Management GM Pierre Dorion/Front Office Thread - Part IX [Mod Warning in post 1)

[DaveMatthew]

Two different interviews with different people. Troy Mann said that after seeing him in the AHL for a month, he saw him as a for sure 3rd liner with the upside to develop into a 2nd liner. The tweet from Mendes was about an interview with Trent Mann, the Chief scout about a year later. I can't find the interview either but I do vividly remember the discussion that followed.

So do you think that, when, evaluating prospects, Trent Mann takes an elementary approach and slaps them with a label of "1st liner", "2nd liner" or "3rd liner".

Or, do you think he, and his staff, take a more nuanced approach where he tries to:

1. Project a player's upside
2. Project a player's downside
3. Project the likelihood a player reaches their upside and the risk that they miss

I'd imagine that it's a bit more complex than " he projects to be a 3rd liner". So I'm not sure why we'd take one line in an interview 3 years after a player was drafted, 2 years after they were acquired, as the hard truth for what the entire organization projects about a player.

Is it impossible to believe that it was, in fact, "best case = 2nd line (20% chance), most likely = 3rd line (50% chance), worst case = 4th line/replacement level (30% chance)", or something to that effect?

Either way, I'm confident in saying that the Senators organization had a much higher opinion of Norris when they acquired him than Sens fans did (the majority absolutely shit on the trade - myself included), which was my original point.

 

[Ice-Tray]

the difference is you are inferring a projection based on the GMs agreeing that he was a target, where as I am quoting a projection from somebody in the know.

All I am saying is that we don't know what Dorion projected Norris as and using the fact that we targeting him specifically in the trade doesn't mean we projected him as more than what Trent Mann is on record as saying, but we do know what Trent Mann did project him as.

I never said what Dorion certainly projected him as, I specifically said that he may have been higher on Norris than Mann, but that all the stuff we have from other who actually provided a projection was more modest.

What I'm essentially arguing is that you're inferring things that aren't a given and treating them as fact even when evidence to the contrary is presented.

Fair enough.

In Pierre’s presser he refers to both Norris and Balcers as “top-end prospects” and adds that Norris was a recent 1st round pick, and Balcers led their AHL team in scoring.

Now, perhaps Dorion didn’t specifically project where Norris would end, but in my opinion when a GM refers to a players as a “top-end prospect” they aren’t referring to a guy with a 3rd line ceiling.

I really don’t think I’m inferring much, just being realistic about what the man said.

 

[DaveMatthew]

The trade at the time looked like several young likely 3rd liners (Tierney, Norris, Balcers), a 1st and a couple 2nds for an elite #1 RD. No one besides a few incessant management defenders who would defend literally any return was happy with it and no one should have been.

What the "trade looked like at the time" doesn't matter though. How they trade shook out is what matters.
That's the case with trades and draft picks.

We can call the Logan Brown selection bad and put it into Dorion's "blunder" column, but at the time, the consensus was that it was fine.

Also, and I was the biggest Karlsson fan, the objective observer would not have called Karlsson an elite #1 RD in 2018. He was a flawed player. Injuries did a number on him. Doug Wilson, as many have in the past, fell into the "but he used to be great" trap and the Sharks are paying for it now,

 

[Micklebot]

So do you think that, when, evaluating prospects, Trent Mann takes an elementary approach and slaps them with a label of "1st liner", "2nd liner" or "3rd liner".

Or, do you think he, and his staff, take a more nuanced approach where he tries to:

1. Project a player's upside
2. Project a player's downside
3. Project the likelihood a player reaches their upside and the risk that they miss

I'd imagine that it's a bit more complex than " he projects to be a 3rd liner". So I'm not sure why we'd take one line in an interview 3 years after a player was drafted, 2 years after they were acquired, as the hard truth for what the entire organization projects about a player.

Is it impossible to believe that it was, in fact, "best case = 2nd line (20% chance), most likely = 3rd line (50% chance), worst case = 4th line/replacement level (30% chance)", or something to that effect?

Either way, I'm confident in saying that the Senators organization had a much higher opinion of Norris when they acquired him than Sens fans did, which was my original point.

I'm pretty confident in saying that if the team viewed the key piece in a return for Karlsson as a 20% chance at a 2nd liner, that probably aligns pretty closely with what many of the disappointing fans projected. If we traded Chabot today for a guy with a 20% chance at being a 2nd liner, I'd be livid, especially if they had a 30% chance of being replacement level...

We've gone full circle, you've now landed on essentially agreeing with me that Norris may have just exceeded the teams expectations given you've laid out an 80% chance as a 3rd liner or worse as the more nuanced meaning of Trent saying he projected him as a 3rd liner.

 

[Micklebot]

What the "trade looked like at the time" doesn't matter though. How they trade shook out is what matters.
That's the case with trades and draft picks.

We can call the Logan Brown selection bad and put it into Dorion's "blunder" column, but at the time, the consensus was that it was fine.

Also, and I was the biggest Karlsson fan, the objective observer would not have called Karlsson an elite #1 RD in 2018. He was a flawed player. Injuries did a number on him. Doug Wilson, as many have in the past, fell into the "but he used to be great" trap and the Sharks are paying for it now,

Process vs results. Both are important if you want to work towards consistently get positive results. I think it's naive to suggest process doesn't matter, but whatever.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Process vs results. Both are important if you want to work towards consistently get positive results. I think it's naive to suggest process doesn't matter, but whatever.

The process was fine.

Erik Karlsson was a 27 year old player, coming off a down year, who had had two major career-impacting injuries, looking for an 8 year contract extension at $10M+ per season.

The objective observer would have told you that:

1) Karlsson was a player who was on the downside of his career and no longer projected to be a top-end D (certainly not for the next 8 years)
2) The return, even at the time, was fair considering the risk that Karlsson came with and the trade landscape of today's NHL (the day's of teams trading prospects like Heiskanen for veterans are gone)

But fans are not objective. They're driven by emotion.

The PR around the process was brutal, I'll agree with that.

 

[Hale The Villain]

What the "trade looked like at the time" doesn't matter though. How they trade shook out is what matters.
That's the case with trades and draft picks.

We can call the Logan Brown selection bad and put it into Dorion's "blunder" column, but at the time, the consensus was that it was fine.

Also, and I was the biggest Karlsson fan, the objective observer would not have called Karlsson an elite #1 RD in 2018. He was a flawed player. Injuries did a number on him. Doug Wilson, as many have in the past, fell into the "but he used to be great" trap and the Sharks are paying for it now,

How a trade was considered at the time and how it's considered in hindsight are both important. Can't look at one without the other.

As you have mentioned - had we traded Karlsson straight up for Norris it'd still be a win in hindsight since Norris has broken out big time and Karlsson has completely broken down post-trade, but had we only got Norris out of San Jose in the deal it would have been considered one of the worst trades in history at the time it was made due to failing to get a proper return for what Karlsson's value was then.

Put another way using an extreme example - looking strictly at hindsight the best trade this organization has arguably ever made was the Alex Auld trade. Got Mark Stone in exchange for a backup goalie. Obviously if you consider that the 6th round pick we got in exchange for Auld was not expected to select a future star forward then it shouldn't be considered one of the best trades. Logic holds similarly for the Sharks pick ending up winning a lottery selection and ending up as Stutzle, but to a lesser degree.

That's why I view the trade as a win in hindsight but a missed opportunity to make out even better had we deservedly gotten an extra premium asset or two instead of a bunch of lesser pieces. Obviously you'll disagree but I think the near universal condemnation of the return by non-objective and objective observers alike when the trade was made speaks to this.

Also Karlsson was a season removed from dragging the Sens to a goal away from the finals, and he had 62 points in 71 games in 2017/18. He absolutely was still considered elite.

 

[Micklebot]

The process was fine.

Erik Karlsson was a 27 year old player, coming off a down year, who had had two major career-impacting injuries, looking for an 8 year contract extension at $10M+ per season.

The objective observer would have told you that:

1) Karlsson was a player who was on the downside of his career and no longer projected to be a top-end D (certainly not for the next 8 years)
2) The return, even at the time, was fair considering the risk that Karlsson came with and the trade landscape of today's NHL (the day's of teams trading prospects like Heiskanen for veterans are gone)

But fans are not objective. They're driven by emotion.

The PR around the process was brutal, I'll agree with that.

Your twisting the point. You said how it looked at the time doesn't matter. It clearly does. You might argue that the process was fine, and an argument can certainly be made that it was but that's just your opinion, others clearly can disagree.

You can't just label yourself as the arbiter of what is an objective observer and brush aside everyone else's opinion as unobjective.

 

[DaveMatthew]

How a trade was considered at the time and how it's considered in hindsight are both important. Can't look at one without the other.

As you have mentioned - had we traded Karlsson straight up for Norris it'd still be a win in hindsight since Norris has broken out big time and Karlsson has completely broken down post-trade, but had we only got Norris out of San Jose in the deal it would have been considered one of the worst trades in history at the time it was made due to failing to get a proper return for what Karlsson's value was then.

Put another way using an extreme example - looking strictly at hindsight the best trade this organization has arguably ever made was the Alex Auld trade. Got Mark Stone in exchange for a backup goalie. Obviously if you consider that the 6th round pick we got in exchange for Auld was not expected to select a future star forward then it shouldn't be considered one of the best trades. Logic holds similarly for the Sharks pick ending up winning a lottery selection and ending up as Stutzle, but to a lesser degree.

That's why I view the trade as a win in hindsight but a missed opportunity to make out even better had we deservedly gotten an extra premium asset or two instead of a bunch of lesser pieces. Obviously you'll disagree but I think the near universal condemnation of the return by non-objective and objective observers alike when the trade was made speaks to this.

Also Karlsson was a season removed from dragging the Sens to a goal away from the finals, and he had 62 points in 71 games in 2017/18. He absolutely was still considered elite.

Yes, Karlsson dragged the Sens to a goal away from the finals, but unfortunately, in the process, he suffered an injury that significantly impacted his abilities and turned him into a flawed played. Sens fans should always be grateful to him because the guy sacrificed his career to help us win games in that playoff run.

But with that said, even at the time, the trade was fair. Anyone who condemned it was in the wrong. Now and back then.

Show me another trade for a player of Karlsson's age (even an all-star calibre player) that returned significantly more?

What fans wanted in return was never realistic.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Your twisting the point. You said how it looked at the time doesn't matter. It clearly does. You might argue that the process was fine, and an argument can certainly be made that it was but that's just your opinion, others clearly can disagree.

You can't just label yourself as the arbiter of what is an objective observer and brush aside everyone else's opinion as unobjective.

Remove emotion from it. And let's look at the trade, as it appeared at the time.

Ottawa trades:
- 27 year all-star defenseman looking for an 8 year extension at $10M+ per season

Ottawa receives:
- 1st round pick + conditional 1st round pick
- Two 2nd round picks
- Prospect drafted in the first round the year prior
- 23 year center who scored 40 points in 82 games the year prior
- 24 year old depth defenseman
- Prospect who scored 48 points in 67 games as a 20 year old in the AHL

Show me a trade where a team trading a star did much better? Obviously, some of the "pieces" turned out better than others, in hindsight, but based on the assets and how they looked at the time, why was it so bad?

And what did you realistically expect? If the condition was removed from the 2nd 1st rounder, would that have made it fine?

Imagine if this season, Florida imploded and Aaron Ekblad became available, but you knew it would cost $10M+ per year to extend him. Would you say that...

- 2023 Ottawa 1st
- 2024 conditional Ottawa 1st
- 2023 Ottawa 2nd
- 2024 Ottawa 2nd
- Jacob Bernard-Docker
- Alex Formenton
- Erik Brannstrom
- Egor Sokolov

...would be a massive underpayment, assuming Florida was kicking off a rebuild and wanted picks/prospects in return and not established, high-salary players?

 

[BoardsofCanada]

Considering the fact that every GM knew Karlsson wanted out and that Dorion had to trade him, I am amazed we got as good a deal as we did. I would guess that there were some lowball offers made hoping to land Erik the Great for a steal. Honestly, Dorion did great both at the time and especially in hindsight.

 

[Samsquanch]

What the "trade looked like at the time" doesn't matter though. How they trade shook out is what matters.
That's the case with trades and draft picks.

We can call the Logan Brown selection bad and put it into Dorion's "blunder" column, but at the time, the consensus was that it was fine.

Also, and I was the biggest Karlsson fan, the objective observer would not have called Karlsson an elite #1 RD in 2018. He was a flawed player. Injuries did a number on him. Doug Wilson, as many have in the past, fell into the "but he used to be great" trap and the Sharks are paying for it now,

Is waaaaay more surprising to me that Karlsson moved to the Sharks - and was clearly not the same player and played the entire season there with crowded blueline with him and Burns - and Wilson still chose to sign Karlsson to 11.5m per. Crazy bad decision making imo.

 

[Micklebot]

Yes, Karlsson dragged the Sens to a goal away from the finals, but unfortunately, in the process, he suffered an injury that significantly impacted his abilities and turned him into a flawed played. Sens fans should always be grateful to him because the guy sacrificed his career to help us win games in that playoff run.

But with that said, even at the time, the trade was fair. Anyone who condemned it was in the wrong. Now and back then.

Show me another trade for a player of Karlsson's age (even an all-star calibre player) that returned significantly more?

What fans wanted in return was never realistic.

Players of Karlsson's caliber don't typically get traded. But a 27 year old Jones and 32OA got traded for 6OA, 12OA, a recent 8th OA pick in Boqvist, and a 2nd (44th OA), which is pretty wild given no salary went back.

That's the only comparable I can think of

 

[BoardsofCanada]

Show me another trade for a player of Karlsson's age (even an all-star calibre player) that returned significantly more?

Eichel was kinda comparable. Coming off an injury just like Karlsson... a few years younger and with a contract already in place.

Buffalo received:
Alex Tuch · $4,750,000
Peyton Krebs · $863,333
2022 1st round pick (VGK - #16 - Noah Östlund)
2023 2nd round pick (VGK)

 

[DaveMatthew]

Players of Karlsson's caliber don't typically get traded. But a 27 year old Jones and 32OA got traded for 6OA, 12OA, a recent 8th OA pick in Boqvist, and a 2nd (44th OA), which is pretty wild given no salary went back.

That's the only comparable I can think of

The 6OA in 2022 wasn't expected to be that high when the trade was made though. Chicago expected to be competitive, just like San Jose did, and then imploded.

It was just a 1st round picks at the time of the deal. If Ottawa getting 3OA was lucky, Columbus getting 6OA as just as lucky, so you can't really give Kekalainen credit but not Dorion. If you give Kekalainen credit for predicting the implosion, you have to do the same for Dorion.

Boqvist had also not developed as quickly as expected, there were flaws and questions about him, so if Norris lost value from his draft position, so did he.

 

[Micklebot]

Remove emotion from it. And let's look at the trade, as it appeared at the time.

Ottawa trades:
- 27 year all-star defenseman looking for an 8 year extension at $10M+ per season

Ottawa receives:
- 1st round pick + conditional 1st round pick
- Two 2nd round picks
- Prospect drafted in the first round the year prior
- 23 year center who scored 40 points in 82 games the year prior
- 24 year old depth defenseman
- Prospect who scored 48 points in 67 games as a 20 year old in the AHL

Show me a trade where a team trading a star did much better? Obviously, some of the "pieces" turned out better than others, in hindsight, but based on the assets and how they looked at the time, why was it so bad?

And what did you realistically expect? If the condition was removed from the 2nd 1st rounder, would that have made it fine?

Imagine if this season, Florida imploded and Aaron Ekblad became available, but you knew it would cost $10M+ per year to extend him. Would you say that...

- 2023 Ottawa 1st
- 2024 conditional Ottawa 1st
- 2023 Ottawa 2nd
- 2024 Ottawa 2nd
- Jacob Bernard-Docker
- Alex Formenton
- Erik Brannstrom
- Egor Sokolov

...would be a massive underpayment, assuming Florida was kicking off a rebuild and wanted picks/prospects in return and not established, high-salary players?

the problem here is you're removing context.

SJ was expected to be a top team, a 1st rd pick was expected to be in the 25+ range,
The conditional first had a high bar to meet, they had to go to the SCF.
The prospect drafted in the 1st had a disappointing D+1.
The 23 year old center was as vanilla as it comes,
the 24 yr old depth dman had just not been qualified and wasn't able to get a better deal elsewhere.

The Jones trade for example could be argued to be a lesser player for a better return when you see a bottom feeding team give up two 1sts and a guy drafted 8 OA.

 

[JD1]

How a trade was considered at the time and how it's considered in hindsight are both important. Can't look at one without the other.

As you have mentioned - had we traded Karlsson straight up for Norris it'd still be a win in hindsight since Norris has broken out big time and Karlsson has completely broken down post-trade, but had we only got Norris out of San Jose in the deal it would have been considered one of the worst trades in history at the time it was made due to failing to get a proper return for what Karlsson's value was then.

Put another way using an extreme example - looking strictly at hindsight the best trade this organization has arguably ever made was the Alex Auld trade. Got Mark Stone in exchange for a backup goalie. Obviously if you consider that the 6th round pick we got in exchange for Auld was not expected to select a future star forward then it shouldn't be considered one of the best trades. Logic holds similarly for the Sharks pick ending up winning a lottery selection and ending up as Stutzle, but to a lesser degree.

That's why I view the trade as a win in hindsight but a missed opportunity to make out even better had we deservedly gotten an extra premium asset or two instead of a bunch of lesser pieces. Obviously you'll disagree but I think the near universal condemnation of the return by non-objective and objective observers alike when the trade was made speaks to this.

Also Karlsson was a season removed from dragging the Sens to a goal away from the finals, and he had 62 points in 71 games in 2017/18. He absolutely was still considered elite.

How many objective observers were there? There was a whole board of (understandably) butt hurt Sens fans screaming that they wanted more flesh.

Myself and a few others preferred he be moved because of the risk associated with injury related decline.

Who was objective?

He was certainly elite throughout the ecf in 17. He also clearly wasn't the same the following season and hasn't been since. If you understand what you see and were being objective, then moving on was the right call.

Idk. Maybe you don't understand what you see. Maybe you can't be objective. The truth lies in there somewhere.

 

[DaveMatthew]

the problem here is you're removing context.

SJ was expected to be a top team, a 1st rd pick was expected to be in the 25+ range,
The conditional first had a high bar to meet, they had to go to the SCF.
The prospect drafted in the 1st had a disappointing D+1.
The 23 year old center was as vanilla as it comes,
the 24 yr old depth dman had just not been qualified and wasn't able to get a better deal elsewhere.

The Jones trade for example could be argued to be a lesser player for a better return when you see a bottom feeding team give up two 1sts and a guy drafted 8 OA.

You're also missing context, though.

Erik Karlsson in the summer of 2018 was not Erik Karlsson from the summer of 2013.

If you add context to the pieces Ottawa got back, you have to do the same for the guy we sent out. You can't gloss over Karlsson's age, regression in 2018, injury history and contract demands.

And you can do the same thing with the Jones trade. Chicago wasn't a bottom feeder. While they had an off year in 20/21 (they still finished above .500 and were in the play-in), they expected to vault back into playoff contention with the Jones acquisition and Toews returning. They didn't project the 2nd 1st to be top 10.

There was a big element of luck for Columbus in that trade, just like there was for Ottawa. Although Boqvist has regressed from a projected top pairing defenseman, since his draft year and post-trade (the opposite of Norris).

 

[BoardsofCanada]

The Jones trade for example could be argued to be a lesser player for a better return when you see a bottom feeding team give up two 1sts and a guy drafted 8 OA.

Adam Boqvist · $894,167
2021 1st round pick (CHI - #12 - Cole Sillinger)
2021 2nd round pick (CHI - #44 - Aleksi Heimosalmi)
2022 1st round pick (CHI - #6 - David Jiricek)

Not sure I agree that this is a better return. Sillinger and Jiricek are good but better than Stutzle and Norris? Boqvist could be equal to Demelo and I dont know anything about Heimosalmi but I'd guess Tierney is/was better.

 

[Micklebot]

The 6OA in 2022 wasn't expected to be that high when the trade was made though. Chicago expected to be competitive, just like San Jose did, and then imploded.

It was just a 1st round picks at the time of the deal. If Ottawa getting 3OA was lucky, Columbus getting 6OA as just as lucky, so you can't really give Kekalainen credit but not Dorion. If you give Kekalainen credit for predicting the implosion, you have to do the same for Dorion.

Boqvist had also not developed as quickly as expected, there were flaws and questions about him, so if Norris lost value from his draft position, so did he.

Chicago had just missed the playoffs the year prior and wasn't particularly close to making it, while SJ had been a 100 pts team, but sure. just like SJ...

 

[JD1]

@Micklebot
@DaveMatthew

After all the keystrokes today, I hope you guys put in for a few vacation hours

 

[Micklebot]

Adam Boqvist · $894,167
2021 1st round pick (CHI - #12 - Cole Sillinger)
2021 2nd round pick (CHI - #44 - Aleksi Heimosalmi)
2022 1st round pick (CHI - #6 - David Jiricek)

Not sure I agree that this is a better return. Sillinger and Jiricek are good but better than Stutzle and Norris? Boqvist could be equal to Demelo and I dont know anything about Heimosalmi but I'd guess Tierney is/was better.

Stutlzle and Norris certainly look better now, the question was at the time though, not with the benefit of hindsight

 

[DaveMatthew]

Chicago had just missed the playoffs the year prior and wasn't particularly close to making it, while SJ had been a 100 pts team, but sure. just like SJ...

Chicago finished above .500, while missing Toews for the whole year. They expected to be in the playoffs after acquiring Jones and re-integrating Toews.

No, it wasn't as precipitous a drop-off as San Jose. But let's not act like they expected or projected to trade a lottery pick.

Also, while Norris' stock may have dropped after being drafted #19 in 2017, so did Boqvist's after being taken at #8 in 2018. He didn't appear on Button's list of top 50 prospects in 2019, either. (Russian wingers top TSN’s ranking of NHL-affiliated prospects - TSN.ca)

 

[Micklebot]

Chicago made the play-in and were above .500, while missing Toews for the whole year.

They expected to be in the playoffs after acquiring Jones and re-integrating Toews.

No, it wasn't as precipitous a drop-off as San Jose. But let's not act like they expected or projected to trade a lottery pick.

Seth Jones was traded to Chicago on 23 Jul 2021, Chicago missed the 2020-2021 playoffs by 8 pts in a shortened season, or roughly the equivalent of about 12 pts in a regular year.

 

[DaveMatthew]

Seth Jones was traded to Chicago on 23 Jul 2021, Chicago missed the 2020-2021 playoffs by 8 pts in a shortened season, or roughly the equivalent of about 12 pts in a regular year.

Yeah, my mistake.

Either way. Even if you like Columbus' return slightly more (and that's fair), I can't understand how there's such a difference where one deal is considered a colossal steal while the other is a colossal blunder.

In my opinion, both teams made the right move by trading away their high-priced declining assets. And while both deals were fair at the time, some good fortune after the trades were made have resulted in the deals being absolute steals for both Ottawa and Columbus.