He’s got to be the Gm who gets most excuses in the league. He got Torontos golden core and got zero results with it.
What I’d love to hear from him would be how were these summer moves made for longterm as well. His big speach was we want to compete now but also build for the future
Pens are in for a rough 8-10 years
He probably got the most defenses largely because he was in Toronto and got disproportionate shit compared to what he’d likely have gotten anywhere else, certainly most American cities
The majority of that lack of success was on the core itself and the coaches not playing up to their level. If a team can play in the regular season over 82 games, you don’t have talent issues (4th x2, 6th in the league going back the last several years.) Some of that playoff underperformance of their stars was them being really young in fairness the early years. The earliest years they weren’t actually a top team anyhow.
You have a number of losses to pretty successful playoff teams with a bunch of experienced and clutch players. (And consistently elite goalies)
Last year in the 2nd round it certainly seemed like the depth were scoring enough, not a lot but enough to win if their stars could score. They were mostly losing 1 goal games despite their stars barely doing anything, so
somebody was scoring. Same exact thing the Canadiens series the last three games. 1 Nylander goal the last three games, none others from the core. Multiple key scorers that series were some maligned depth players.
The contracts are fair criticism, though it’s fair to point out how early in his tenure that was and I’m curious how his bosses had him running the negotiations alone.
Regardless, the Covid cap crunch was real annd exasperated the issue and he’s managed to consistently build top teams despite it. He’s navigated the Covid crunch better than most GMs and pretty reliably found some bargain bin contracts for guys who ended up being solid defensively in the bottom six if nothing else.. although I checked some playoff games and they’ve scored some games the stars weren’t
Top 4 team the last couple years, 6th, and all recently. Certainly
not (close to being) the only team who’s been playing musical chairs/roulette with available goalies, because there simply isn’t a ton of legit rock solid available and there’s been competition. Thing is, the overwhelming majority of teams will never be perfect. He’s been great if imperfect.
Penguins: yes he mortgaged the future. That was always the gameplan, the org is being loyal to the core and they were always in for a particularly rough decade. That’s what happens when you find the success the Penguins found. It’s still early anyhow, and certainly there’s an argument against the stale coaching.
