Management Thread | Blurst of Times

[Grumbler]

Honestly…just rebuild. Full rebuild. Last year was a fluke, current performance is expected and in fact even slightly over performing.

We should be treating the team like it was the year before last year. That is the true skill level of this team. Terrible terrible moves/signings last year to gamble in the playoffs and act like we are a playoff contending team. Need to blow it all up now.

 

[IslandBeast]

Should of kept the first we got from the Miller trade, get another first for boeser, whatever you can for Demko maybe someone would gamble a 2nd rounder for him. Make Petey and Hughes suck it up for 3 years while Lekkerimaki, our defense prospects and our 3 firsts from this year develop and go from there.

 

[racerjoe]

Should of kept the first we got from the Miller trade, get another first for boeser, whatever you can for Demko maybe someone would gamble a 2nd rounder for him. Make Petey and Hughes suck it up for 3 years while Lekkerimaki, our defense prospects and our 3 firsts from this year develop and go from there.

Maybe you can FORCE Petey to suck it up... but Hughes laughs and walks to FA in 2 years and leaves...

 

[sandwichbird2023]

First thing they have to do this summer is fire Tocchet and hire an offensive coach. To get the best out of Hughes and Pettersson, stop hiring dinosaur coaches.

If they can dump Garland and Myers to free up some cap space, do that as well.

Make a real run at Rantanen and/or Ehlers. This team desperately needs some firepower and skill in the top-six. The defense has enough; the offense does not.

Boeser has to get dealt before the deadline. They're going nowhere this season and he's not worth his contract demands. Last season was an outlier.

With the current roster, I don't think a run and gun style is going to work well. We are now built with strength on the blueline and very little speed/creativity up front. Trying to play an offensive style will likely result in us getting lit up with very little additional scoring.

Unfortunately playing a tight defensive game is better suited for this lineup, as boring as the game is to watch.

 

[Hodgy]

With the current roster, I don't think a run and gun style is going to work well. We are now built with strength on the blueline and very little speed/creativity up front. Trying to play an offensive style will likely result in us getting lit up with very little additional scoring.

Unfortunately playing a tight defensive game is better suited for this lineup, as boring as the game is to watch.

We are like Lemaire’s Wild. It’s nice to have a Gaborik type, but otherwise it’s a sea of Wallz, Dupuis, Brunette, Park, etc.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Should of kept the first we got from the Miller trade, get another first for boeser, whatever you can for Demko maybe someone would gamble a 2nd rounder for him. Make Petey and Hughes suck it up for 3 years while Lekkerimaki, our defense prospects and our 3 firsts from this year develop and go from there.

The time to do this was ~2 years ago when we moved Horvat.

Now the timing is all off. The prospects drafted this summer wont help soon enough.

 

[sensodyne17]

First thing they have to do this summer is fire Tocchet and hire an offensive coach. To get the best out of Hughes and Pettersson, stop hiring dinosaur coaches.

If they can dump Garland and Myers to free up some cap space, do that as well.

Make a real run at Rantanen and/or Ehlers. This team desperately needs some firepower and skill in the top-six. The defense has enough; the offense does not.

Boeser has to get dealt before the deadline. They're going nowhere this season and he's not worth his contract demands. Last season was an outlier.

Huh?

Did we just forget Hughes won the Norris last year under Tocchet?

We just saying anything these days...

 

[Grifter3511]

First thing they have to do this summer is fire Tocchet and hire an offensive coach. To get the best out of Hughes and Pettersson, stop hiring dinosaur coaches.

If they can dump Boeser and Soucy to free up some cap space, do that as well.

Make a real run at Marner and Bennett. This team desperately needs some firepower and skill in the top-six. The defense has enough; the offense does not.

Boeser has to get dealt before the deadline. They're going nowhere this season and he's not worth his contract demands. Last season was an outlier.

Made a few tweaks.

 

[sensodyne17]

Management sold low on Miller and after Pettersson's complete no show at the Four Nations, his stock couldn't be any lower.

They're going to have to unload him before the NTC kicks in, and the return is not going to be great.

They really botched this entire thing.

What Gillis did with Luongo and Schneider looks like a Hall of Fame level masterclass compared to Rutherford and Allvin.

Huge disagree. 80-90% of the blame goes to the players IMO.

Horvat was coming off a career year in his contract year and wasn't willing to sign at a discount... he wanted 8 years at 8.5M per even though his career high was 61 points. Canucks didn't want to sign a 60 point offensive center to that type of extension into his mid-late 30s. In his Islanders career, he's continued his career trajectory has a 60 point guy. He has 41 points in 56 games this year, exactly a 60 point pace. The management team already signed a comparable contract in Miller who is the far superior player. They managed to trade Horvat and flip the assets for Hronek, who's been great for us. I know you didn't mention Horvat by name but it helps to add context. This is probably an A in terms of grading.

You indicate that Management sold low on Miller... but isn't that just using the power of hindsight? At what time were we realistically able to sell "high" on Miller? During Miller's down year in 2022-2023, he was shopped before this NMC kicked in but teams were scared of the extension and the offers weren't good (weren't much better than today if at all). The year after, Miller returns to form and carries us to Game 7 of the Semi-Finals and was our best player in the playoffs. We could have gotten a better return but why would we trade our best player as a top 5 team in the league? Fastforward to this year... Miller has been awful and some sort of altercation or event occurred that directly lead to his month-long leave of absence. Again... how could management anticipate something like this happening at all? This lead to them having no choice but to get rid of a locker room cancer/distraction. He had a NMC and was having a down year... the fact we got MP, Chytil, Mancini and ridded ourselves of Deharnaias and Heinen is actually very good given the circumstances. This is probably a B in terms of grading.

Petey's terrible play is also management related? I don't understand what you want this management team to do with his on-ice play. They traded his "bully" and gave him keys to the franchise and he's looked even worse.

Saying the management team botched the entire thing is such a dumbed down answer. The environment is extremely dynamic and everchanging in sports... you can only operate and make decisions based on what you know at the time. No executive in a suit could have predicted or prevented JTM destroying the locker room and Pettersson's fall off a cliff happening simultaneously.

The current state is what is and the management has extremely difficult choices to make from here.

 

[F A N]

We are like Lemaire’s Wild. It’s nice to have a Gaborik type, but otherwise it’s a sea of Wallz, Dupuis, Brunette, Park, etc.

Don't downplay the role of Gaborik though when the goal is to win 1 goal games.

 

[Hodgy]

Don't downplay the role of Gaborik though when the goal is to win 1 goal games.

For sure, he was an important weapon for them. But he also scored goals based on incredible speed and skill that succeeded in small bursts outside of Lemaire’s system. Not sure that we have anything similar currently.

 

[sandwichbird2023]

Huge disagree. 80-90% of the blame goes to the players IMO.

Horvat was coming off a career year in his contract year and wasn't willing to sign at a discount... he wanted 8 years at 8.5M per even though his career high was 61 points. Canucks didn't want to sign a 60 point offensive center to that type of extension into his mid-late 30s. In his Islanders career, he's continued his career trajectory has a 60 point guy. He has 41 points in 56 games this year, exactly a 60 point pace. The management team already signed a comparable contract in Miller who is the far superior player. They managed to trade Horvat and flip the assets for Hronek, who's been great for us. I know you didn't mention Horvat by name but it helps to add context. This is probably an A in terms of grading.

You indicate that Management sold low on Miller... but isn't that just using the power of hindsight? At what time were we realistically able to sell "high" on Miller? During Miller's down year in 2022-2023, he was shopped before this NMC kicked in but teams were scared of the extension and the offers weren't good (weren't much better than today if at all). The year after, Miller returns to form and carries us to Game 7 of the Semi-Finals and was our best player in the playoffs. We could have gotten a better return but why would we trade our best player as a top 5 team in the league? Fastforward to this year... Miller has been awful and some sort of altercation or event occurred that directly lead to his month-long leave of absence. Again... how could management anticipate something like this happening at all? This lead to them having no choice but to get rid of a locker room cancer/distraction. He had a NMC and was having a down year... the fact we got MP, Chytil, Mancini and ridded ourselves of Deharnaias and Heinen is actually very good given the circumstances. This is probably a B in terms of grading.

Petey's terrible play is also management related? I don't understand what you want this management team to do with his on-ice play. They traded his "bully" and gave him keys to the franchise and he's looked even worse.

Saying the management team botched the entire thing is such a dumbed down answer. The environment is extremely dynamic and everchanging in sports... you can only operate and make decisions based on what you know at the time. No executive in a suit could have predicted or prevented JTM destroying the locker room and Pettersson's fall off a cliff happening simultaneously.

The current state is what is and the management has extremely difficult choices to make from here.

I agree with most of what you said. I think there are a couple things that management could've done better to mitigate the issue (although ultimately who knows if it makes a difference in the end):

1) they had to know JTM was somewhat of an issue in the locker room, with Petey being the prime victim. Brad Richardson had already told management they need more vet to keep Miller in his place. They had Schenn and Pearson holding things together, and I'm not saying we need to keep those 2 players specifically, but they should've brought in a couple more respected vets to hold the room together.

2) they could've dealt with the Petey's injury situation a lot better. First and foremost listen to him and let him rest up when it first came up. I get that the team was fighting for the division and needs all hands on deck, but you can clearly see him struggling out there by March, we were locked in for a playoff spot, they should've rest him. They also should've provided him with clear training schedule and instruction for the summer, instead of letting him doing whatever he wants. And for god's sake don't tell JTM to motivate him, that was the dumbest decision ever, knowing their history! And don't call him out publicly, no matter how frustrated you are with him privately, its counter-productive knowing Petey's personality.

While some of the issues are out of management's control, I felt that they didn't handle it very well either. The transactions are fine in isolation, but Allvin/JR deserves some blame in all of this as well.