Rumor: Things Not Left Unsaid 2, More Flyers Rumors & Media Mentions: Say It Like You Mean It

[trostol]

Holmgren still built around a good home grown core featuring two very good centers. Yeah they added things to it that they had trouble producing themselves but that team doesn't happen without those key draft picks. Building down the middle is a valid and common way to build a team (remember Gagne was drafted as a center too). Drafting stud defensemen helps too ofc, if your org is up to that. In this example they had to go externally for that but that is the exception.

I don't think we need to make this more complex than it really is though. The best teams by and large draft key contributors at C and D and build around that nucleolus however they can. Other than LV which recent cup teams have not done that? I struggle to find any examples. Sure you can miss on picks and mess it up but the; be bad, draft and reach critical mass, which you build around blueprint is very well established and can work if you don't blank on your top picks.

Furthermore that it can also not work doesn't mean you shouldn't still follow that approach. You are still left in the same situation where you need to hit on key picks to build it up so you do the same thing until you're team is simply too talented to suck anymore.

Combine that with a relatively young coach who can patiently teach fundamentals to young players without constantly losing his shit (and the team) and you are in business. You need the courage and leadership from the GM on down though so that everyone understands that this is the strategy, understands it is temporary to achieve a goal and communicates that to the fans. Which also isn't hard and basically every other franchise seems to have no problem doing this when it is time to rebuild.

sir..this is the Flyers..they don't work that way lol

 

[orangey]

sir..this is the Flyers..they don't work that way lol

Right, ofc. Briere seems to know it is true in his heart and logic centers but struggles to push against institutional inertia... or so it seams.

Which doesn't excuse how he has handled the last couple trade deadlines though. Did they have a gun to his head? Just be a freaking leader and do the right thing.

I like Briere and he seems like a straight shooter so maybe it is inexperience or something or just the general disfunction and insulated culture that makes it hard to both see reality and then react to it in a logical manner lol.

 

[ponder719]

Right, ofc. Briere seems to know it is true in his heart and logic centers but struggles to push against institutional inertia... or so it seams.

Which doesn't excuse how he has handled the last couple trade deadlines though. Did they have a gun to his head? Just be a freaking leader and do the right thing.

I like Briere and he seems like a straight shooter so maybe it is inexperience or something or just the general disfunction and insulated culture that makes it hard to both see reality and then react to it in a logical manner lol.

To be fair to Brière, he's only been in charge for one TDL. For some stupid jackass reason, they promoted him to interim GM the week after the 22-23 trade deadline.

 

[orangey]

To be fair to Brière, he's only been in charge for one TDL. For some stupid jackass reason, they promoted him to interim GM the week after the 22-23 trade deadline.

My bad. I wasn't entirely sure. I only started paying attention again a bit this season. Well ok then this deadline when he only sold one asset because they were trying to just make the playoffs because it was a swell learning experience. Laughton was trying so hard to increase his value too haha. Best he ever played.

 

[ponder719]

My bad. I wasn't entirely sure. I only started paying attention again a bit this season. Well ok then this deadline when he only sold one asset because they were trying to just make the playoffs because it was a swell learning experience. Laughton was trying so hard to increase his value too haha. Best he ever played.

No worries, it all does kind of blend together into an orange slurry of garbage after a while. I just happen to remember Chucklef*ck's "17 phone calls" about James van Riemsdyk amounting to diddly-shit, just before he got the axe.

 

[Flyerfan4life]

No worries, it all does kind of blend together into an orange slurry of garbage after a while. I just happen to remember Chucklef*ck's "17 phone calls" about James van Riemsdyk amounting to diddly-shit, just before he got the axe.

i believe it was 17 phonecalls TOTAL. for every trade he tried..

its hard work you know..

 

[ponder719]

i believe it was 17 phonecalls TOTAL. for every trade he tried..

its hard work you know..

I thought JVR was the only player he tried to trade. Everyone else was too important to the culture.

 

[VladDrag]

Every management team lives long enough to see itself get called terrible and incompetent. Then they get fired.

There are no blueprints. You don’t even really get to choose what kind of Good Team you’ll be. Colorado has their identity now, but instead of MacKinnon and Makar, it could have just as easily been Barkov and Heiskanen by absolutely no deliberate intention of their management. Still great. And it could have easily been Seth Jones And Nolan Patrick, too. Not so great.

It’s easy to consider the winners geniuses for how they Built Their Team, but we’re usually backfilling a lot of the intentionality and deliberation behind it. To the extent there’s a blueprint, Vegas is probably the closest to one that can be duplicated, which is to just shrewdly pursue talent wherever it’s available. And on that score, Holmgren was probably the closest we had.

Over the last few months (maybe weeks) a lot of your posts that I've read surrounding roster construction have been around the general theme of luck vs intention. I wouldn't disagree with the notion that luck plays a large part in roster construction. But, IMO it's not the primary factor, or even as large of a factor as you've alluded to in some of your posts.

Yes, when it comes to roster construction, I follow the similar mantra 'just git gud players', and let the talent sort itself out. And yes, sometimes, even often times, teams luck into that talent. But most of the time, teams also have a track record of putting themselves in a position to receive good players. If luck was the primary factor in roster construction, you'd see a lot more year-to-year variance in the contending teams. Instead, in any 3-5 year period, the same ~4-8 teams are typically competing with each other to win the Cup.

Going from a bad team to an okay team isn't too difficult. Going from an okay team to a good team is more challenging, but going from a good team to a legit contender with a ~3-8 year window is incredibly difficult. Yes that takes luck, but MGMT has to be able to make moves that give their team the best chance to get good players. I can't subscribe to the fact that it's mostly luck, otherwise the Flyers would have lucked into more than one playoff series victory in the last 12 seasons.

I could be wrong here, but it just feels like you're doing a lot of handwaving on the skill part of roster construction as rationale to not blow up the team. And you know what, I'm not completely against 'staying the course'. I've said before I'd hesitant to trade TK, that this team may have a chance of being a contender if select things go right etc. I still think there's a non-zero chance of that happening.

But with all of that being said, gun to my head right now, my gut tells me that no matter what path this MGMT takes will result in a championship caliber team. They just haven't made enough moves where I can significantly change my position. Love to be wrong there.

 

[Flyerfan4life]

Over the last few months (maybe weeks) a lot of your posts that I've read surrounding roster construction have been around the general theme of luck vs intention. I wouldn't disagree with the notion that luck plays a large part in roster construction. But, IMO it's not the primary factor, or even as large of a factor as you've alluded to in some of your posts.

Yes, when it comes to roster construction, I follow the similar mantra 'just git gud players', and let the talent sort itself out. And yes, sometimes, even often times, teams luck into that talent. But most of the time, teams also have a track record of putting themselves in a position to receive good players. If luck was the primary factor in roster construction, you'd see a lot more year-to-year variance in the contending teams. Instead, in any 3-5 year period, the same ~4-8 teams are typically competing with each other to win the Cup.

Going from a bad team to an okay team isn't too difficult. Going from an okay team to a good team is more challenging, but going from a good team to a legit contender with a ~3-8 year window is incredibly difficult. Yes that takes luck, but MGMT has to be able to make moves that give their team the best chance to get good players. I can't subscribe to the fact that it's mostly luck, otherwise the Flyers would have lucked into more than one playoff series victory in the last 12 seasons.

I could be wrong here, but it just feels like you're doing a lot of handwaving on the skill part of roster construction as rationale to not blow up the team. And you know what, I'm not completely against 'staying the course'. I've said before I'd hesitant to trade TK, that this team may have a chance of being a contender if select things go right etc. I still think there's a non-zero chance of that happening.

But with all of that being said, gun to my head right now, my gut tells me that no matter what path this MGMT takes will result in a championship caliber team. They just haven't made enough moves where I can significantly change my position. Love to be wrong there.

50 years of cup drought and no real changes from the 70s say this Org. will never find its way..

 

[Random Forest]

Over the last few months (maybe weeks) a lot of your posts that I've read surrounding roster construction have been around the general theme of luck vs intention. I wouldn't disagree with the notion that luck plays a large part in roster construction. But, IMO it's not the primary factor, or even as large of a factor as you've alluded to in some of your posts.

Yes, when it comes to roster construction, I follow the similar mantra 'just git gud players', and let the talent sort itself out. And yes, sometimes, even often times, teams luck into that talent. But most of the time, teams also have a track record of putting themselves in a position to receive good players. If luck was the primary factor in roster construction, you'd see a lot more year-to-year variance in the contending teams. Instead, in any 3-5 year period, the same ~4-8 teams are typically competing with each other to win the Cup.

Going from a bad team to an okay team isn't too difficult. Going from an okay team to a good team is more challenging, but going from a good team to a legit contender with a ~3-8 year window is incredibly difficult. Yes that takes luck, but MGMT has to be able to make moves that give their team the best chance to get good players. I can't subscribe to the fact that it's mostly luck, otherwise the Flyers would have lucked into more than one playoff series victory in the last 12 seasons.

I could be wrong here, but it just feels like you're doing a lot of handwaving on the skill part of roster construction as rationale to not blow up the team. And you know what, I'm not completely against 'staying the course'. I've said before I'd hesitant to trade TK, that this team may have a chance of being a contender if select things go right etc. I still think there's a non-zero chance of that happening.

But with all of that being said, gun to my head right now, my gut tells me that no matter what path this MGMT takes will result in a championship caliber team. They just haven't made enough moves where I can significantly change my position. Love to be wrong there.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as being smart at management, and I’m not saying it doesn’t take genuine talent to go from “good” to “elite”. I’m saying that unless you are chronically bad, I mean league worst for several years — like Edmonton was — luck is very obviously a crucial component to success. For one, you literally need the lucky lottery balls to fall your way. And then you need the guy you get to be the one you need.

This is obviously true. Every elite team who got their by being bad first had to get lucky. That’s why there are also team who have been consistently bad who have failed to ever become good. Like I said, there are no guaranteed outcomes. Colorado could have just as easily ended up with Nolan Patrick instead of Makar had they been luckier at the lottery.

Suddenly they have no Cup with this core, and a team who is viewed as a “succcessful rebuild” doesn’t look so hot. That is unquestionably luck that it worked out the way it did. That doesn’t negate the smart moves they made to get passed the hump, but let’s be honest that the preponderance of their recent fortune rested upon the favorable bounces of a couple ping pong balls. All the other moves were ancillary factors.

None of this is a commentary on the Flyers.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Every management team lives long enough to see itself get called terrible and incompetent. Then they get fired.

There are no blueprints. You don’t even really get to choose what kind of Good Team you’ll be. Colorado has their identity now, but instead of MacKinnon and Makar, it could have just as easily been Barkov and Heiskanen by absolutely no deliberate intention of their management. Still great. And it could have easily been Seth Jones And Nolan Patrick, too. Not so great.

It’s easy to consider the winners geniuses for how they Built Their Team, but we’re usually backfilling a lot of the intentionality and deliberation behind it. To the extent there’s a blueprint, Vegas is probably the closest to one that can be duplicated, which is to just shrewdly pursue talent wherever it’s available. And on that score, Holmgren was probably the closest we had.

Everyone in every sport eventually manages their way into a set of problems they are blind to and can't figure out how to solve. Very very very few are exceptions to this.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Over the last few months (maybe weeks) a lot of your posts that I've read surrounding roster construction have been around the general theme of luck vs intention. I wouldn't disagree with the notion that luck plays a large part in roster construction. But, IMO it's not the primary factor, or even as large of a factor as you've alluded to in some of your posts.

Yes, when it comes to roster construction, I follow the similar mantra 'just git gud players', and let the talent sort itself out. And yes, sometimes, even often times, teams luck into that talent. But most of the time, teams also have a track record of putting themselves in a position to receive good players. If luck was the primary factor in roster construction, you'd see a lot more year-to-year variance in the contending teams. Instead, in any 3-5 year period, the same ~4-8 teams are typically competing with each other to win the Cup.

Going from a bad team to an okay team isn't too difficult. Going from an okay team to a good team is more challenging, but going from a good team to a legit contender with a ~3-8 year window is incredibly difficult. Yes that takes luck, but MGMT has to be able to make moves that give their team the best chance to get good players. I can't subscribe to the fact that it's mostly luck, otherwise the Flyers would have lucked into more than one playoff series victory in the last 12 seasons.

I could be wrong here, but it just feels like you're doing a lot of handwaving on the skill part of roster construction as rationale to not blow up the team. And you know what, I'm not completely against 'staying the course'. I've said before I'd hesitant to trade TK, that this team may have a chance of being a contender if select things go right etc. I still think there's a non-zero chance of that happening.

But with all of that being said, gun to my head right now, my gut tells me that no matter what path this MGMT takes will result in a championship caliber team. They just haven't made enough moves where I can significantly change my position. Love to be wrong there.

The teams that get "lucky" most often tend to be the teams who are best managed at the time. Good moves breed good luck. The good moves are a result of some driving philosophy or set of values; in pursuit of the good philosophy/plan/values, sometimes the teams will hit big in unexpected ways.

Pursuit of a stupid philosophy, like the Flyers, breeds bad luck.


As an aside, I dislike using Edmonton as an example for anything. They lucked into an incredible player by virtue of being horrible for a long time. They've done a terrible job of just about everything after that. McDavid is good enough to erase a huge number a sins, which is hard in hockey.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Yeah that's why I'm saying it is a chicken or the egg situation. They were shit for long periods (or at the right time) and then built on that. These teams weren't just all the sudden good because of good management, these teams got good by sucking and lucking into good players and then making good moves.

And how many of them had a management overhaul to change the badness that led to their ability to stockpile?

 

[renberg]

The teams that get "lucky" most often tend to be the teams who are best managed at the time. Good moves breed good luck. The good moves are a result of some driving philosophy or set of values; in pursuit of the good philosophy/plan/values, sometimes the teams will hit big in unexpected ways.

Pursuit of a stupid philosophy, like the Flyers, breeds bad luck.


As an aside, I dislike using Edmonton as an example for anything. They lucked into an incredible player by virtue of being horrible for a long time. They've done a terrible job of just about everything after that. McDavid is good enough to erase a huge number a sins, which is hard in hockey.

Take McDavid off of that team and they are close being out of the POs. With all of the early DCs that they’ve had, that’s really poor. Even Draisaitl, if he were the #1C and teams could bear down defensively, he would not have the performance numbers that he has today. Edmonton is close to being McDavid and the nineteen dwarfs. He carries them.

 

[Magua]

I don’t feel like “close to being out of the playoffs” is that insulting in a hypothetical where the best player in the game is erased from existence, along with the pick used to acquire him. Hell, they could miss the playoffs — enthusiastically picking 12th even — and my thoughts don’t change.

Edmonton had the privilege of visionary Hall of Fame GM Ken Holland not giving them the depth they need to be a dynasty. But we also don’t have to pretend these are the 06-07 LeBron Cavs. Draisaitl, Bouchard, Ekholm, RNH, Hyman do exist.

But what the Oilers need more than anything is Scott Laughton.

 

[freakydallas13]

Caveat: I strongly disagree with any one team ever being a blueprint because they happen to make a deep run or two.

If the Panthers are going to be the trendy blueprint, why isn’t the takeaway how much easier it is to rebuild your D corps on the cheap than the Forwards?

Also draft a defenceman 1st overall.

 

[Chicken N Raffls]

I don’t feel like “close to being out of the playoffs” is that insulting in a hypothetical where the best player in the game is erased from existence, along with the pick used to acquire him. Hell, they could miss the playoffs — enthusiastically picking 12th even — and my thoughts don’t change.

Edmonton had the privilege of visionary Hall of Fame GM Ken Holland not giving them the depth they need to be a dynasty. But we also don’t have to pretend these are the 06-07 LeBron Cavs. Draisaitl, Bouchard, Ekholm, RNH, Hyman do exist.

But what the Oilers need more than anything is Scott Laughton.

To be fair, every NHL team needs Scott Laughton. Even rebuilding ones.

 

[ponder719]

To be fair, every NHL team needs Scott Laughton. Even rebuilding ones.

I can think of one particular team that needs equivalent value for Scott Laughton more.

 

[BillDineen]

Each team as a base has a 1/32 chance. Cap teams have a edge over the penny pinchers. Tax-free states and destinations have an edge over the high tax and boring places.

Teams that are willing to do anything, including tank, have an edge. Running it back with Yeo and landing a bottom 3 when you have bedard and michkov as targets is the smarter play. They lucked into michkov anyway due to the Russian situation, even though they tried to trade up to 5. Just because something does happen doesn't mean the steps towards that event were optimal.

Teams that spend more resources on scouting have an edge. Flyers didn't have anyone in Finland for most of the cap Era.

Teams that aren't loyal to a fault with their front office have an edge. There is a direct path from Fletcher being a Clarke guy and getting hired despite his record and Gauthier not wanting to be a Flyer.

Teams that draft upside players in later rounds have an edge. Klotz and Goulbourne types are not those. Then of you need luck if they pan out, but it is a calculated risk. Dean Letourneau for example could pay of lf huge or be another high school drafted bust. Or do they want a high floor, low ceiling, guy who will play?

Teams that focus on developing a players strengths and optimize their player as an asset have an edge. Ghost is a perfect example of how the Flyers fail in this regard. He, in his own words, ignored Hak in his breakout year.

You do have to put yourself in a position to succeed and get lucky

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

And how many of them had a management overhaul to change the badness that led to their ability to stockpile?

Without looking I'd wager most of them went through regular front office and coaching changes which again is the point I am trying to make (maybe we are saying the same thing?). These teams by and large aren't middle of the road then a GM says "let's tank for a few years and stockpile picks/prospects and in five years we'll be contenders" and then stick to that plan and it works out. The only team in any sport that actually tried that that I can remember is Hinke and we saw how that played out. Nor are they middle of the road (or worse) and new GM/coach come in and say "hey let's do X, Y, and Z and we'll be good" and it just works. For the most part teams that wind up in the finals do so only after being mismanaged or having bad luck for long stretches which result in superstars being drafted top 3 and so forth and so on.

I would LOVE for the Flyers to try something like a total blow up and rebuild at least in the short term but this isn't fantasy hockey or NHL24. There's risk in going that route and it isn't a guarantee of anything. There's always going to be a balance between wanting to get that top pick and and wanting to make the playoffs. There's always going to bounces that go for and against you and I'm not talking about game by game I'm talking about Nolan Patrick or Carter Hart or JvR being the consolation prize losing the lottery after the worse season in franchise history situations or sucking at the right time and getting lottery bounces for McDavids or Crosbys, etc. You can't plan for those things and those are things that have a bigger impact than any draft strategy or roster building strategy you or I can concoct.

The good bounces usually come in the form of a cornerstone player or two being drafted at the top of a draft or a home run in the late rounds. The bad bounces come in the form of busts or career ending injuries. Once you get that good bounce type of situation is when things turn the corner and THEN new management/coaching comes in and goes from there. Very rarely is it the other way around and I can't really think of an example where that has happened other than Vegas which is an outlier because of the ED. Maybe Boston in 2011 is an example because they were pretty middling for a while, but even there you've got guys coming out of nowehere like Bergeron as an elite two way center out of the second round and Tim Thomas playing Patrick Roy and Jesus had a baby, two things that no one really expected to happen. There's little to no chance when Bergeron was drafted Boston's GM thought he'd turn in to what he was or when they brought in Tim Thomas that he'd win multiple Vezinas or a Conn Smythe.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Without looking I'd wager most of them went through regular front office and coaching changes which again is the point I am trying to make (maybe we are saying the same thing?). These teams by and large aren't middle of the road then a GM says "let's tank for a few years and stockpile picks/prospects and in five years we'll be contenders" and then stick to that plan and it works out. The only team in any sport that actually tried that that I can remember is Hinke and we saw how that played out. Nor are they middle of the road (or worse) and new GM/coach come in and say "hey let's do X, Y, and Z and we'll be good" and it just works. For the most part teams that wind up in the finals do so only after being mismanaged or having bad luck for long stretches which result in superstars being drafted top 3 and so forth and so on.

I would LOVE for the Flyers to try something like a total blow up and rebuild at least in the short term but this isn't fantasy hockey or NHL24. There's risk in going that route and it isn't a guarantee of anything. There's always going to be a balance between wanting to get that top pick and and wanting to make the playoffs. There's always going to bounces that go for and against you and I'm not talking about game by game I'm talking about Nolan Patrick or Carter Hart or JvR being the consolation prize losing the lottery after the worse season in franchise history situations or sucking at the right time and getting lottery bounces for McDavids or Crosbys, etc. You can't plan for those things and those are things that have a bigger impact than any draft strategy or roster building strategy you or I can concoct.

The good bounces usually come in the form of a cornerstone player or two being drafted at the top of a draft or a home run in the late rounds. The bad bounces come in the form of busts or career ending injuries. Once you get that good bounce type of situation is when things turn the corner and THEN new management/coaching comes in and goes from there. Very rarely is it the other way around and I can't really think of an example where that has happened other than Vegas which is an outlier because of the ED. Maybe Boston in 2011 is an example because they were pretty middling for a while, but even there you've got guys coming out of nowehere like Bergeron as an elite two way center out of the second round and Tim Thomas playing Patrick Roy and Jesus had a baby, two things that no one really expected to happen. There's little to no chance when Bergeron was drafted Boston's GM thought he'd turn in to what he was or when they brought in Tim Thomas that he'd win multiple Vezinas or a Conn Smythe.

Again, that "luck" very strongly tends to correlate with competence, which suggests it isn't truly luck.

Boston of the 2000s isn't a replicable model. Hoping for a once-in-franchise-history streak of fortune isn't a good model.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

Again, that "luck" very strongly tends to correlate with competence, which suggests it isn't truly luck.

Boston of the 2000s isn't a replicable model. Hoping for a once-in-franchise-history streak of fortune isn't a good model.

To the bolded: exactly what I am saying. There is no model that can account for it. It is why so many teams fail. If there was a model to follow everyone would follow it.

To the "luck" correlating with competence. Please elaborate. Let's look at the last few champs:

Vegas: This is a weird one given the way they got there and clearly is not something anyone can replicate given the circumstances but it was great management that got them there, just not something that will ever be possible again (see: Seattle)

Colorado: Three top five picks on that roster, plus a top ten pick. Curious how they got those guys? Probably wasn't because they were at the bottom of the standings, right? Probably also a good thing they got that #1 pick when it was MacKinnon and not the year before when it was Yakupov. Great management decision.

TB: This actually may be the best example of a team that is consistently well run, although they did have guys like Stammer and Hedman on the team so there was some suckiness but that was relatively short-lived compared to their success. But again...they don't to where they are without those two and in order to get those two you have to suck and suck at the right time.

STL: They had Pietrangelo as a top five pick on that team, but also looking at how the team was built it looks like they were relatively poor at drafting and traded a lot of draft picks (and had a coach that I believe everyone on here wasn't/isn't a good coach), which is something that I assume people would be pretty upset about. They also got unexpected God-level play out of Binnington that he has never been able to replicate.

After that it is all Caps, Red Wings, Pens, Kings, and Blackhawks which we don't need to get into because we know how they got there.

What do these teams have in common? They all sucked enough to get at least one top five pick (most of which had multiple and at least 1 first overall) and they sucked at the right time that the players available who were at the top of the draft weren't Nolan Patrick or Nail Yakupov or Patrik Stefan or JvR. It's almost like, you know, there's somethings that you can't account for that have a bigger impact than the things you can account for.

 

[Random Forest]

Further to DFF’s point, if Nolan Patrick simply didn’t exist, it’s entirely fathomable that Ron Hextall may still be the GM and considered the architect of a “consistently good” franchise. And I’m no Ron Hextall fan.

Maybe he wouldn’t have ever gotten passed the hump — and that’s not a small thing — but having Heiskanen, Makar, or Pettersson likely would have been the difference between what we’ve dealt with the last seven years and a team that’s consistently competitive.

That one instance of misfortune and bad luck is a greater single factor than almost anything else that’s transpired.

That’s not to absolve Hextall of anything. It’s to illustrate that the impact of a poor GM, as I think Hextall was, or a good GM often if significantly outweighed by factors beyond anyone’s control. Hence the earlier point that every GM serves long enough to be called an incompetent moron.

 

[blackjackmulligan]

Again, that "luck" very strongly tends to correlate with competence, which suggests it isn't truly luck.

Boston of the 2000s isn't a replicable model. Hoping for a once-in-franchise-history streak of fortune isn't a good model.

Funny how luck and non-luck follow the same organizations. As you said maybe isn't as much luck as some want to believe.

 

[Random Forest]

Funny how luck and non-luck follow the same organizations. As you said maybe isn't as much luck as some want to believe.

I mean, for one, luck can have impacts over decades (JVR instead of Kane being an obvious example). The Penguins are still living off the luck they had in 2004.

But it’s also plainly not true that the same teams “get lucky” because they put themselves in stronger positions. Holland and Yzerman are guys who were at times considered geniuses, until their fortunes ran dry. Chiarelli too.

These things have compounding effects for years and years. A manager can live off a couple good fortunes for a long, long time.

That said, I agree that an organization can be consistently bad for years because of incompetence. And I generally put the Flyers in that bucket. But few teams who are consistently good are that way because of consistently amazing organizational management.