Well, like in every corporation where big dollars are in play, this a business of results. Maybe the goaltending and chemistry are there right now but still too many ingredients of the RECIPE missing to have a good team, as evidenced by the results. 0.409 P% on the season (26th) and 0.563 P% since when we turned things around on December 2nd (17th). As you could see the last 2 games, we're not contender level yet.
I certainly wouldn't say that our depth and coaching are "great" or that our cap management has been smart
And please, I am not TRASHING Dorion. I have never insulted him like many have done before. I am rightfully criticizing his work as a NHL GM (I maintain that he is under qualified for the position)
Well, it'd be naïve to think that this was not Melnyk decision... And what do you mean a GM should get credit for doing that?
I gave him credit for Connor Brown and Artem Zub in the last page. Outside of firesale trading (which is the easiest thing to do for a GM, hard to screw up, but Dorion actually did on a few guys), compare the lists of GOOD and BAD Dorion moves
What are we missing?
Please explain what is not legit about criticizing Dorion? I haven't even mocked him (or barely) for the "we are a team" PR disaster. Why is there so many people defending him that much? Is it just because he looks "friendly"? lol there's only 32 GM jobs available, it should be for the best pro hockey managers. If he fails or not, he will still be friendly to me.
If the Sens won the Cup in 2017, would you have attributed it to Dorion? Would it have been because he traded Zibanejad + 2nd for Brassard + Dahlen for Burrows?
Going deep into the playoffs is almost the bare minimum required to not be a failure... I mean, he took the whole franchise wealth and went into a VERY LONG scorched earth rebuild. Making the playoffs a few times and winning a few rounds would not be enough. Next year will be his 7th year as the Sens GM. Murray only had the luxury to "rebuild on the fly", yet we made the playoffs 5/9 times and won 3 rounds. Dorion has been in a much more favorable position... and his team isn't going anywhere yet (even though he inherited a wealth of assets)
Frankly no idea what this means
The results that you measure now are not on ice, they are within the context of the rebuild and in that sense they are looking very good. I know people expected the on ice results to come sooner but you gotta cut some slack for what 3 seasons of COVID has done, and yes we were hit especially hard this year and last and the fact that we are a young team wasn't good for us. Its possible PD (and Melnyk) saw the writing on the wall and prolonged the tank mentality and I wouldn't fault them for that.
There are teams that languish in rebuild mode for seemingly ever and there are teams that languish on the outside looking in and never quite hit rock bottom enough to properly rebuild. We should be grateful that when we cut bait on EK we took the scorched earth approach and, it appears, didn't fall into the trap of either. Sure you can hypothesize that that was simply a result of Melnyk being cheap but its a bit naive (and inherently negative) to not attribute some positive currency to the full tear down approach and subsequent rebuild, and to me that currency is paid to PD, to a fair degree at least. There was a plan when EK was shipped out, maybe call it a blueprint even, and that has worked. Is there no credit to go around for that? Is it just dumb luck that we are where we are?
What is not legit about criticizing Dorion, you ask? Well I didn't say that. I fully understand a certain level of criticism and can get on board with some of it. However, I'll bite and say it isn't legit because time hasn't told the whole story yet. We went through a rebuild and are coming out of it. To draw all your conclusions now is like reading 2/3 of the book and then writing a review on it without reading to the end. You cannot measure his performance on this chapter of team history until we are through it, which is coming now that we are starting our upswing.
If the SENS won the cup in 2017 yes, I would have given him credit for the moves he made because they played a part, absolutely. In fact, I do the Zbad trade over again because I wouldn't tamper with the ingredients that got us one goal away from the Stanley Cup finals. I know that's not a popular opinion but that was an incredible run that is a big part of my SENS history and from a philosophical perspective, I'm not changing the things that put that course of events in motion. But that's just me.
You can't hold Murray up as a positive model against PD because under Murray we didn't win a cup so his rebuilding on the fly was an abject failure. That's a losing argument immediately. But by giving PD a bit of a leash on what a long playoff run would do for his legacy you're opening the door for eventually accepting his work as a success. You're attributing your own terms and that's perfectly reasonable, we all have them, but in that statement you are saying exactly what I'm saying, let time play out and we will see. That's more reasonable and I think you should carry that positive perspective a little higher. IF this team goes deep Dorion gets the credit. We can agree 100% on that. I just choose to believe it will happen, you seem to believe things of his doing will get in the way.
Glass half full vs glass half empty. Pretty much sums it up, no? You're a glass half empty kind of person when it comes to the future of this team?
