The Jarmo Thread

[Byrral]

Roster building C+
Cap management C-
Draft and Develop C-
Trading A-
Free Agency B
Vision A
Total C+

Jarmo has grown up as a GM with on the job training. It's hard to grade these categories properly when duties cross categories. Jarmo has never has cap issues but he had given out some very questionable contracts. There were a few years of team suffering but there were playoff teams and playoff wins. He has drafted some duds but has also drafted some gems. I have voiced my opinions in the past on his prospect development so I'm a liitle harsh on him in that regard. I like Jarmo. He has the vision of what he wants the team to be. I'm excited to see where he goes with these young guys even though I have an average review for him.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

Do you think their drafting+development is above, below or close to league average? How many teams have drafted and developed more impact forwards in the same time span (2013-2022)?

I'd say its around league average, which is why I gave them a C+. I don't think they've had any egregious misses in the draft, the worst to date being either Rychel or Carlsson, which is good. I think the drafting for the most part is fine but the development side is what needs some work.

Are there more fans with rose-colored glasses in general than what we have here? I go to reddit very rarely.

Oh no doubt.

On reddit, if you talk down about Jarmo you get flamed. They are very much drinking the kool-aid, which isn't a bad thing, we're fans after all. But I think the people we have here are more even keeled and analytical in their thinking whereas on reddit its more "fandom" if that makes any sense.

 

[tunnelvision]

Oh no doubt.

On reddit, if you talk down about Jarmo you get flamed. They are very much drinking the kool-aid, which isn't a bad thing, we're fans after all. But I think the people we have here are more even keeled and analytical in their thinking whereas on reddit its more "fandom" if that makes any sense.

Thanks, this reinforces my belief that I've made the right choice to keep this site as main communication channel with other CBJ fans. 18 years and counting, for about 16 years I've been only lurking though.

I remember many years ago reading a tweet reply by Porty where he said something about HF in a dismissive tone, like "hfboards lol, does it still exist?" which made me wonder for a second if there were better forums to talk about Jackets and hockey in general. After an unsuccessful 3-minute google research I gave up, ignored the tweet, and went back to read HF.

 

[JacketsDavid]

I dont get peoples FA rankings? I almost view it as good to stay out of it for the most part. Making nice signings like Nyquist and Kuraly along the way and now leaving himself capspace to even be an option for Gaudreau. I look at Toronto for example. They got the hometown guy that wanted to be there and now that contract is bad for the team depth even if he is still a great player

He's a good 4th line player. I've never heard anyone describe Kuraly as a great player since he joined the NHL.

 

[ScottyMascotty]

And here are some of Florida's mid-lineup depth pieces:
- Verhaeghe: $8.1m
- Duclair: $8.4m
- Bennett: $7.1m
- Reinhart: $10.8m
- Marchment: $9.6m
- Forsling: $8.8m
- Gudas: $4.2m
- Hornqvist: $5.2m

According to Dom's model, if Zito called Jarmo and said "I'll give you Hornqvist and Forsling for Laine and Werenski" (pretend there's no cap in this scenario) the Jackets should take it and run. But I guarantee that a month into the season, the model would show Werenski and Laine as elite players, and Hornqvist/Forsling as average ones.

Another example: Dom's model had Brandon Montour as one of the worst defensemen in the entire league at the 2021 trade deadline. Florida acquired him, Dom (and others) questioned it, now The Model™ has him as a $4.1m player on a $3.5m salary. In other words, he went from being a sub-replacement level defenseman to being more than twice as valuable as Gavrikov ($1.8m).

Did Montour suddenly become a better player? Or did he benefit from going to a team that always has the puck? Clearly it's the latter – and it works both ways. But he almost never acknowledges that when he uses this model to judge things like contract values or cap management, he just presents these figures as factual.

Panthers fan coming here to answer your questions.
Forsling is a really good D-man, and Montour was mismanaged and underutilized in his Buffalo times. It was clear to me since his first games here.
Laine is very one-dimensional. I don't think that Dom's model would show him as "elite" player anyways. It severely punished Huberdeau for defensive impact, for example.
Playing in a good team can increase your value in his model, but at least it needs to have a bunch of actually good players to make the team good itself. Cats never were that good before these guys came out. Thanks for Zito!

 

[LetsGOJackets!!]

Jarmo is banking a lot on what Laine can become.. not what he has been. Signing Gudreau is pretty exciting stuff - but Jarmo's trades have been pretty upper tier

Saad for Panarin? Foligno/ Savard for 2 firsts Jones and a 1st for Boqvist, Bean, Sillinger and Jiricek hell I may be more enamored with this than I should be but I am. Signing Johnny & Guddy.. and having to take a beating on Bjork.. it happens.

 

[stevo61]

Jarmo is banking a lot on what Laine can become.. not what he has been. Signing Gudreau is pretty exciting stuff - but Jarmo's trades have been pretty upper tier

Saad for Panarin? Foligno/ Savard for 2 firsts Jones and a 1st for Boqvist, Bean, Sillinger and Jiricek hell I may be more enamored with this than I should be but I am. Signing Johnny & Guddy.. and having to take a beating on Bjork.. it happens.

He has a 44 goal season to his name and was on pace for 38 last year. Not a bad gamble to assume Gaudreau helps him take the next step offensively. The real gamble is his health

 

[CBJWerenski8]

Thanks for Zito!

I have lost no sleep over losing Ultra GM Bill Zito.

 

[LetsGOJackets!!]

I have lost no sleep over losing Ultra GM Bill Zito.

I have & watching Bednar Coach Colorado does piss me off. & Chris McFarland dude was with the Jackets 15 years

 

[cbjthrowaway]

Forsling is a really good D-man, and Montour was mismanaged and underutilized in his Buffalo times. It was clear to me since his first games here.

Forsling isn't a bad player, but if you put him in Werenski's situation, it's obvious that public sphere models would see him as an average player. Case in point: it has Vlad Gavrikov as a ~$2m player.

On the other hand, if you put Werenski in Forsling's situation, he'd be seen as an elite player in the Ekblad/Weegar neighborhood for his valuation ($13.7m and $12.6m, respectively).

For your point about Montour simply being underutilized in Buffalo, he had significantly more ice time there (20:15 per game) than he has in Florida (18:13 per game). When they first got him, his utilization was pretty much the same as it was in Buffalo (slightly more o-zone starts) but his PDO jumped from 96.4 to 103.0. In other words, he was playing the same role on a way better team.

Last year, his usage did drastically change, with way more offensive zone starts, which also contributed to the model viewing him differently.

That's part of my point anyway, though – Dom's model doesn't distinguish role beyond just ice time. He (and others in the stat community) panned the Montour trade based on data he accrued in a shutdown role on a bad team. Now he's in a somewhat sheltered offensive role on an elite team, and the model suddenly likes him because it likes every player in that role.

My issue isn't that Dom can't account for players changing roles (or how a signing can change other players' roles to bolster their own impact), nor do I think he's unaware of that. My problem is that he doesn't mention that when he actually analyzes what his model spits out.

Laine is very one-dimensional. I don't think that Dom's model would show him as "elite" player anyways. It severely punished Huberdeau for defensive impact, for example.

Player values, per Dom's model:
- Laine: $5.2m
- Huberdeau: $13.6m

Laine was our only big-time scoring threat, so teams key in on taking his shooting lanes away. The rest of the team was pretty bad, especially down the middle. But Dom doesn't take any of that into consideration, so when Laine signed, Dom's 'analysis' was that it was an extremely bad contract.

If Laine got to play with Barkov, or on a second line with a high-end playmaker like Reinhart behind a Barkov line, I'm sure he'd be well over a $10m player according to Dom's model. Laine is sick when he has space. Not saying he's better than Huberdeau (he's not) but there are some huge environmental factors here that Dom won't acknowledge.

 

[EspenK]

I have & watching Bednar Coach Calgary does piss me off

Yeah, you and all the Avs fans...

 

[LetsGOJackets!!]

My phone prefers Calgary to Colorado..

 

[LJ7]

Roster building C+
Cap management C+
Draft and Develop A
Trading A+
Free Agency B+
Vision B+
Total B+

Alot of these categories are hard to draw a line between, I counted the Bjorkstrand trade as cap management instead of trading. Free agency is hard to judge because while Gudbranson was an awful deal it obviously was not in a vacuum and was hours before we signed Gaudreau. Kuraly was a C grade signing, Nyquist too, neither are bad players but both eventually costed us Bjorkstrand. Wanted to have cap management lower but we did have enough space to sign Gaudreau during an insanely tight time with cap space. I mean if Philly has an F in that category, how low can I put us relatively to them?

Overall I'm very happy with our management. I'm in the "we had a cup contender in both Panarin seasons" camp, and have been thrilled with the draft picks lately. I also think KJ is a center which doesn't matter in terms of his impact, but does matter a lot regarding our team's organizational depth puzzle. Seems like the FO is money with high 1sts which really matters.

I think the team is trending in a very good direction currently and part of some fans souring on management has to do with the very long tenure Jarmo has had. When a GM works for a team for nearly a decade there will be mistakes and the "new GM excitement" is long gone.

 

[tunnelvision]

Roster building C+
Cap management C+
Draft and Develop A
Trading A+
Free Agency B+
Vision B+
Total B+

This is not far off of what I've had in mind. I would drop Draft and Develop to A-, Trading to B+ and Vision to B in which case the overall grade would probably be B or B-.

Drafting seems to be above league average but I feel they haven't utilized Cleveland very well as a development environment for top prospects. The coaching staff there is comprised of relatively young former players who haven't earned a reputation for being good at player development. Same thing with Nash and other people in the organisation with the word "development" on their titles. I know JD has said Nash is an attentive listener, is interested in getting to know young players and has connections but that doesn't tell me much about his adequacy for his current role. I've generally liked what Larsen has done so far with his staff in Columbus but it's way too early to give a final judgement.

I'm not a fan of the three latest player trades (Domi, Olivier and Bjorkstrand) so I can't give him an A for Trading. I also don't like the fact Korpi was never traded.

Vision is a B at best because I don't know what kind of team they're trying to build. Who are going to be the corner stones of the SC contending group? We've been part of so many rumors involving different types of big-time players (Kadri, McDonagh, Chychryn, Kane etc.) that I can't honestly believe the retool is very carefully planned and grounded on solid long-term goals. Is Larsen still going to be the HC whenever they're starting to take the next step? What is their style of play as a team then?

 

[cslebn]

Just curious who do people have rated better than Jarmo?

 

[Cowumbus]

Just curious who do people have rated better than Jarmo?

Yzerman
Brisebois
Sakic/MacFarland
Armstrong
Waddell
Guerin
Blake
Fitzgerald
Drury

I think guys like Dubas, Poile, Adams, Treliving all are about the same as him if not better in some cases.

Jarmo has been in charge since 2013. It’s 2022.

We started to rebuild “brick by brick” in 2013. What did we build exactly?

 

[cslebn]

Yzerman
Brisebois
Sakic/MacFarland
Armstrong
Waddell
Guerin
Blake
Fitzgerald
Drury

I think guys like Dubas, Poile, Adams, Treliving all are about the same as him if not better in some cases.

Jarmo has been in charge since 2013. It’s 2022.

We started to rebuild “brick by brick” in 2013. What did we build exactly?

What's the case for drury?

 

[DougKnowsBest]

I wish I had the energy to figure out all our gm’s winning percentages

 

[CBJx614]

Yzerman
Brisebois
Sakic/MacFarland
Armstrong
Waddell
Guerin
Blake
Fitzgerald
Drury

I think guys like Dubas, Poile, Adams, Treliving all are about the same as him if not better in some cases.

Jarmo has been in charge since 2013. It’s 2022.

We started to rebuild “brick by brick” in 2013. What did we build exactly?

We built a playoff contender that challenged the best teams in the league and swept cup champs in the playoffs and then those individuals decided they wanted to take control of their careers in the same 2 year period. They built a helluva team, it wasn't Jarmos fault that his cornerstone bricks wanted to be cornerstones in Chicago, New York and Montreal.

 

[LJ7]

This is not far off of what I've had in mind. I would drop Draft and Develop to A-, Trading to B+ and Vision to B in which case the overall grade would probably be B or B-.

Drafting seems to be above league average but I feel they haven't utilized Cleveland very well as a development environment for top prospects. The coaching staff there is comprised of relatively young former players who haven't earned a reputation for being good at player development. Same thing with Nash and other people in the organisation with the word "development" on their titles. I know JD has said Nash is an attentive listener, is interested in getting to know young players and has connections but that doesn't tell me much about his adequacy for his current role. I've generally liked what Larsen has done so far with his staff in Columbus but it's way too early to give a final judgement.

I'm not a fan of the three latest player trades (Domi, Olivier and Bjorkstrand) so I can't give him an A for Trading. I also don't like the fact Korpi was never traded.

Vision is a B at best because I don't know what kind of team they're trying to build. Who are going to be the corner stones of the SC contending group? We've been part of so many rumors involving different types of big-time players (Kadri, McDonagh, Chychryn, Kane etc.) that I can't honestly believe the retool is very carefully planned and grounded on solid long-term goals. Is Larsen still going to be the HC whenever they're starting to take the next step? What is their style of play as a team then?

I really like how they've drafted lately. The develop part is definitely more questionable but Dubois, Texier, Werenski, Bjorkstrand all developed really well. More Cleveland use would be nice though, was not pleased with how this last season went up there.

The Saad and Panarin trades, getting Sillinger and Jiricek+ for Jones, and the 2021 TDL were all really excellent. Getting Voracek was nice too. To me the only very meaningful L was Bjorkstrand but I'm kinda waiting to see if I'm missing something with that deal because I haven't made sense of it.

Vision is a strange one to define and my take on it might be too galaxy brain but I think the retool is a huge success so far. Gaudreau was a huge stroke of luck but we were one of TWO east teams in a position to get him which to me shows some "vision". If we're rebuilding then no Gaudreau, same for if we're at the cap and we were neither. Building a team that's both young and not hopeless allowed us to capitalize on the market. The categories are hard to separate but that's what I see with "vision", a general plan with flexibility to take advantage of luck and circumstance, the general plan being the retool.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

Just curious who do people have rated better than Jarmo?

Hard to really decipher since some of the "top" GM's inherited great situations and are continuing the success (Briesbois, Waddell, Drury)so its hard to judge them "properly", and some are TBD or haven't been on the job long enough.

So I would said the only ones for sure better than him are Yzerman, Sakic, and Armstrong. The rest is entirely up for debate.

Oh, and Bill Zito. Because he's the ultimate best GM. #1 for sure.

 

[tunnelvision]

Vision is a strange one to define and my take on it might be too galaxy brain but I think the retool is a huge success so far. Gaudreau was a huge stroke of luck but we were one of TWO east teams in a position to get him which to me shows some "vision". If we're rebuilding then no Gaudreau, same for if we're at the cap and we were neither. Building a team that's both young and not hopeless allowed us to capitalize on the market. The categories are hard to separate but that's what I see with "vision", a general plan with flexibility to take advantage of luck and circumstance, the general plan being the retool.

I agree that a lot of the retool era moves look successful given the circumstances, some of them are questionable, and a few of them are yet to be determined. But despite the good luck so far, the questionmarks begin to pile up when I look at the current roster and think who could still be part of the SC contending team in the future (who of them will be good enough and who can we afford?). If CBJ were a contender* in 2024-25, the players on our current team would probably have to play in these roles according to my personal projections:

Werenski – 1st pair
Gavrikov, Blankenburg – 2nd or 3rd pair
Bean, Boqvist, Peeke – 3rd pair
Gudbranson – 7th D

That leaves room for one 1st pair D and one 2nd pair D. If everything goes well with top D prospects’ development, Jiricek should be the Jones replacement as 1RD, and one of Ceulemans, Mateychuk or Blankenburg could be 2RD by then.

Gudbranson will be in the third year of his 4-year contract and is earning 2nd pair D money, that’s not ideal for cap management, to put it mildly. Jiricek (and Ceulemans/Mateychuk) will be cheap with their ELC but how expensive is it going be to re-sign Gavrikov, Blanks, Bean and/or Peeke? Only Boqvist and Z are the other D signed through 2024-25.

Gaudreau – 1st line wing
Jenner, Voronkov – 3rd or 4th line C/W
Robinson, Kuraly – 4th line C/W
Laine, Roslovic, Texier, Johnson, Sillinger, Marchenko, Bemstrom, Foudy, Chinakhov – TBD

Some of the TBDs will be part of the top-9 forward group, maybe 3-6 of those names. Let’s say Laine will be 1st line wing, Sillinger 2C, Johnson 2W and Marchenko 3W. Bemstrom, Foudy, Chinakhov, Roslovic or someone else would fill the remaining holes in 3rd/4th lines. In this scenario - which is a very optimistic view imo - they would still need 1C and another 2W. Would CBJ have enough cap space for those acquisitions? And if they had, would they be able to find fitting top-6 pieces to the puzzle? It’s also not guaranteed that we have a goalie in the system who won’t be crapping the bed come playoff time.

I would have to get answers to these questions before becoming more convinced that there is a clear vision outlined by the FO, and that it is a good one.

*=by contender I mean a team that is better or as good as 2019 run team.

 

[cslebn]

Hard to really decipher since some of the "top" GM's inherited great situations and are continuing the success (Briesbois, Waddell, Drury)so its hard to judge them "properly", and some are TBD or haven't been on the job long enough.

So I would said the only ones for sure better than him are Yzerman, Sakic, and Armstrong. The rest is entirely up for debate.

Oh, and Bill Zito. Because he's the ultimate best GM. #1 for sure.

The problem is how do you value the guy who kept the ship going (Briesbois) vs the guy who got you over the hump (Zito) vs the guy who built it (sakic, yzerman).

There's something to be said about each skill set I think.

Parallels here. It's like asking how great Ryan Day is with starting on third base


Still interesting to see names. Maybe it should be ranking GMs by skill (Draft/development, trades, cap management, etc) rather than overall. Though even then, how do you rank Tampa and their cap for example. Some could argue they've made terrible deals but the deals have done everything possible to keep the window open now. Sure they'll pay for it eventually though.

 

[DarkandStormy]

Hard to really decipher since some of the "top" GM's inherited great situations and are continuing the success (Briesbois, Waddell, Drury)so its hard to judge them "properly", and some are TBD or haven't been on the job long enough.

So I would said the only ones for sure better than him are Yzerman, Sakic, and Armstrong. The rest is entirely up for debate.

You think the 4th-longest tenured GM in the entire league with only one 2nd round appearance in 10 years might be the *FOURTH BEST* GM? I mean, come on.

-Don Waddell turned around a bad Canes team...they've made it out of the 1st round in each of the last four postseasons, including a Conference Finals appearance in 2019.
-Jim Nill in Dallas - Stars have made the postseason 3 of the last 4 seasons including a Cup Final appearance in 2020.
-David Poile in Nashville - the Predators have made *EIGHT* consecutive postseasons, including a Cup Final appearance in 2017.
-Brian MacLellan in Washington - the Caps have made *EIGHT* consecutive postseasons, including a Stanley Cup in 2018
-Don Sweeney in Boston took over a team that missed the playoffs two years in a row and have since made the postseason the last six years, including being one game away from a Stanley Cup in 2019.
-They don't make it out of the first round, but every year under Kyle Dubas the Maple Leafs make the postseason.

 

[Jive Pawnbroker]

You think the 4th-longest tenured GM in the entire league with only one 2nd round appearance in 10 years might be the *FOURTH BEST* GM? I mean, come on.

In fairness to CBJWerenski8, he provided a list of who he considered the three best GMs in the league to be and then in summary said, "the rest is entirely up for debate". I think there is a distinction there that you didn't pick up on. He didn't specifically say that Jarmo was the fourth best GM in the league; he said that in his opinion the best GMs in the league were Yzerman, Sakic and Armstrong and after that it's just conjecture.