Move over Jim Benning, Joe Sakic is the worst GM in the NHL (long)

[Alex Jones]

53rd overall pick + Kyle Wood for 18 games of Boedker is very much in the bad category. Might be the worst move he ever made, if Kyle Wood doesn't slow down.

You may be right, but I was trying to be nice and withhold judgement until Wood plays in the big leagues. There is always a possibility that it doesn't work out for some reason. Most likely that move will end up in the bad category.

 

[Phil McKraken]

Four years is still a relatively short time to judge a GM in. If it's not an organization of the Pens or Hawks (or Knights) type you're forced to take over and sort through a lot of dead wood. I'm not saying Sakic has done much to prove the opposite yet but the current struggles of the Avs also has a lot to do with moves made before he became the top guy.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

Hes the GM 100% the good and the bad can be placed on him.

Bottom line is AVS should not be finishing at the bottom of the league and having to rebuild with what they had when Sakic started there. This team should be one of the deepest down the middle and have tons of pieces to move.

All the moves he made added up to the AV's being where they are and thats on the GM.

As an Avs fan, I'd say all of it. That's his job, literally.

Agree the GM ultimately is responsible. That being said:
1) Mandates from ownership/organizational leadership can impact what the GM does. As an example, Gillis wasn't allowed to rebuild in VAN, so the GM isn't always 100% free to do what he thinks is best for the organization. In this case, my intrepretation of the situation is Roy was heavily involved in player personel moves, so that means that it wasn't necessarily Sakic operating on an island.
2) The organization lacks depth, and has for a long time. Some of that is on Sakic, but poor drafting for the 5+ years prior to Sakic taking over means that there isn't a talent in the pipeline, which likely means poor depth or bad UFA contracts given out.

I'm not giving Sakic a pass on the dumpster fire that is the Av's, or that he should left in charge for the rebuild. I am saying that though that there were other factors that should be taken into account. The "worst GM" threads typically has people completely overblowing marginal moves (see Benning thread for example) to make their point.

 

[scrubadam]

Agree the GM ultimately is responsible. That being said:
1) Mandates from ownership/organizational leadership can impact what the GM does. As an example, Gillis wasn't allowed to rebuild in VAN, so the GM isn't always 100% free to do what he thinks is best for the organization. In this case, my intrepretation of the situation is Roy was heavily involved in player personel moves, so that means that it wasn't necessarily Sakic operating on an island.
2) The organization lacks depth, and has for a long time. Some of that is on Sakic, but poor drafting for the 5+ years prior to Sakic taking over means that there isn't a talent in the pipeline, which likely means poor depth or bad UFA contracts given out.

I'm not giving Sakic a pass on the dumpster fire that is the Av's, or that he should left in charge for the rebuild. I am saying that though that there were other factors that should be taken into account. The "worst GM" threads typically has people completely overblowing marginal moves (see Benning thread for example) to make their point.

What I disagree with is that AVS were a deep team when Sakic took over. Maybe one of the best C line in the game outside of a team or 2. He also got lucky with getting a 1st overall pick. So to go from being a team on the rise, with a 1st OVA and 2 great centers to being the worst team in the league shows that Sakic screwed the pooch. Ownership/Roy can take only so much blame. If I was an AV's fan I would want Sakic gone and not let him be in charge of rebuild number 2. He had his chance and made the team worse.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

What I disagree with is that AVS were a deep team when Sakic took over. Maybe one of the best C line in the game outside of a team or 2. He also got lucky with getting a 1st overall pick. So to go from being a team on the rise, with a 1st OVA and 2 great centers to being the worst team in the league shows that Sakic screwed the pooch. Ownership/Roy can take only so much blame. If I was an AV's fan I would want Sakic gone and not let him be in charge of rebuild number 2. He had his chance and made the team worse.

I get your point, and agree with the general conclusion.

Just IMO though - ROR was leaving, and that relationship was poisoned well before Sakic became GM. If you want to blame Sakic for not being able to repair the relationship - that's fine. I do think though that Sakic got good value for ROR when dealt - so that's a pretty big mitigating circumstance.

Stastny is a little bit of a different case. I don't think you can move a UFA to be when you're #1 in the division. My issue is that Stastny's cap $'s ultimately went to Iginla & Stuart, which is Sakic's epic fail IMO.

I definitely agree with MrJonas' post above. In a relatively talent light organization, 4 years is too short to evaluate a GM's ability to turn an organization around.

 

[redwings25]

sakic was a great player but terrible gm. if i remember right gretzky was horrible coach and anything else the yotes let him do. not everyone can be stevey y

 

[GirardIsStupid]

So much wrong with this post, I wish people would just stop commenting on teams they don't follow.

Couldn't agree more man. Anyone who says that you can't build a team around MacKinnon is out to lunch. He's the only Avalanche player who brings his best game every night and works his ass off. Plus, he's the only guy on the roster that's capable of thriving in the system that Bednar or any analytics coach would like to use. Here's a simple message to anyone who would like to give their two cents on the Avalanche without watching them play: watch Jarome Iginla and Francois Beauchemin you'll get what's wrong with the Avalanche. Far too many old guys with fat contracts on a team trying to play a game meant for young guys. If we're going to drag down Sakic's name, Iginla and Beauchemin need the same treatment for not knowing when they should have retired.

 

[TheForsbergShow]

What I disagree with is that AVS were a deep team when Sakic took over. Maybe one of the best C line in the game outside of a team or 2. He also got lucky with getting a 1st overall pick. So to go from being a team on the rise, with a 1st OVA and 2 great centers to being the worst team in the league shows that Sakic screwed the pooch. Ownership/Roy can take only so much blame. If I was an AV's fan I would want Sakic gone and not let him be in charge of rebuild number 2. He had his chance and made the team worse.

It's been beaten to death a million times. No team would be spending 8 million on ROR and 7 million on Stas and 6 million on Duchene then having to resign their new star Mackinnon in a couple years. What do you think he would be asking for if they were all making that ? Beyond the forwards which I agree were very nice, they had the worst D group to go with it.

ROR didn't want to stay, its that simple, Stas had a chance to stay, but he wanted to move on. It takes two to tango in signing a deal, its not like NHL gm mode where you send an offer and they accept lol.

When did they ever do rebuild #1? They have sucked some years and gotten high draft picks, but they have never completely just traded vets and got picks for them and built a any form of prospect depth. I wouldn't mind seeing a new fresh face as a GM with entirely new staff that haven't just been promoted from within, but that isn't how the Avs work.

 

[CrypTic]

Agree on evaluating on the information available at the time of the decision. The problem is that we don't know the organization's evaluations of the players at the time of the trade. What we do haven is the public perception, which could be very different!

I agree. We don't even know what info the org was basing the evaluations on. Was their info good and reasonably complete? Was it bad (e.g., scouts suck, front office bad at knowing business environment)? So even if you can say confidently that they should have known X was a bad trade (bc that was the consensus at the time the trade was made), you don't know why.

Ultimately, the owners, then the GM is responsible but, e.g., it's still a good decision to rely on scouts that have done a good job before even if it turns out later that they botched this particular evaluation. You can only say it was a bad decision to rely on them if they've been bad at their jobs (prior to when you made the decision) and you haven't made reasonable efforts to replace them with better scouts.

 

[nickschultzfan]

It's been beaten to death a million times. No team would be spending 8 million on ROR and 7 million on Stas and 6 million on Duchene then having to resign their new star Mackinnon in a couple years. What do you think he would be asking for if they were all making that ? Beyond the forwards which I agree were very nice, they had the worst D group to go with it.

ROR didn't want to stay, its that simple, Stas had a chance to stay, but he wanted to move on. It takes two to tango in signing a deal, its not like NHL gm mode where you send an offer and they accept lol.

When did they ever do rebuild #1? They have sucked some years and gotten high draft picks, but they have never completely just traded vets and got picks for them and built a any form of prospect depth. I wouldn't mind seeing a new fresh face as a GM with entirely new staff that haven't just been promoted from within, but that isn't how the Avs work.

This is a lot of hindsight rationalization of objectively bad decisions. We have to view things in the order they actually happened.

First, Sakic new the Avs #1 need was defense, and when the top Dman in two drafts (Larsson, Jones) fall into his lap, he goes with the flashier Landeskog and MacKinnon.

Then, he has to deal with the fallout of those two decisions, which was a much, much more difficult re-signing of ROR and Statsny, both of which saw an organization that was putting all their eggs in MacKinnon's basket. And losing Statsny gave more leverage to ROR. Sakic was offended by both their opening offers and the overall market, and went on a PR campaign about how the team isn't going to overpay to keep guys that part of the teams core.

Finally, Sakic fails to smooth out any of the rest of the roster. Blueline still can't play defense. MacKinnon is better at wing. Center depth went from top of the league to bottom.

 

[nickschultzfan]

X-Duchene-X
X-OReilly-X
X-Stastny-X
X - X - X

Y-Jones
Y-Larsson
Y - Y

Varlamov

That's a lot better core than the current lineup.

 

[Grandrift145]

Stop hating on Benning. It's clear that Benning has a directive to try to compleat from ownership, and he is doing his best. Other than a picking Virtanen and making a couple of PR mistakes, I have no beef with Benning.

Sakic is horrible simply because he hasn't made a good move the whole time he's been a GM

 

[Sky04]

This is a lot of hindsight rationalization of objectively bad decisions. We have to view things in the order they actually happened.

First, Sakic new the Avs #1 need was defense, and when the top Dman in two drafts (Larsson, Jones) fall into his lap, he goes with the flashier Landeskog and MacKinnon.

Then, he has to deal with the fallout of those two decisions, which was a much, much more difficult re-signing of ROR and Statsny, both of which saw an organization that was putting all their eggs in MacKinnon's basket. And losing Statsny gave more leverage to ROR. Sakic was offended by both their opening offers and the overall market, and went on a PR campaign about how the team isn't going to overpay to keep guys that part of the teams core.

Finally, Sakic fails to smooth out any of the rest of the roster. Blueline still can't play defense. MacKinnon is better at wing. Center depth went from top of the league to bottom.

Completely agree, if you plan on taking the forward when D is a need, you HAVE to make up that pick eventually. It's also looks worse that 2 years after losing O'Reilly he's still a more effective player/center than Mackinnon now. Although imo, Mackinnon and Landeskog are more effective players than Larsson/Jones, if that allusion of forward "depth" was the difference in losing Statsny and ROR, Sakic blew it.

The Av's were in playoff contention mode when Sakic inheritted the team. At no point were they in full rebuild and his moves suggest they were definitely competing for the playoffs. So you can definitely judge the results based on that.

Yzerman passed on Jones for Drouin when the Lightning were heavily in need of defense and already had St.louis/Stamkos, but Garrison and Stralman were acquired the following year.

 

[SenzZen]

ROR was never going to re-sign with the Avs- that's one thing you can't put on Sakic.

I'm not an insider by any means, but all the signs were pointing to a broken relationship between ROR and management/ownership. There was just too much water under the bridge.

 

[nickschultzfan]

ROR was never going to re-sign with the Avs- that's one thing you can't put on Sakic.

I'm not an insider by any means, but all the signs were pointing to a broken relationship between ROR and management/ownership. There was just too much water under the bridge.

They what is the point of a change in management?

ROR was still an RFA. And if there was an issue than Stastny should have been re-signed.

 

[Elias Pettersson]

kesler handicapped benning as he basically only wanted to be dealt to anaheim. Sbisa has definitely gotten better but the contract extension was bad.

Garrison deal at the time was bad, but it's looking fine now.

Vey deal was bad and willie desjardins made it even worse

dorsett trade was meh....

Pedan trade was bad

forsling trade was the worst one out of here

kassian trade was pretty bad considering we added a 5th lol

bonino trade is meh

lack trade was very good

shinkaruk trade is very good

mccann trade looks very even right now tbh

larsen trade was meh

sbisa contract sucks

miller contract isn't that bad as people think

dorsett contract is bad

sutter contract is bad

eriksson contract is bad

No thoughts on the Baertschi trade?

 

[scrubadam]

I get your point, and agree with the general conclusion.

Just IMO though - ROR was leaving, and that relationship was poisoned well before Sakic became GM. If you want to blame Sakic for not being able to repair the relationship - that's fine. I do think though that Sakic got good value for ROR when dealt - so that's a pretty big mitigating circumstance.

Stastny is a little bit of a different case. I don't think you can move a UFA to be when you're #1 in the division. My issue is that Stastny's cap $'s ultimately went to Iginla & Stuart, which is Sakic's epic fail IMO.

I definitely agree with MrJonas' post above. In a relatively talent light organization, 4 years is too short to evaluate a GM's ability to turn an organization around.

I don't know much about how poisined the relationship was but if thats true yes I don't hold JS responsible. Just its hard to see a team go from being so deep down the middle which is one of the most important positions in hockey to being weak.

And I agree taking Statsney's cap and investing it in what he did was a mistake. In the end JS thought the team could continue on and be better by losing two talented centers and his gamble blew up in his face. He thought rookies and draft picks could replace those two guys talent and he was wrong. McKinnon/ROR/Stats down the middle would make the AVs IMHO a top team. Instead AV's are looking to draft 1st OVA and probably spend the next 2 or 3 years "rebuilding" when they should be at the point where they are challenging for a cup right now.

This is all based off my opinion when JS was brought in. With the pieces they had and bringing in Roy I thought they would be one of the top Western teams.

 

[scrubadam]

It's been beaten to death a million times. No team would be spending 8 million on ROR and 7 million on Stas and 6 million on Duchene then having to resign their new star Mackinnon in a couple years. What do you think he would be asking for if they were all making that ? Beyond the forwards which I agree were very nice, they had the worst D group to go with it.

Talent trumps cap space. You try and make it work. I guess Pens are stupid for having Malkin/Crosby? Or CHI for having Kane/Towes? And if they had those 2 guys they would be in a much stronger position to trade one of them or MD or GL or McKinnion even. AV's are a better team with ROR/Stats then without them.

ROR didn't want to stay, its that simple, Stas had a chance to stay, but he wanted to move on. It takes two to tango in signing a deal, its not like NHL gm mode where you send an offer and they accept lol.

In that case I can't necesarily blame JS 100%, but he still wasn't able to retain to key talents and its what is effecting the team. It happened on his watch and in the end he is responsible for the downgrade of talent that took place in front of him.

When did they ever do rebuild #1? They have sucked some years and gotten high draft picks, but they have never completely just traded vets and got picks for them and built a any form of prospect depth. I wouldn't mind seeing a new fresh face as a GM with entirely new staff that haven't just been promoted from within, but that isn't how the Avs work.

I consider when JS came in "rebuild" number 1. He came to a team that was trying to turn itself around, got a 1 pick OVA and now here the AVS are a few years later back at the bottom of the league. IMHO AV's were set up to be a top Western team and they blew it. They were oozing talent especially at C and started to think like HF posters that they can shed talent and get picks and cap space and be better off. Reality is talent is talent and its very hard to replace that talent with mystery boxes. AV's are proof of that.

 

[TheForsbergShow]

This is a lot of hindsight rationalization of objectively bad decisions. We have to view things in the order they actually happened.

First, Sakic new the Avs #1 need was defense, and when the top Dman in two drafts (Larsson, Jones) fall into his lap, he goes with the flashier Landeskog and MacKinnon.

Then, he has to deal with the fallout of those two decisions, which was a much, much more difficult re-signing of ROR and Statsny, both of which saw an organization that was putting all their eggs in MacKinnon's basket. And losing Statsny gave more leverage to ROR. Sakic was offended by both their opening offers and the overall market, and went on a PR campaign about how the team isn't going to overpay to keep guys that part of the teams core.

Finally, Sakic fails to smooth out any of the rest of the roster. Blueline still can't play defense. MacKinnon is better at wing. Center depth went from top of the league to bottom.

Last I checked the old management botched the entire ROR contract negotiations before he was made GM and before Mack was involved making it doubtful he was going to take a reasonable contract. He wants to play Center so if we already had Duchene (who prefers C) and Stas signed in your scenario , where is ROR going to end up playing and for how much? Stas was taking no less than 6.5 and O'Reilly wouldn't either especially to play at wing. None of this is hindsight, you just can't keep together a group like that for long in todays NHL without being thin in other areas.

I have said it before, but if they hadn't been doing so good that year when Stastnys contract was up, we most likely would have seen him traded at the deadline for a decent return. Nobody expected them to be winning like they were, and as a fan it sucks having to watch that Jekyll and Hyde team every year.

At the time they thought those players would be better than taking the D with such a high pick. When you are that high up you don't just take the position you need. Avs weren't the only team either that felt there were better forward options than Jones.

Who is to say that the Avs drafting Jones and Larsson makes them a good team now or better off. They have developed like one good D man in 10 years (Barrie) . Nobody knows how those players/ the team would be like now and we will never know. This is the first time I have heard someone call Landeskog a flashy pick though lol.

Basically you think the Avs should draft Liljgren if they get the #1 regardless of who is actually the best player in their scouting departments eyes.

At the end of the day its a lot of assumptions and a lot of perfect alternate universes on how things would be differently for the better. Nobody knows if they had drafted Jones over Mack that they would have been able to keep Stas and/or ROR. For all we know if they drafted both D instead they would be left with a forward group of Duchene ROR and a bunch of overpaid FA forwards on bad contracts for 5+ years (kinda like now but at least its almost over haha)

All I know is I don't want to see Landy or Duchene traded, but if for once in the past 14 years we could have a good D group from those trades with a few solid forwards like Mack, Jost, Rantanen, 20171st I am all for it. Whatever formula they have been using since there last cup hasn't worked and I just want a different team outlook as long as it starts producing wins and good hockey. So if that is with or without Sakic Idc, just stick to a plan and go through with it for once with no shortcuts like in the past.

 

[TheForsbergShow]

Talent trumps cap space. You try and make it work. I guess Pens are stupid for having Malkin/Crosby? Or CHI for having Kane/Towes? And if they had those 2 guys they would be in a much stronger position to trade one of them or MD or GL or McKinnion even. AV's are a better team with ROR/Stats then without them.


I consider when JS came in "rebuild" number 1. He came to a team that was trying to turn itself around, got a 1 pick OVA and now here the AVS are a few years later back at the bottom of the league. IMHO AV's were set up to be a top Western team and they blew it. They were oozing talent especially at C and started to think like HF posters that they can shed talent and get picks and cap space and be better off. Reality is talent is talent and its very hard to replace that talent with mystery boxes. AV's are proof of that.

The difference there is Crosby/Malkin are two HHOF already and elite level talents. Kane/Toews are on teams that have a norris calibre dman and a couple other high end ones signed to good deals. Then add in Hossa at a contract that is no longer allowed sure its easy to say they could be like them and make it work. When Crosby can play with AHL callups and make them look legit its pretty easy lol. I couldn't imagine Sheary or Rust on the avs first line haha

It can be considered a rebuild sure, but what rebuilding teams go from drafting first to finishing top 5 in the league the following year? It was just a very strange situation with the lockout year and good season the next that set the entire team back because they thought they were ready to take the next step.

I think signing Roy on as HC and VP or whatever other title he had was a mistake by Sakic. He should have been building the team he wanted instead he was listening a lot more to what Roy wanted which was a Rookie mistake. So we got this jumbled mess of two differing ideas on the team and it left us where we are today.

 

[LeafFever]

ROR was never going to re-sign with the Avs- that's one thing you can't put on Sakic.

I'm not an insider by any means, but all the signs were pointing to a broken relationship between ROR and management/ownership. There was just too much water under the bridge.

I heard he just wanted too much $.

 

[Zaddy91]

tryamkin and baertschi laugh at the title

 

[scrubadam]

The difference there is Crosby/Malkin are two HHOF already and elite level talents. Kane/Toews are on teams that have a norris calibre dman and a couple other high end ones signed to good deals. Then add in Hossa at a contract that is no longer allowed sure its easy to say they could be like them and make it work. When Crosby can play with AHL callups and make them look legit its pretty easy lol. I couldn't imagine Sheary or Rust on the avs first line haha


It can be considered a rebuild sure, but what rebuilding teams go from drafting first to finishing top 5 in the league the following year? It was just a very strange situation with the lockout year and good season the next that set the entire team back because they thought they were ready to take the next step.

I think signing Roy on as HC and VP or whatever other title he had was a mistake by Sakic. He should have been building the team he wanted instead he was listening a lot more to what Roy wanted which was a Rookie mistake. So we got this jumbled mess of two differing ideas on the team and it left us where we are today.

I am just from the outside looking in. Again you can have lots of reasons or excuses but at the end of the day JS lost 2 very good Centers and the team is worse then before. And JS is again in the position where he is going to trade another good Center in MD. Whats with COL and trading their centers? is McKinnion going to be traded in 2 years?

If you are an AV's fan I don't see how you can excuse JS for where he has taken this team especially how promising they looked when they had ROR/MD/STATS/1OVA. I am a habs fan and would kill for that C line right there.

And the whole Roy debacle is even worse. He should of known that was trouble from the start. Maybe JS isn't his own man and lets ownership meddle to much. It takes a good GM to stand up to his boss and tell him to let him do his job.

Just my personal opinion from the outside but AV's should have been a top team today. They had everything they needed and it feel to crap. No way with what JS started with the team should be bottom of the league looking at a "rebuild".

 

[JoemAvs]

How on earth can that awful Boedker trade and that horrible 2 year UFA extension for ROR not be in the bad move category?


That might be his two worst moves (ok maybe not but atleast close to it).


Ugh.



Yeah he has been bloody awful.

But Roy is gone now. So he gets a bit of a shot at turning things around.

But if he screws up the next 6 Months (and recent rumors suggest that he will. A freaking goalie prospect? WTF!), he absolutely will go down as one of the worst GMs in the history of the game...

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Pretty much disagree with everything you said OP.


A LOT of the negatives that have happened with Sakic as GM have been largely a result of the input from Roy.


Sakic should be judged more so on what he has done in the last year rather then the last 3+ years. It was under a totally different vision that had major influence(And not in a good way) by Roy who always pushed for this team to win now and make trade to benefit the now without thinking about the future.