lot better return for Hamilton. All our GM had to do was say that we would match any offer sheet. Sweeney got spooked and I'm fairly certain we missed out on getting an impact player in return for Hamilton because of this.

I don't believe he got spooked at all

He got backed into a corner

Hamilton knew what was up

Chiarelli had an inkling

Sweeney figured out fast when calls went unreturned and faxes was 3-5 contracts got crickets

I thought he did well but many others didn't

If this was Trouba and not Hamilton I feel differently and would be pissed at Boston but o like Trouba more than DH

Hamilton is like Wesley - nice but not foundational player

 

[bp13]

If Backes sucks I can add it to my trade Krejci instead of Kalus and other gaffes

Crow actually taste good dipped in honey mustard

Well he certainly doesn't "suck". He was just a bad add to this team. And it all looks bad on Sweeney.

He had to pay more and add a year to get him, and everyone acknowledged you were basically paying for the first 3 years when you had contention aspirations. Well it worked out that now year 1 is a loss because he's been subpar and they aren't good. So now you have like two years left to get more than his yearly salary out of him before you really take a loss in the last few years.

Sweeney took that gamble and that's his right, but it's looking like a failure. And yeah I, and others, thought it was terrible judgment from day 1, but we could have been wrong. I wish we were. But we certainly look right at this point. This team is not competing for a Cup in the first few years of Backes' contract barring an absolute miracle. Unfortunately this is just another example of bad choices at the NHL level by this GM.

 

[bp13]

I don't believe he got spooked at all

He got backed into a corner

Hamilton knew what was up

Chiarelli had an inkling

Sweeney figured out fast when calls went unreturned and faxes was 3-5 contracts got crickets

I thought he did well but many others didn't

If this was Trouba and not Hamilton I feel differently and would be pissed at Boston but o like Trouba more than DH

Hamilton is like Wesley - nice but not foundational player

As much as I pick on Sweeney's moves I don't hate the Hamilton one. I, like you, feel he was in a tough spot. But what I don't like was the lack of urgency to build back that NHL defense right away. Regardless of whether he thought he had a deal in place for Hanifin, as soon as he didn't he needed to act. They needed a dman even before they traded Hamilton! So that's where the Hamilton trade goes downhill...his lack of response to the need. Which is a consistent problem for Sweeney.

 

[LouJersey]

I like all of those except Backes. That was and is a terrible signing.

And Miller is a fine signing he just didn't need to duplicate it with McQuaid.

And the other is that the list of misses dwarfs this list because it's basically every other guy he has re-signed or acquired via trade or signed as a UFA. Beleskey, Hayes, Nash, Liles, McQuaid. Arguably all poor to terrible adds. And that's not to mention the lack of good adds, or not one single trade that has improved the NHL roster over the last two years. Not one, unless you want to talk about the 4 weeks of Liles/Stempniak being marginal upgrades in a lost cause.

I think the UFA signings are overblown by you. Hayes was acquired in a trade that was applauded by 95% of this board. Nash Liles and McQuaid were all pennies in today's world. Beleskey was good last year, not this year and has three years left.

Backes I get the consternation if it was 2020.

I'll wait to see how this "cap crippling" deal as some have called it inhibits us down the road if at all.

I'm hoping Neely is dismissed and you have Sweeney being able to bring in guys like Grabner and his ilk to fill in the lower ranks instead of "Bigger heavy" guys. Maybe Neely has nothing to do with it, but the Pro player philosophy is night and day with the draft philosophy.

 

[ODAAT]

who knows what`ll happen but DS/Cam or whomever is calling the shots for this organization won`t be able to use available cap space, don`t they have somewhere between 3-4 mill?

 

[BlackFrancis]

I'm hoping Neely is dismissed and you have Sweeney being able to bring in guys like Grabner and his ilk to fill in the lower ranks instead of "Bigger heavy" guys. Maybe Neely has nothing to do with it, but the Pro player philosophy is night and day with the draft philosophy.

Has Sweeney drafted any sub-six foot forwards since taking over? Did we not hear all about how they were in the market for kids who are tough to play against? Was the Frederic pick not accompanied by Backes comparisons?

This movement to assign all blame for pro scouting and acquisitions on Neely is absurd.

 

[BNHL]

Sweeney from accounts wanted Hanifan and having all those picks seemed like would get him

Lucky or good Sweeney is going to come out of this well because all 3 picks are coming along

Also watch and see if Sweeney goes back at Hanifan this offseason he's struggled and the picture is a lot clearer

I don't think there is ever an offer sheet from anyone including Chiarelli

I think so too and he admitted that all 3 picks could not get him one of the top 3 defensemen,so he must have tried.

 

[DoubleAAAA]

I'm pretty concerned that Rask is suffering from a concussion from the puck he took off the noggin. He hasn't been the same since that game. He has just been average.

Injury or fatigue ... either way certainly not playing at the level he was early in the season.

 

[DominicT]

Has Sweeney drafted any sub-six foot forwards since taking over? Did we not hear all about how they were in the market for kids who are tough to play against? Was the Frederic pick not accompanied by Backes comparisons?

This movement to assign all blame for pro scouting and acquisitions on Neely is absurd.

Oskar Steen is 5'9"

Cameron Hughes is 5'11".

DeBrusk (5'11" when drafted)

Gabrielle (5'11" when drafted)

JFK was 6'0" when drafted

So over half were under 6' when drafted

 

[Bergyesque]

Has Sweeney drafted any sub-six foot forwards since taking over? Did we not hear all about how they were in the market for kids who are tough to play against? Was the Frederic pick not accompanied by Backes comparisons?

This movement to assign all blame for pro scouting and acquisitions on Neely is absurd.

As far as I'm concerned, that comparison apply as long as Backes plays center, which he does not with the Bs.