MOC's legacy needs to be reevaluated at some point.
I was on the Internet back then and remember that he was hated and considered one of the worst in the business back then, even before the Thornton deal. And after 2005 his reputation went to the toilet.
But looking back, his teams won two division titles before the lockout, he turned Anson Carter into Bill Guerin, Allison into Glen Murray & Jozef Stumpel, picked up guys like Knuble off the scrap heap, built a decent defense core through trades, and put together a really deep team by bringing in Nylander and Gonchar at the deadline in 2004.
I've shared my theory before about how Jacobs and MOC got blindsided by the NHLPA offering the salary rollback card to end the lockout - completely screwing over what appeared to be the plan to go into the 2005 off-season with few salary commitments and the ability to raid the market for compliance buyouts before the rollback put an end to that. Then he totally misread the post-lockout NHL and misplayed the offseason by only being able to bring in old, out of style players, and that disaster coupled with Joe Thornton being a malcontent was toxic. The Thornton trade was the nail in the coffin.
Disastrous end to his tenure for sure, well deserved firing. But in full retrospect the job he did from 2000-2004 was better than he gets credit for. I think if not for the Thornton deal, he probably would've got another shot somewhere as GM in the late 2000s.
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