Ray Shero Hired By Lamorello To Replace Himself As GM

[Ocoee]

I think trading Pouliot for Kesler would have been a bad idea and add to the complaints about Shero. The Pens need youth not 30-something year old centers that may help them for a year or two but it would leave the prospect pool in even worse shape than it is now. Kesler wouldn't have gotten the Pens any further this year. Shero was right not making that trade. If he would have dealt Pouliot then he should have targeted a similarly talented winger prospect.

 

[Captain Hook]

I think trading Pouliot for Kesler would have been a bad idea and add to the complaints about Shero. The Pens need youth not 30-something year old centers that may help them for a year or two but it would leave the prospect pool in even worse shape than it is now. Kesler wouldn't have gotten the Pens any further this year. Shero was right not making that trade. If he would have dealt Pouliot then he should have targeted a similarly talented winger prospect.

I agree.

I was never a fan of paying that price for Kesler. Anaheim ultimately didn't pay that price for him either. They got him relatively cheap. Problem was Kesler scratched us off his list of teams he'd accept a trade to the 2nd time Vancouver shopped him. We never had a chance to get him at a more reasonable price like Anaheim did.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

You talked about Galchenyuk being flexible in the other thread, what makes you think Kesler would've been solely used as a center here? He's been successful at wing before.

We biffed it by not pursuing Kesler with the utmost urgency. The guy's a monster, and exactly what we have been missing for years.

Because, as the posters above me point out, we need to get YOUTH on this team in a very bad way.

I cannot speak about Kesler without bias, though. He's the player I hate most in this entire league, so whatever I say about him should always have that disclaimer.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Because, as the posters above me point out, we need to get YOUTH on this team in a very bad way.

I cannot speak about Kesler without bias, though. He's the player I hate most in this entire league, so whatever I say about him should always have that disclaimer.

He's 30. It's not like he's already 35.

I don't know. It doesn't matter, because we never went after him as hard as we should have, but the guy's exactly what we need minus the fact that he's 30. He's big, he plays with an edge, he's physical, he can skate, he has a great two-way game, and he can chip in a good amount offensively. Outside of being ~25 years old and a full-time winger, he's just about as perfect a guy as we could have landed.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

Regardless of the young pieces he inherited, the Pens had a lot of issues that Shero addressed.

Retaining elite talent and surrounding them with the right complementary players is a lot easier said than done.

Correct.

He forgot to mention Shero inherited Gogo and Whits, who were the main pieces of two of his three best trades.

 

[The Greatest 101]

I'm sooooo happy about this.Now trade all the dead weights to the Devils.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

Shero left the Pens with a lot more good than bad. If anyone thinks the Scuds, Dupes, Adams and Kunitz signings are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to bad deals, they need to look at the track record of more GMs.

Ugh, this is so wrong it hurts. How could you possibly not see the shambles Shero left this franchise in?

 

[SHOOTANDSCORE]

Best of luck to him.

Except when at our expense.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Shero had an embarrassment of riches to work with when he took the job as Pens GM years ago. I don't care how people frame it. That's what it was. The team wasn't winning, Patrick was stale and burned out and Shero did a good job getting the franchise's feet back underneath of it by making some good common sense moves that addressed team defense and depth lines, mostly. But lets not mistake it... his major pieces were already all in front of him. I would even argue one of his first acts as GM was a poor one (Staal 2nd overall).

He will have a MUCH harder road ahead of him in New Jersey. I'll be interested to see what he does. I have many qualms with Shero but always at least considered him a generally savvy operator until that disaster offseason when he just... REALLY jumped the shark.

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Disagree. Vehemently. Shero left a barren prospect pool, a handful of over the hill players, a laughably bad bottom six by AHL standards, and a near complete void at wing in our top six. For all the flak that JR gets for the Despres deal (and rightly so), he didn't make any multi-year signing disasters. Shero couldn't let go and move on. He was unable, or stubbornly and spitefully unwilling to evolve and adapt in accordance to the league's best. He lived and died by "It worked in '09, it can work again." So he neglected to fill out the top six with legitimate talent. He held on, with white-knuckles and nostalgic tears streaming down his face, to guys who were clearly bad options.

You keep saying this Coach, but it's not true. Our defense prospects were arguably the best in the league, and we have two very good goalie prospects. He left us with terrible forward prospects, but not a terrible pool.

Unlike JR, Shero never traded away a good contributing young player for a lesser player 8 years older. Ever. Signing that many ~35 vets was a misstep, but again, compare those contracts to bad signings other "good" GMs have made. Odds are that Shero signed fewer players to bad deals, and for less money.

When you have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, it should be a given that the team makes the ECF. I'd expect this organization to put together a team capable of doing that, and I'd be satisfied with a Finals appearance. Anything short of that is the same **** to me. You lost, and you failed miserably in doing so. You have the best player in the world, and arguably the second best, and you can't make the Conference Finals in a weak East with regularity? Not acceptable, and it comes down to the way this team is made up.

There are varying degrees of success, and we haven't moved in the right direction this year. I don't subscribe to your idea that anything but an ECF appearance is the same. Taking a Finals team to 7 games isn't the same as a 5 game bouncing where we struggled to score more than a goal per game.

Let's not re-hash the Neal and Hornqvist thing. I think Neal is grossly overrated and we're never going to agree or convince one another to the other side of the fence. Better to just not even bring it up. We've got entire threads of that in the past.

We're never going to convince one another, but however highly you value Hornqvist's intangibles, factually, there's a considerable production gap between Neal and Hornqvist. Neal scored more.

Bottom line is we haven't been the team we should be for 5+ years. Period. JR being incompetent and terrible doesn't wash away the disgusting pile of garbage Shero left in his wake. Shero mangled this team, and while you are right that he was in charge for the moves that surrounded the foundation with a Cup caliber team, he is also in charge for the disastrous and precipitous fall from that level over the next 5+ years. I don't think tinkering and adding depth guys counteracts the nightmare of Shero's time here after the Cup.

He made some poor decisions over the past couple years that are colouring perceptions right now. I think the more GMs we go through, the more we're going to appreciate Shero's work on balance.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

I'd say trading Morrow for 2 months of morrow is about on par with the Des trade. At least Rev wasn't a rental.

That's not even going into the fact that Des isn't a "vet" because Shero made moves like signing Scuds and Eaton and trading for Murray for DB to play ahead of him.

 

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

You keep saying this Coach, but it's not true. Our defense prospects were arguably the best in the league, and we have two very good goalie prospects. He left us with terrible forward prospects, but not a terrible pool.

Unlike JR, Shero never traded away a good contributing young player for a lesser player 8 years older. Ever. Signing that many ~35 vets was a misstep, but again, compare those contracts to bad signings other "good" GMs have made. Odds are that Shero signed fewer players to bad deals, and for less money.

You keep bringing up JR's shortcomings and failures as if I've defended him or praised him. I want the entire front office gutted, and have since the moment the Despres deal went down. That was a fireable offense in itself. JR's tenure here is just more of the same old ******** we've seen since the summer of '09.

But again, just because JR is an incompetent fool doesn't have any bearing on the fact that Shero left us with this mess. I don't care what other GMs do, we're talking about Shero. He was an unmitigated disaster for the last 5+ years that he was here. I genuinely do not understand how you don't see or acknowledge that. No GM in the league could have come in and fixed the countless issues with this team in one calendar year. Not one. JR's been awful, but nobody could have fixed this disaster.

Shero left such a mess that it's going to take us a couple of years of good, insightful, smart changes to even begin to get back on our feet. The fact that we have JR and Shero's idiotic cronies at the helm suggests that it's going to be even longer than that.

There are varying degrees of success, and we haven't moved in the right direction this year. I don't subscribe to your idea that anything but an ECF appearance is the same. Taking a Finals team to 7 games isn't the same as a 5 game bouncing where we struggled to score more than a goal per game.

We didn't take the Rangers to 7 games. They took us to 7 games after we blew a 3-1 lead.

We're never going to convince one another, but however highly you value Hornqvist's intangibles, factually, there's a considerable production gap between Neal and Hornqvist. Neal scored more.

And did nothing in the way of helping this team win when he wasn't scoring. More so the opposite.

He made some poor decisions over the past couple years that are colouring perceptions right now. I think the more GMs we go through, the more we're going to appreciate Shero's work on balance.

There's a difference between "poor decisions clouding judgement" and "atrocious decisions that have affected this team and will continue to do so." A big one.

I doubt it. Just because this team is run by a bunch of idiots doesn't make Shero any less of a fraud.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Most of this board was enamored with Shero up until the 2013-14 season. He even won nhl executive of the year in 2013. Looking at the signing threads, most here loved the Scuderi, Kunitz, and Dupuis signings. It's easy to criticize in hindsight. It's risky for win now teams to trade off key veterans, even if it's the right thing to do for the future. Shero gambled and lost. Shero is a smart guy, I think he'll learn from his mistakes and do well in NJ. Not to mention, if Shero getting blocked for trying to trade Letang rumor is true, it's possible he didn't have full autonomy.

 

[Jacob]

I'd say trading Morrow for 2 months of morrow is about on par with the Des trade. At least Rev wasn't a rental.

That's not even going into the fact that Des isn't a "vet" because Shero made moves like signing Scuds and Eaton and trading for Murray for DB to play ahead of him.

If we don't get Morrow Iginla might choose Boston over Pittsburgh. You have to look at those trades as one. Morrow, Agostino, Hanowski, and a 1st for Morrow & Iginla.

Morrow's value wasn't exactly at an all time high at that point. He hadn't even established himself at the AHL level, let alone NHL.

 

[wej20]

I think Shero's smart enough to learn from his mistakes, rebuilding the Devils on the fly isn't an easy task though.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

If we don't get Morrow Iginla might choose Boston over Pittsburgh. You have to look at those trades as one. Morrow, Agostino, Hanowski, and a 1st for Morrow & Iginla.

Morrow's value wasn't exactly at an all time high at that point. He hadn't even established himself at the AHL level, let alone NHL.

Considering how Disco Dumbass used Iggy, I'm all for that. Morrow, Agostino, Hanowski, and a 1st would have helped this Org 100 times more that Iggy and Morrow did.

 

[cassius]

Also on a sitenote - I hated Shero towards the end, but Rutherford is a worse GM than him.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

I think both Ray and Dan are smart enough to learn from their mistakes, they've both had a full year to assess their situations and see what they did wrong.

Shero will help out the Devils for sure, but only if he's learned from his mistakes. Devils are enough of a mess futures wise where Ray will really have to do some hard work this time.

Zajac is barely a bottom 6 C these days and Henrique is the best they have for top 6 really, for a C. Good luck with that Ray.

Also, for people that hate how our head honcho's meddle...Lou can never let anyone really do what they need to. He always has his hand in the cookie jar, again, good luck with that Shero, I know last time around with Pittsburgh and his renewal, he wanted 100% authority, Lou is too much of an egomaniac to let that happen.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Also on a sitenote - I hated Shero towards the end, but Rutherford is a worse GM than him.

Why? Because he didn't go and trade away countless prospects, picks, and sign more trash like Glass, Kobasew, and pick up studs like Pyatt?

Man, your fall from grace is harder than Bylsma's.


His worst move, and really his only bad move - Trading Lovejoy for Despres, a move where it seems like he didn't even really have much say in out of a committee of like 6 or 9 people.

 

[cygnus47]

Disagree. Vehemently. Shero left a barren prospect pool, a handful of over the hill players, a laughably bad bottom six by AHL standards, and a near complete void at wing in our top six. For all the flak that JR gets for the Despres deal (and rightly so), he didn't make any multi-year signing disasters. Shero couldn't let go and move on. He was unable, or stubbornly and spitefully unwilling to evolve and adapt in accordance to the league's best. He lived and died by "It worked in '09, it can work again." So he neglected to fill out the top six with legitimate talent. He held on, with white-knuckles and nostalgic tears streaming down his face, to guys who were clearly bad options.

Shero did a great job until 2012. He was great for building a winning culture and he brought in guys that the core could learn from (i.e. the opposite of Edmonton). He was known for not signing old guys to multi-year deals, making good trades using upcoming D, signing vets who were positive presences and not re-signing guys that didn't deserve it. After 2012 that all flew out the window and as you said, he held on to the nostalgia. I had absolutely no complaints about Shero until Bylsma sank the ship in 2012 and got re-signed for it.

Not trading Orpik, re-signing Kunitz/Dupuis, Bylsma, Adams, Scuderi all happened after 2012. Sure, he probably had that in him the whole time and he was always going to be bad at that point, but until then, apart from giving Bylsma less rope, what would you have wanted different?

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Most of this board was enamored with Shero up until the 2013-14 season. He even won nhl executive of the year in 2013. Looking at the signing threads, most here loved the Scuderi, Kunitz, and Dupuis signings. It's easy to criticize in hindsight. It's risky for win now teams to trade off key veterans, even if it's the right thing to do for the future. Shero gambled and lost. Shero is a smart guy, I think he'll learn from his mistakes and do well in NJ. Not to mention, if Shero getting blocked for trying to trade Letang rumor is true, it's possible he didn't have full autonomy.

Dan Bylsma also won coach of the year, so have countless other coaches that have no job or were fired as well.

**** happens, but for execs, that trophy for coach and GM is a joke.

 

[cygnus47]

Considering how Disco Dumbass used Iggy, I'm all for that. Morrow, Agostino, Hanowski, and a 1st would have helped this Org 100 times more that Iggy and Morrow did.

It's easy to say in retrospect after we lost, but Shero made moves that should have handed us a cup final at worst. That's on Bylsma, not Shero.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

Why? Because he didn't go and trade away countless prospects, picks, and sign more trash like Glass, Kobasew, and pick up studs like Pyatt?

Man, your fall from grace is harder than Bylsma's.


His worst move, and really his only bad move - Trading Lovejoy for Despres, a move where it seems like he didn't even really have much say in out of a committee of like 6 or 9 people.

That's also assuming that the Des trade was his idea. From everything he's said and I've read about Guerin and Morehouse I'm doubting that JR wanted to do that trade.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

It's easy to say in retrospect after we lost, but Shero made moves that should have handed us a cup final at worst. That's on Bylsma, not Shero.

It's on Shero to talk to his coach before giving up a 1st+ for a player. Not to mention he should have been fired after the Philly debacle.

Every ****** thing DB did is on Shero's shoulders.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Shero did a great job until 2012. He was great for building a winning culture and he brought in guys that the core could learn from (i.e. the opposite of Edmonton). He was known for not signing old guys to multi-year deals, making good trades using upcoming D, signing vets who were positive presences and not re-signing guys that didn't deserve it. After 2012 that all flew out the window and as you said, he held on to the nostalgia. I had absolutely no complaints about Shero until Bylsma sank the ship in 2012 and got re-signed for it.

Not trading Orpik, re-signing Kunitz/Dupuis, Bylsma, Adams, Scuderi all happened after 2012. Sure, he probably had that in him the whole time and he was always going to be bad at that point, but until then, apart from giving Bylsma less rope, what would you have wanted different?

He seemed reluctant to take more of a risk with his later picks as well, now that could be more of a franchise upper management issue if anything, but as I recall, the guy had more say in his decisions than JR or the next GM's ever will.

Under Shero, he gave a coach that couldn't adapt his vote of confidence, traded away picks and futures for veterans knowing his coach wasn't going to use them right and when he didn't, he didn't have the balls to correct that situation at all and sealed his fate with his nitwit counter-part.

Shero got lucky, adding UFA's here and here that made the team run but it also taxed the crap out of Malkin and Crosby and they seem/look like they are feeling the full brunt of that now.

And yes, the countless bad extensions for players he should have moved on from or when they were on their final years, he could have gotten something for them, but let them walk for literally nothing.

JR had to fix all of that, he made a bone headed trade (again, partly his fault, partly whomever the hell else is the committee that voted for that as well) with the Despres one, but outside of that, what are the complaints?

He brought in depth with the Neal trade for Hornqvist and Spaling, he traded a 4th liner and a 1st for Perron and added 2 solid pieces to the top 6 with those 2 trades, then went and got Comeau and Downie for 1yr deals, traded the passive Goc (Because him and Sutter were just too much for the bottom 6 in terms of passive play) and got Lapierre and Winnik...he was a guy that seemed to be on a lot of teams' radar, likely less stinging than the Murray trade by Shero.

I mean, I am not a fan of JR's, but I feel like with the restrictions he has and probably not making some of the moves himself, he's done an ok job fixing some of Ray's moves/problems.