Podcast (Audio) Dorion Retrospective

[swiftwin]

Should never have been a GM. His talent is in scouting and projecting and factors in the idea that you're going to miss sometimes. He missed way more than he hit as a GM.

When he missed, he missed small. When he hit, he hit big.

We have a very solid core on very good contracts thanks to Dorion.

 

[bicboi64]

- Adds that all the research they did indicated DeBrincat would want to sign long-term. His reasoning was played for Erie, wanted to be close to home and Ottawa is close to Detroit. Then says maybe he just wanted to get out of Chicago, but you just never know (this answer made absolutely no sense to me). Later he says they never spoke to him bc he had two years left, and they basically know people and they said he likes the idea of playing in Canada etc.

High school students could do better research and realize that if Chicago's GM doesn't let you talk extension, you don't acquire him.

Man am I glad this guy is gone. You don't accelerate acquiring players because you promised a player on your roster. The teams long term stability is more important than blowing your load for every shiny toy on the market.

The lack of self-awareness when it comes to identifying pro talent is astonishing.

 

[MiscBrah]

Everything good that happened was a result of his actions. Everything bad that happened was from causes outside of his control. Guy is a total clown and I can't believe some people here are buying it.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

I don’t think he was ever in the plans either. Just shitty timing with Tim Murray leaving a few months before Bryan’s diagnosis leaving Pierre as the next man up.

It's one thing to give an internal employee a shot at a job if it seems he's earned it. Most companies would do that/

The big problem was re-upping the guy to a new contract after he had pretty clearly demonstrated that he couldn't handle the job.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDoo]

When he missed, he missed small. ...

Yeah, Brannstrom was what... 5'6"?

 

[Micklebot]

Yeah, Brannstrom was what... 5'6"?

And DeBrincat was 5'5?

 

[inthewings]

When he missed, he missed small. When he hit, he hit big.

We have a very solid core on very good contracts thanks to Dorion.

Legit can't even wrap my head around someone coming to this conclusion. Some misses:

- Zibanejad (and a 2nd) for Brassard
- Trading Mark Stone for what amounted to nothing
- Acquiring Matt Murray at a cost of a 2nd round pick and 25M
- Botching a trade call and getting fined a 1st round pick
- Signing Korpisalo to a 20M contract
- 10th overall pick on Tyler Boucher
- 1st and two 2nds for Chychrun
- 7th overall pick plus a 2nd for Debrincat

And then a number of small misses. But this is a franchise-crippling run of foolishness that is still hamstringing Staios and ensuring that he has to essentially walk a tightrope to get this team into the playoffs while capped out and having almost no picks or prospects.

 

[Micklebot]

Legit can't even wrap my head around someone coming to this conclusion. Some misses:

- Zibanejad (and a 2nd) for Brassard
- Trading Mark Stone for what amounted to nothing
- Acquiring Matt Murray at a cost of a 2nd round pick and 25M
- Botching a trade call and getting fined a 1st round pick
- Signing Korpisalo to a 20M contract
- 10th overall pick on Tyler Boucher
- 1st and two 2nds for Chychrun
- 7th overall pick plus a 2nd for Debrincat

And then a number of small misses. But this is a franchise-crippling run of foolishness that is still hamstringing Staios and ensuring that he has to essentially walk a tightrope to get this team into the playoffs while capped out and having almost no picks or prospects.

He also turned Turris, 4th OA and Bowers who he spent a 1st round pick on 3 months earlier into 18 months of Duchene

 

[BigRig4]

Legit can't even wrap my head around someone coming to this conclusion. Some misses:

- Zibanejad (and a 2nd) for Brassard
- Trading Mark Stone for what amounted to nothing
- Acquiring Matt Murray at a cost of a 2nd round pick and 25M
- Botching a trade call and getting fined a 1st round pick
- Signing Korpisalo to a 20M contract
- 10th overall pick on Tyler Boucher
- 1st and two 2nds for Chychrun
- 7th overall pick plus a 2nd for Debrincat

And then a number of small misses. But this is a franchise-crippling run of foolishness that is still hamstringing Staios and ensuring that he has to essentially walk a tightrope to get this team into the playoffs while capped out and having almost no picks or prospects.

I think the bottom 3 bullet points are the worst of all. Teams like Ottawa who can’t attract free agents live and die by the high picks. Punting three in a row will hamstring this core.

 

[bicboi64]

He also turned Turris, 4th OA and Bowers who he spent a 1st round pick on 3 months earlier into 18 months of Duchene

The move in a vaccuum wasn't an issue to me. Duchene was a legit upgrade offensively, but I wish he had kept Turris and moved Brassard who was the worst centre. Obviously with Turris' decline, we would've been screwed regardless.

 

[Xspyrit]

Dorion can say whatever he wants, people can try to defend him as much as they want, but in the end this is what matters :

- Mika Zibanejad (23 y/o) + 2018 2nd round pick (#33 OA) for Derick Brassard (29 y/o)
- Kyle Turris (28 y/o) + 2019 1st round pick (#4 OA) + Shane Bowers (19 y/o) + 2019 3rd round pick (#63 OA) for Matt Duchene (27 y/o)
- Mark Stone (26 y/o) for Erik Brannstrom (19 y/o) + 2020 2nd round pick (#61 OA Egor Sokolov)
- Filip Gustavsson (23 y/o) for Cam Talbot (35 y/o)
- 2022 1st round pick (#7 OA) + 2022 3rd round pick (#39 OA) + 2024 3rd round pick (#72 OA) for Alex Debrincat (25 y/o)
- 2023 1st round pick (#12 OA) + 2024 2nd round pick (#49 OA) + 2026 2nd round pick for Jackob Chychrun (24 y/o)
- Nick Paul (26 y/o) for Mathieu Joseph (24 y/o) + 2024 4th round pick (#117 OA Blake Montgomery)
- Matt Duchene (28 y/o) for 2019 1st round pick (#19 OA Lassi Thomson) + Vitaly Abramov (20 y/o) + Jonathan Davidsson (21 y/o)
- Cody Ceci (26 y/o) + 2020 3rd (#83 OA) for Connor Brown (26 y/o) + Nikita Zaitsev (28 y/o) who had 5 years at 4.5 AAV
- Connor Brown for 2024 2nd round pick (#49 OA, used for Chychrun)
- Dylan Demelo (26 y/o) for 2020 3rd round pick (#71 OA Leevi Meriläinen)
- Mike Hoffman (29 y/o) + 2020 5th round pick (#126 OA) for Mikkel Boedker (29 y/o) + 2020 6th round pick (#158 OA Philippe Daoust)
- 2020 2nd round pick (#52 OA) + Jonathan Gruden for Matt Murray (26 y/o) + extension (4 years x 6.25)
- 2021 2nd round pick (#37 OA) for Derek Stepan (30 y/o)
- Anthony Duclair (25 y/o) not qualified, let go as a RFA
- Jonathan Dahlen (20 y/o) for Alex Burrows (36 y/o) + extension (2 years x 2.5)
- 2020 4th (#95 OA) for Joshua Brown (26 y/o) + extension (2 years x 1.2)
- Joonas Korpisalo (29 y/o) contract (5 years x 4.0)
- Colin White (22 y/o) extension (6 years x 4.75)
- Mike Condon (27 y/o) extension (3 years x 2.4)
- Evgeni Dadonov (27 y/o) contract (3 years x 5.0) : and the fiasco that ensued
- Drafting Tyler Boucher 10th OA instead of the obvious pick (Cole Sillinger, Matt Coronato, etc)
- Hiring DJ Smith + staff and sticking with them for so long

What did I miss?

People would tell you "yeah but he must have made as many if not more good moves! It balances out at the end..." So what are the good moves?

- 1st round pick (#3 OA Tim Stützle) + Josh Norris + Rudolfs Balcers + Chris Tierney + Dylan DeMelo + 2nd round pick (#37 OA Mads Sogaard*) + 2nd round pick (#39 OA Zack Ostapchuk) for Erik Karlsson (28 y/o)
- 2020 1st round pick (#28 OA Ridly Greig) + 2020 2nd round pick (#59 OA- Tyler Kleven*) for Jean-Gabriel Pageau (27 y/o)
- Artem Zub, Claude Giroux, Vladimir Tarasenko UFA signings
- Tim Stützle, Jake Sanderson, Drake Batherson, Brady Tkachuk extensions


It's absolutely astounding that one GM could do as much damage and so many disaster moves in just 7 years... it's even crazier to think that these were rebuilding years lmao, absolutely insane. And we see people criticize Dubas, Milbury, Adams, etc lol they still did nothing compared to Dorion.

I mean, Colin White for 6 years at 4.75 AAV probably doesn't even make the Top-20 of his bad moves. Let that sink in.

- Pierre is most proud of the Karlsson pick as Sens head scout. As GM he’s most proud of the Burrows trade (no I’m not kidding). Says we don’t know how good Burrows was in the room and believes if he didn’t get hurt we would have beaten Pittsburgh.

- didn’t see Boucher live. Says he likes first watching players live and then through video. Mann saw him as a Tom Wilson type. He is 100% certain and had it confirmed to him that Boucher was gone within the next 5-7 picks.

Anyway this took forever and I’m dumber having listened to it. Grateful we have Staios now.

I lost my like function for now but thank you very much for your sacrifice, perfect summary

 

[bicboi64]

I mean, Colin White for 6 years at 4.75 AAV probably doesn't even make the Top-20 of his bad moves. Let that sink in.

To be fair, White was just screwed by injuries. Even if White stayed at 45-50 point pace like he scored at in 2018-19, he wouldn't have been a buy out candidate. I thought the extension was fair and had the potential to be a bargain.

 

[Xspyrit]

To be fair, White was just screwed by injuries. Even if White stayed at 45-50 point pace like he scored at in 2018-19, he wouldn't have been a buy out candidate. I thought the extension was fair and had the potential to be a bargain.

There's always a factor of luck and things you can't control. White wasn't very lucky with injuries but he also didn't develop properly. He was always put in a position to succeed* but I think the mistake was to absolutely want to develop him as a top-6 forward when he was tailor made to be a bottom-6 forward. And I said as such as early as 2019 IIRC, the guy was good defensively and could chip in offensively, which is what bottom-6 forwards are supposed to be.

2017-18 : mostly played with Hoffman and Duchene
2018-19 : mostly played with Tkachuk and Stone

They stopped playing him with that kind of players and his numbers sunk, normal, as he was made to be a bottom-6 forward

I tried to defend the contract at the beginning, at that time I thought Dorion was a bit of a victim of being under Melnyk's control. Then I realized how bad he was on his own.

 

[bicboi64]

There's always a factor of luck and things you can't control. White wasn't very lucky with injuries but he also didn't develop properly. He was always put in a position to succeed* but I think the mistake was to absolutely want to develop him as a top-6 forward when he was tailor made to be a bottom-6 forward. And I said as such as early as 2019 IIRC, the guy was good defensively and could chip in offensively, which is what bottom-6 forwards are supposed to be.

2017-18 : mostly played with Hoffman and Duchene
2018-19 : mostly played with Tkachuk and Stone

They stopped playing him with that kind of players and his numbers sunk, normal, as he was made to be a bottom-6 forward

I think his ceiling was 2C and he had a chance to play in various roles, but not enough time due to injuries to make strides in any of the roles he was put on. I wouldn't put that on Dorion though. White's results in his limited sample size gave every indication that a healthy White could be a contributing roster player

 

[Xspyrit]

When he missed, he missed small.

Are all of these SMALL?

- Mika Zibanejad (23 y/o) + 2018 2nd round pick (#33 OA) for Derick Brassard (29 y/o)
- Kyle Turris (28 y/o) + 2019 1st round pick (#4 OA) + Shane Bowers (19 y/o) + 2019 3rd round pick (#63 OA) for Matt Duchene (27 y/o)
- Mark Stone (26 y/o) for Erik Brannstrom (19 y/o) + 2020 2nd round pick (#61 OA Egor Sokolov)
- Filip Gustavsson (23 y/o) for Cam Talbot (35 y/o)
- 2022 1st round pick (#7 OA) + 2022 3rd round pick (#39 OA) + 2024 3rd round pick (#72 OA) for Alex Debrincat (25 y/o)
- 2023 1st round pick (#12 OA) + 2024 2nd round pick (#49 OA) + 2026 2nd round pick for Jackob Chychrun (24 y/o)
- Nick Paul (26 y/o) for Mathieu Joseph (24 y/o) + 2024 4th round pick (#117 OA Blake Montgomery)
- Matt Duchene (28 y/o) for 2019 1st round pick (#19 OA Lassi Thomson) + Vitaly Abramov (20 y/o) + Jonathan Davidsson (21 y/o)
- Cody Ceci (26 y/o) + 2020 3rd (#83 OA) for Connor Brown (26 y/o) + Nikita Zaitsev (28 y/o) who had 5 years at 4.5 AAV
- Connor Brown for 2024 2nd round pick (#49 OA, used for Chychrun)
- Dylan Demelo (26 y/o) for 2020 3rd round pick (#71 OA Leevi Meriläinen)
- Mike Hoffman (29 y/o) + 2020 5th round pick (#126 OA) for Mikkel Boedker (29 y/o) + 2020 6th round pick (#158 OA Philippe Daoust)
- 2020 2nd round pick (#52 OA) + Jonathan Gruden for Matt Murray (26 y/o) + extension (4 years x 6.25)
- 2021 2nd round pick (#37 OA) for Derek Stepan (30 y/o)
- Anthony Duclair (25 y/o) not qualified, let go as a RFA
- Jonathan Dahlen (20 y/o) for Alex Burrows (36 y/o) + extension (2 years x 2.5)
- 2020 4th (#95 OA) for Joshua Brown (26 y/o) + extension (2 years x 1.2)
- Joonas Korpisalo (29 y/o) contract (5 years x 4.0)
- Colin White (22 y/o) extension (6 years x 4.75)
- Mike Condon (27 y/o) extension (3 years x 2.4)
- Evgeni Dadonov (27 y/o) contract (3 years x 5.0) : and the fiasco that ensued
- Drafting Tyler Boucher 10th OA instead of the obvious pick (Cole Sillinger, Matt Coronato, etc)
- Hiring DJ Smith + staff and sticking with them for so long
I'll give you Josh Brown, not a big deal, only lost a 4th (but when you add them up...) and gave ice-time to a guy who is barely NHL level... Mike Condon extension also wasn't crippling (but when you add them up...)

Legit can't even wrap my head around someone coming to this conclusion. Some misses:

- Zibanejad (and a 2nd) for Brassard
- Trading Mark Stone for what amounted to nothing
- Acquiring Matt Murray at a cost of a 2nd round pick and 25M
- Botching a trade call and getting fined a 1st round pick
- Signing Korpisalo to a 20M contract
- 10th overall pick on Tyler Boucher
- 1st and two 2nds for Chychrun
- 7th overall pick plus a 2nd for Debrincat

And then a number of small misses. But this is a franchise-crippling run of foolishness that is still hamstringing Staios and ensuring that he has to essentially walk a tightrope to get this team into the playoffs while capped out and having almost no picks or prospects.

Look above for a more detailed list!

Every time I look at this, it's actually even worse that my brain remembers.

 

[Xspyrit]

- 1st round pick (#3 OA Tim Stützle) + Josh Norris + Rudolfs Balcers + Chris Tierney + Dylan DeMelo + 2nd round pick (#37 OA Mads Sogaard*) + 2nd round pick (#39 OA Zack Ostapchuk) for Erik Karlsson (28 y/o)

Even with his greatest moves, it was a disaster waiting to happen...

- He managed to get Gustavsson from Brassard... What does he do? Trade him for an old UFA goalie before he becomes a good #1 goalie in this league

- He managed to get an amazing and unexpected return for Dzingel? What does he do? Let Duclair walk, trade the 2nds for Derek freaking 6.0 AAV Stepan and Mattinjured Murray

- He managed to get a better than expected return for Karlsson (Sharks free fall helped)... What does he do? Overpay Norris quickly and for a long time. Trade DeMelo (who looked perfect for Chabot) for a stupid 3rd. Do NOT trade Tierney when he had a bit of value, which plummeted 2 years later. Balcers on waivers who could have been a much better stop gap that Galchenyuk, Paquette or Anisimov.

I think his ceiling was 2C and he had a chance to play in various roles, but not enough time due to injuries to make strides in any of the roles he was put on. I wouldn't put that on Dorion though. White's results in his limited sample size gave every indication that a healthy White could be a contributing roster player

My evaluation back then was very good #3 C, I don't know if I could find my notes from the 2018 rookie tournament but IIRC, that was my report. We were stubborn into making him a Top-6 player, I put that on Dorion as well as he is supposed to oversee everything.

 

[milkbag]

Legit can't even wrap my head around someone coming to this conclusion. Some misses:

- Zibanejad (and a 2nd) for Brassard
- Trading Mark Stone for what amounted to nothing
- Acquiring Matt Murray at a cost of a 2nd round pick and 25M
- Botching a trade call and getting fined a 1st round pick
- Signing Korpisalo to a 20M contract
- 10th overall pick on Tyler Boucher
- 1st and two 2nds for Chychrun
- 7th overall pick plus a 2nd for Debrincat

And then a number of small misses. But this is a franchise-crippling run of foolishness that is still hamstringing Staios and ensuring that he has to essentially walk a tightrope to get this team into the playoffs while capped out and having almost no picks or prospects.

Eating crow is an impossible task for some people lol

Funny that the whole "dorion was forced by Melnyk pressure to make his dumb moves" narrative is completely out of the window, straight out of the dumb ol' horse's mouth itself

 

[BigRig4]

I think his ceiling was 2C and he had a chance to play in various roles, but not enough time due to injuries to make strides in any of the roles he was put on. I wouldn't put that on Dorion though. White's results in his limited sample size gave every indication that a healthy White could be a contributing roster player

Iirc he put up points when he was paired with Brady and Stone for the first ~60 games of that season. Everything outside of that window was meh.

 

[bicboi64]

Iirc he put up points when he was paired with Brady and Stone for the first ~60 games of that season. Everything outside of that window was meh.

Even with 11 games of meh production. I think it was a reasonable gamble to expect White to hit 40-45 points going forward. The hip flexor injury the next season and the shoulder injury after that pretty much put the nail in the coffin for him having decent development.

 

[Masked]

It's absolutely astounding that one GM could do as much damage and so many disaster moves in just 7 years... it's even crazier to think that these were rebuilding years lmao, absolutely insane. And we see people criticize Dubas, Milbury, Adams, etc lol they still did nothing compared to Dorion.

That claim is pure ignorance.

Milbury traded Chara and Spezza for Yashin. A HOF and a borderline HOF for a guy who had to be bought out of his contract then had the buyout cap hit for another 8 seasons.

Milbury traded Luongo and Jokinen for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha because he wanted to pick Rick DiPietro first overall instead of Dany Heatley and Marian Gaborik.

Either of those deals are ten times worse than anything Dorion has done.

 

[Tuna99]

honestly sounds like he’s looking for a scouting job - the entire interview is about him being a scout and few nuggets on G.M.

But these dumb comments are why it was so painful and Classic Dorion blundering bullshit

Q - “The rebuild.”
PD - “I put together a 100 page document”
Q- “100 pages!!”
PD - “I promise you, yes, it was a 100 page plan”
Q - “what do you say in a 100 page plan”
PD - “I can talk hockey all night, 100 pages is nothing, but it was 100 pages yes”
Q “Page 1 is Erik Karlsson?”
PD - “Actually, it was 80 pages”

Pierre Dorion is a clown. This is what a don’t miss. The bullshit and out of thin air comments

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

honestly sounds like he’s looking for a scouting job - the entire interview is about him being a scout and few nuggets on G.M.

But these dumb comments are why it was so painful and Classic Dorion blundering bullshit

Q - “The rebuild.”
PD - “I put together a 100 page document”
Q- “100 pages!!”
PD - “I promise you, yes, it was a 100 page plan”
Q - “what do you say in a 100 page plan”
PD - “I can talk hockey all night, 100 pages is nothing, but it was 100 pages yes”
Q “Page 1 is Erik Karlsson?”
PD - “Actually, it was 80 pages”

Pierre Dorion is a clown. This is what a don’t miss. The bullshit and out of thin air comments

Unless he is blacklisted from the league, I think he will get hired somewhere, just not in a GM or even AGM spot.

Someone like Dorion who has been connected to the league for 30 years is bound to have connections/friends in other organizations.

He is never going to be hired as a GM ever again, but I could see a team having a spot for him somewhere. He very clearly has one primary talent, amateur scouting.

 

[Beech]

If you look at the SENATORS 2007/2008 TO 2022/2023, they rank in the bottom 4 of all NHL teams in every category for success.

wins/loses, playoff wins/loses, series wins/loses. Bottom 4!!! And over 16 years.

What was the common denominator? Brian Murray takes over in 2007. And then his understudy in 2016. And one owner who was an ass.

Other than the Buffalo Sabers, no organization would have remotely allowed 2 men to be in their position, with their records to last anywhere near as long!

For the defenders; well, they were within a goal of reaching the cup final in 2017... Sure, A Boston team in round 1, that had 3-4 Dmen injured and played their AHL dcore. An NYR that was disinterested and would collapse in the next 2 seasons and fire their coach and GM. And then a Penguins team that had struggled in goal. A Penguins team that would in the following 4-5 years, collapse as the Senators had. Only a tad slower.

Neither Dorion, nor Murray should have been at their jobs for anything longer than 4 years. Thus a combined 8 years. They stayed 16. Twice AS LONG.

Neither Dorion or Murray should ever be deemed a success.

Bottom 4 in all categories, over 16 years. Some 150 points less than the top 4 teams, some 80 less playoff games played, some 16 less series played. Some 100 points less than the mid table team, some 40 playoff games less and some 8 series less.

This teams would need to have 2 straight undefeated seasons to be in the top 4, and 4-5 cup wins to clean up their playoff record.

 

[Wallet Inspector]

It's 2025 and some Sens fans STILL don't realize the only reason we may have a bright future was us lucking out from the Sharks unexpectedly sucking in 2020+a WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC shutting down the season at just the right time for our 2020 1sts. I'm not crediting Dorion for much.

 

[aragorn]

He sucked, let's move on.