Of course the Oilers jump on that grenade. Lmao.
My hot take aside is that Stan Bowman isn't even that good a GM. The foundation was laid before he got there. I guess that's what EDM needs though.
Agreed. The roster he inherited is insane, and he basically just babysat the existing core as it won their Cups. It's hard to imagine a GM starting out in a better position to succeed.
At forward, he started out with Toews (21), Kane (21), Versteeg (23), Bickell (23), Ladd (24), Brouwer (24), Sharp (28), Hossa (31, signed right before Tallon was demoted). On defense, Hjalmarsson (21), Seabrook (24), Byfuglien (24), Keith (26), Campbell (30). In net he inherited Crawford (25) and Niemi (26). Leddy was already in the system. Quenneville was already head coach. The team made the conference finals the previous year. If Tallon hadn't messed up submitting QOs to his RFAs that summer and gotten himself demoted, Bowman wouldn't have lucked into the perfect situation.
The biggest pieces Bowman added to any of the three Cup winning rosters he had were by drafting Saad (12th and 8th in scoring on the '13 and '15 teams respectively, traded for scraps after the latter) and signing a 34 year old Brad Richards (6th in scoring on the '15 team). It's honestly kind of impressive how little he managed to contribute to those cup-winning rosters. In fairness he was the AGM while Bolland was building that roster, and I guess you have to give him some credit for keeping the core together, but his big weapon there was the back-diving contracts the league later ruled to be cap circumvention, so he'll need to learn a new trick. Maybe he can convince Nurse to become allergic to his hockey equipment?
His drafting record is very mixed. Early on he made some nice picks (Schmaltz, Hartman, Terravainen, Saad, Danault), but he traded every one of them away before they broke out on other teams, and aside from Hartman the value he got back was terrible in each case. Kinda seems like he was letting the scouting department take their guys but didn't have the trust/patience to just let them develop. Also drafted Kevin Hayes with his first pick as full GM and then failed to sign him. Only guy he kept who broke out as a Blackhawk was DeBrincat. When the team started tanking he finally got to make some picks high in the first round, and he proceded to whiff on Boqvist (8th OA, next D off the board was Evan Bouchard, oof), Dach (3rd OA), and Reichel (17th OA).
And all this is without getting into his role in the cover up. But he's got three Cups on his resume, so back on the job he goes.