Smith was the GM. He called the shots until January 1994.
BTW, Fergie drafted Selanne, not Smith. The bottom line is it's the GM who calls the shots, and Fergie was GM. We can speculate all we want, but in the end it still remains speculation.
By 1993, most of the best Russian hockey players had been drafted, and Smith did not have the advantage that he once did, of getting to choose from an untapped well. His drafting of North American and Scandinavian players was not great after
Then Smith gets full credit when he was the GM with Chicago, since he calls the shots, when drafting:
- Brent Seabrook - Richmond, British Columbia
- Duncan Keith - Winnipeg, Manitoba
- Corey Crawford - Montreal, Quebec
- Dustin Byfuglien - Roseau, Minnesota
All drafted after 1993, all North American. Selected in only two drafts.
By your logic, since Fergie was the GM at the start of the 1988-89 season, then perhaps the blame for the losing season falls on him, instead of Smith that year. Is that fair? So Smith, only missed the playoffs twice as the Jets GM, instead of three times.
Also saying "By 1993, most of the best Russian hockey players had been drafted, and Smith did not have the advantage that he once did, of getting to choose from an untapped well", but that's Smith's last year of drafting with the Jets. It's not like he had another 5 years with the team, to show us how terrible he was at drafting going forward. Literally all GM's have down years, like Smith had in 1993. He rebounded back with his two years in Chicago.
If you isolate the 7 seasons where he drafted, he did an very good/excellent job, comparing favorably vs other top GM's of that period. I illustrated that, and you glossed over it.
Look at Detroit's drafting from 1993 through 1995. Impressive? Smith never had two below average/bad years like Detroit did in 1993, and again in 1995. Every single GM has off years. Look at Glen Sather's extremely long run at poor drafting from 1984 going forward with Edmonton and in New York.
