Evaluating open market talent

[tanti9]

Who do you think are the top management groups when it comes to evaluating talent? Is it just a flip of the coin? Does a team need a strong foundation for new players coming in?

Every team has their hits and misses but it does seem to be a crapshoot for most. The team I follow closely is Vancouver and have had more hits (Joshua, Suter, Blueger, etc) than misses (Stillman, Dickinson, Lazar, Desharnis(?), etc). You cannot say that Vancouver had a strong foundation either at the beginning of last year until Tocchet got most on the same page.

99% of this board are just mostly fans with varying opinions and have a "homers" view when looking at teams and players. This past summer sooo many "insiders" and hockey specialists were hyping Nashville's signings and look where they are now. Maybe Nashville turns it around, who knows.

I believe that a good management group is one that is proactive rather than reactive and if a player is not fitting in then they are not afraid to ship "their" player out and correcting their mistake.

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[tarheelhockey]

Evaluating established players isn’t that complicated. Taking Nashville as an example, Steven Stamkos has been in the league for 17 years. There’s more film on him than you could possibly watch. His medical history is all but public record. His personality is well documented. People know what he looks like playing in all different kinds of environments. Nashville knew exactly what they were buying.

On the other hand it’s really hard to account for the effects of changing to a new environment, integrating into a new organization, being deployed by a new coach in a new system, facing a different schedule of opponents. Chances are, the first 25 games on a new team aren’t going to look like the past 1100 on the old team.

Classic example is Gretzky going from LA to St Louis to the Rangers. In LA and New York he was the top assist guy in the league. In St Louis he had 13 assists in 18 games. That transition happens for a lot of players, especially elite players who are used to being a very stable role.