OT: Should We Fire Gordie Clark

[OverTheCap]

I've never really had major problems with Clark in particular, but our track record in the 1st round under him has been middling at best. And unfortunately it seems like some of the biggest misses have occurred when we've drafted in the top 10. I'm not sure what their drafting strategy is when it comes to the 1st round, but it sure doesn't seem to be best player available.

 

[LORDE]

Given the spot the team picked at over the years, the only real grounds to can him is if Kakko busts.

I disagree here. Kakko was the 2 or even 1 consensus pick. Yet u blow the 10, the 7 and the 9 just fled for Russia and came back and scored his 1st goal off his own skate?

ur right they didn’t have many chances in the 1st rd due to ‘goin for it’ and trading away 1st and prospects like Duclair for Nash and Yandle and MSL... so IF ur doing that u better get something right when u do draft 1-10 and IF ur trading all those prospects and 1st the PROS U R TRADING FOR BETTER BE WORTH IT.

 

[JT Kreider]

Should have been fired for McIlrath, and his comments about Gropp being one of his highest ranked forwards in the 2015 NHL draft (do the math that means he was ranked ahead of Aho, Barzal and Boeser), and the total travesty our drafting in the 2nd round has been.

 

[Edge]

Few thoughts, noting that emotions are high in this thread:

1. Rangers have no plans to fire Clark, nor would most teams.

2. Clark’s legacy, good or bad, will owe a lot to what happens between 2017 and 2020. But he will be long retired by the time the results are in.

3. Clark makes a final recommendation based on the feedback from staff. He doesn’t make a decision unilaterally. So if someone doesn’t like the picks, especially from Europe, then your bigger beef is probably with Bobrov.

4. You should also probably know Bobrov is slated to replace Clark.

 

[JT Kreider]

Our draft record for a few years around 2014 is abominable to the point I had finally lost faith in the staff that had pulled countless rabbits out of a hat with Cally, Hags, Fast, etc. Their scouting of McD, Brass and Zib also can't be overlooked.

How did we turn out two bona fide NHlers with zero 1st or 2nd round picks years ago? Damn good scouting.

Then you look at Mci, Lias, our 2nd rounders. I hear that some old scout got to pick Lias so MAYBE we can absolve Clark of that and blame Gorton. Reportedly we also tried to move mountains to get Petersson which indicates we DID have an eye for the right talent that year...or someone good at playing the media released that to try to make the scouts look good despite potentially missing BADLY. Either way, we consistently piss away massive amounts of value. At this point we should be looking to trade any picks we get for D+2 or +3 prospects because we seem to be a helluva lot better at deciding who to grab once they've had another few years of development.

Say what you want about Howden but he looks better than Lias.

Hajek and Rykov look pretty damn good too. All guys we traded for after they had time to gestate. Then there's that ADA guy. I'd put Zib in this category too.

Plus you get Chytil, K'Andre (Who frankly worries me bc of his defensive deficiencies, which haven't been fixed nearly as much as I hoped) and most people seem to think very highly of a lot of our other D prospects we picked.

Quite frankly the NHL draft is a joke. The amount of outright busts once you pass the top 5 is horrifying considering the value we place on picks around here. Once you get out of the 1st round, forget it. The draft is a desert. A glowing halo of promise that really has a black hole in its center. The NHL draft is where hope goes to die unless you're PHENOMENALLY lucky.

So idk how to evaluate our misses framed with all this context. I think we're actually better than most despite missing in crucial spots. What hurts more is how absolutely ****ing idiotic our picks are in those big spots.

You know how some players, like Nash, disappear in the playoffs when the pressure is highest? Well if a top 10 pick is the draft playoffs then Clark seems to be Rick Nash

Most of all it's an absolute joke we still dont have a franchise center and have some of the worst depth at that position in the entire league.

After all these years it is very clear that this franchise doesn't have it in them to draft and develop that type of talent. That right there is the clearest signal that a total overhaul of draft personnel, philosophy and strategy is very much needed.

Missing on Andersson like this has shades of 2003. Not coming away with a an elite center out of that draft came back tohaunt us 10 years later and cost us a Cup in 2012-14.

They didnt learn their lesson then. Getting Panarin, Trouba and Fox is great but we will just come up short again if Gorton sends us into contender mode with the same holes at center.

 

[JT Kreider]

While I’m not for firing him... we could name some names that are way bigger misses than what u have just laid out as ‘hits’

Again, I’m not all for firing him but the HUGE misses at this point do overshadow the TBD ‘hits’

Honestly, McIlrath Probably cost us the cup in 14... if that’s Tarasenko as many of us wanted, on a team DESPERATE for ANY offense was the pick, things would’ve looked diff IMO.

2003 is what cost us. Imagine a prime Mike Richards atop that 2012 team that already was the most hard working and hardest team in the league to play against.

Or having an 87 point prime Getzlaf in 2014 to go against Kopitar? Or a Selke Patrice Bergeron leading us into Game 7 of the 2015 ECF on home ice?

We would have won at least a Cup in any of.those years. I fear years down the road we will be doing the same exercise here with Andersson after more near misses.

MCIlrath IMO was a bad enough of a miss to fire the entire staff and make drastic changes to draft strategy. Clark shouldn't have even been around to make that Lias pick or on draft weekend 2015 have the audacity to say he had Gropp ranked ahead of Aho, Barzal and Boeser.

 

[Edge]

2017 was not 2003.

And missing on Andersson, even with the most optimistic belief in his upside, is not missing on Tarasenko or Getzlaf.

 

[Edge]

I’m not diving into the whole racism debate.

But steering this back toward hockey, this season has led to increased chatter about taking European players, and will probably continue to do so.

However, there is a disclaimer with that statement. It has nothing to do with training, or ability or superiority, or anything of that nature. It has to do with the business side of things.

More and more teams are growing uneasy with the feeling that European players have more avenues and incentive to leave North America if they don’t like how things are turning out.

What we’ve seen this season will not dispel those concerns.

 

[JT Kreider]

This is a pretty short term memory post IMO.

NYR have a good prospect pool now because Gorton has done very little aside from selling off MAJOR assets @ the right time.

Without those moves who do we have as ‘prospects’???? Where’s the depth? Where’s the kids knocking on the door in Hartford who aren’t a direct result of THE LETTER?

Gorton has done well turning things around but let’s not pretend that the prospect cupboard wasn’t BARE before the purge began.

Honestly, now that I think more about it, Clark should be **** canned

Good point about Gorton having a lot to work with. Brassard, Stepan, Raanta, Grabner, McDonagh, Miller (which was a screw up), Nash, Hayes, etc. That is easy work and of course any time you get a good haul for an expiring contract or aging player you are going to look good on paper. Or when you have elite players like Trouba, Panarin and Fox begging to come play for your team.

A 12th grader could have done all that.

How about letting Yandle walk for a 7th round pick and signing a much worse Shattenkirk a year later lol.

 

[ReggieDunlop68]

And what do you know about Russian and European culture?

Enlighten me, I’d be surprised if you were able to find Russia on a map.

A lot about it, and particularly about the hockey players from there over the years.

 

[ReggieDunlop68]

I disagree here. Kakko was the 2 or even 1 consensus pick. Yet u blow the 10, the 7 and the 9 just fled for Russia and came back and scored his 1st goal off his own skate?

ur right they didn’t have many chances in the 1st rd due to ‘goin for it’ and trading away 1st and prospects like Duclair for Nash and Yandle and MSL... so IF ur doing that u better get something right when u do draft 1-10 and IF ur trading all those prospects and 1st the PROS U R TRADING FOR BETTER BE WORTH IT.

Ok keep him forevetv

 

[nyr2k2]

Outside of a lunatic fringe, no one with any common sense could ever believe this. Now the way the coach is going about things is a different story

I mean there were literally articles being published on places like TSN and ESPN calling it the "fastest rebuild ever" and projecting the "turnaround complete!" It wasn't the "lunatic fringe", LOL. It was probably a majority of people here and lots of people in the hockey press. That's not to say those proclamations meant we were done, but rather that we had returned to a somewhat competitive state with a really deep and talented prospect pool, to boot.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Chytil was rising rapidly as a prospect pre-draft, so while the pick was surprising it wasn't the most outlandish thing ever lmao.

You’re missing the point just like the guy I replied to did

 

[kovazub94]

This is a pretty short term memory post IMO.

NYR have a good prospect pool now because Gorton has done very little aside from selling off MAJOR assets @ the right time.

Without those moves who do we have as ‘prospects’???? Where’s the depth? Where’s the kids knocking on the door in Hartford who aren’t a direct result of THE LETTER?

Gorton has done well turning things around but let’s not pretend that the prospect cupboard wasn’t BARE before the purge began.

Honestly, now that I think more about it, Clark should be **** canned

Actually short term memory is not remembering that Clark didn’t have 1st round picks in 4 years and often not even a 2nd rounder during this time right before the letter.

 

[nyr2k2]

Actually short term memory is not remembering that Clark didn’t have 1st round picks in 4 years and often not even a 2nd rounder during this time right before the letter.

Yup.

2016: 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7
2015: 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 7
2014: 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5
2013: 3, 3, 3, 4, 6
2012: 1, 2, 4, 5

From that, we drafted NHL players Brady Skjei, Ryan Graves, Anthony Duclair, and Pavel Buchnevich. And propects Igor Shesterkin, Adam Huska, Aleksi Saarela, Tyler Wall, Tim Gettinger, and Tarmo Reunanen, among others. I'm not counting Ryan Mantha who looked like he was on track to be an NHL player before his horrible injury ended his career, or Boo Nieves who was actually decent value at 59.

When you look at who we turned out, and factor in guys like Shesterkin and Reunanen who could be impact players in the NHL, it's actually quite impressive. Especially given those five drafts only had one first round pick, and it was 28th.

 

[Edge]

Let me put it bluntly so there is no mystery:

If Chytil, Kravtsov, Lundkvist and Shesterkin work out well, no one is firing Clark and company for Andersson.

Period. End of discussion.

 

[egelband]

Hey guys! So what did we decide?

 

[Trxjw]

While I’m not for firing him... we could name some names that are way bigger misses than what u have just laid out as ‘hits’

Again, I’m not all for firing him but the HUGE misses at this point do overshadow the TBD ‘hits’

Honestly, McIlrath Probably cost us the cup in 14... if that’s Tarasenko as many of us wanted, on a team DESPERATE for ANY offense was the pick, things would’ve looked diff IMO.

It's drafting. There are going to be major misses. Though I can only think of one major miss in his tenure here and that's McIlrath.

It's not as if there was some clear pick taken right after Andersson who the Rangers whiffed on. In fact they drafted one of the best players taken in the first round after Andersson in Chytil. We also know they were targeting Glass or Petersson at 7 and neither guy ended up being there. So a little bit of cosmic luck and suddenly we're singing the praises of Gordie Clark's genius instead of talking about this situation.

So where are these huge misses outside of McIlrath?

 

[bl02]

Could have had Necas and Chytil on this team. Makes me sad

 

[Governor]

Clarke should have been canned in 2010.

So, yes. He should be shown the door.

 

[bobbop]

Gordie isn’t going anywhere. He is not the only voice in selecting players. About 7-8 years ago, before Gorton moved to NY, there was a feature on MSG showing Clark and Gorton meeting at Gorton’s house and discussing the draft lists. They are tight and they work together. Gordie is 67 and probably approaching retirement age. The Rangers now have a Director of Euro Scouting and a Director of North American Scouting which leads me to believe they are setting up the organization for Gordie’s eventual retirement.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

Clark should've fired ages ago.

 

[NikC]

I mean there were literally articles being published on places like TSN and ESPN calling it the "fastest rebuild ever" and projecting the "turnaround complete!" It wasn't the "lunatic fringe", LOL. It was probably a majority of people here and lots of people in the hockey press. That's not to say those proclamations meant we were done, but rather that we had returned to a somewhat competitive state with a really deep and talented prospect pool, to boot.

I get that people were saying these things based on the way things laid out "on paper", but I've always saw a big distinction between Gorton wanting the team to be perennial contenders and just being merely competitive.

I think there a mixed message around the organization. This competitive rebuild is contradictory imo.

 

[duhmetreE]

We are average in scouting NA.. our europe scouts are much better imo

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

He also took a flyer on Chytil and that worked out. His 2018 picks look to be good. So Lias was a bad pick but every team has them, it’s not like we passed on a bunch of superstars like in 2003 or the Devils in 2015. That was some slim pickings after 6.