Which GM hire was most damaging for their team?

[ponder719]

I'm not the right person to properly make the argument, but I really want the guy from the Flyers board who wholeheartedly believes the answer is Bobby Clarke to come here and lay out all the pieces. There's at least an interesting case that everything wrong with the Flyers today comes back to the decision to bring Clarke back as GM after Russ Farwell got fired (and more importantly to hire only people Clarkie approved of as GM, ever since), and that despite his own personal success over that time period, Clarke might be the best GM to do that level of damage to his team.

Of the more obvious answers for the Flyers, the question is what do you think does the most damage? A good plan, but poor talent evaluation and poor follow-through (Hextall), not much of a plan, but also not taking radical swings (Fletcher), or not really having the authority to overrule the dinosaur behind the bench and the meddling of the Foundational Titans (Brière)?

Overall, Milbury's the memetic answer, though there are good arguments for Chiarelli, Benning, anyone dumb enough to trade with Sam Pollock, and a few others.

 

[BruinLVGA]

I have loathed Chiarelli for the Seguin trade and never stopped.

 

[banks]

Brian Burke with Toronto:

Bringing in the wrong kind of defencemen, Komisarek and Beauchemin, for too much money.

Traded up in the 2011 draft to take Biggs (giving away the picks for Gibson and Rakell)

The Kessel trade was bad. But failing to ever get a top line C for him while missing the playoffs every year was despicable.

And you can then add that Burke brought in his own successor, Dave Nonis, who just doubled down on Burke's failures and kept the status quo of mistakes. Burke and Nonis wasted a decade for Leafs fans.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

It can't be anyone other than Mike Milbury.

DiPietro will be getting paid until 2029.

TWENTY. TWENTY-NINE.

 

[TageGod]

Tim Murray for Buffalo. He set the rebuild back five years and ultimately caused a new rebuild. Dude was just bad.

Tim Murray created an all star lineup. Eichel Reinhart O'Reilly, Kane, Montour etc. He sold the farm sure; I would take him in a heartbeat to move Sabres assets.

Kevyn Adams for ineptitude is high on this list.

 

[BFLO]

Seeing way too much hate for Chiarelli, McTavish, Dubas, Benning etc, for "wasting the primes of their stars".

You know what's worse than wasting the primes of your stars? Wasting the primes of your stars and then trading your stars away for scraps (or losing for nothing) and then watching them win the cup/or other hardware with their new teams almost immediately.

So none of those GMs are as bad as Kevyn Adams, or Jason Botterill.

Did Milbury trade away anyone that went on to win the Selke and Conn Smythe the very next season? Or win a cup as the 1C their first full season on their new team? Or win a Vezina 2 seasons after being traded? etc..

 

[ManofSteel55]

The Oilers hat trick of Chiarelli, Holland, and now Stan Bowman has done immeasurable damage. They would have at least one Cup by now if the team was properly run, but here we are in Year 10 of Connor McDavid wondering if John Klingberg’s bionic hips and a goalie with a .902 save percentage are the solutions on defence and in goal. Just complete idiocy from a group of has beens every season.

Tambellini before Chiarelli didn't do the Oilers any favours either, largely due to inactivity in a time when the team needed to bring in appropriate support players to help along a young team, but they didn't bring any of that in to help them along.

I'm voting for Chiarelli. At least Holland did some good things. He left too many glaring holes though for sure. Chiarelli was given too long to make desperation moves that really hurt the team in the long term. The only great moves Chiarelli made, were falling into Connor McDavid due to his incompetence, and a great trade for Cam Talbot, which was then counteracted by the team dumping him for far too little, only to run with garbage goalies yet again. Ryan Strome for Ryan Spooner, bringing in Brandon Manning to "fix" the defense issues, tying the team to awful goalie duos all hurt the team in the short and long term. The goalie issue seems to be the trademark for most Oiler GM's since Sather.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Re-upping on chia’s awful tenure for the oilers,

1 Trading a 2015 1st and 2nd for griffin Reinhardt,

2 signing lucic to that awful boat anchor contract

3 trading for Brandon manning, the one guy who mcdavid actually very much hated at the time cause he intentionally
broke his clavicle.

4 Boyd Gordon for Lauri korpikoski into buying him out.

Just a bad bad gm who if he didn’t have Draisaitl and Mcdavid would have build the equivalent to a wet fart.

You can add Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strome (downgrade), followed by Strome for Ryan Spooner - Spooner was already on his way out of the NHL but we took two steps from a 30 goal, 60 point winger, to nothing with that short comedy of errors.

Yakupov was drafted 3 years before Chiapet was hired.

In all fairness to the previous poster, its hard to untangle all of the bad trades and bad GM's that Edmonton had, between Tambellini, McTavish (hiring Dallas Eakins - woof), and Chiarelli. I don't include Holland, because as bad as he was, I think he was far better than any of the previous 3.

 

[Hivemind]

Mike Milbury and it's not remotely close.

 

[oXo Cube]

I'm not a huge fan of Ken Holland's tenure in Edmonton but it's impossible to argue he wasn't a huge improvement over his predecessors.

Milbury
Chiarelli(EDM)

The Field

 

[TheBeerNerd]

Mike Milbury and it's not remotely close.

I'm glad someone posted this because I mentioned it in my post and I haven't been able to find it since I first saw it. You're a hero.

 

[Lt Dan]

Rob Blake/Bluc is going to in to the hall of shame for the Kings. First they got Lombardi fired and now they are finding new ways to lose trades and go in circles

 

[Nicko999]

Marc Bergevin for Montreal

This is a case of AINEC...

Bergevin made me stop watching the Habs. I would gladly take all other bad GMs in this thread instead of Bozo.
Habs were literally a piece or 2 away from being contenders when he was hired. Price, Subban, Markov, Pacioretty, Plekanec, young Gallagher.
7 years later, the team was out of a playoff spot and bad contracts will haunt MTL for the next decade.

 

[Brodeur]

Mike Milbury and it's not remotely close.

Maybe a little unfair to include Clark/Thomas and Redden/Berard together since they were traded for one another. In particular the Clark trade netted a pretty good return. They got Osgood via the waiver draft. Not to say that Milbury did a great job by any means, but he had some grim ownership years which forced him to sell off guys like Palffy in 1999. Then he got a little too frisky with new owners in 2000 and started making trades to win immediately after being a doormat.

Dealing older versions of Peca/Niinimaa after the lockout might be misrepresenting things a little bit as well. Until I looked it up, I didn't remember that they traded Czerkawski to Montreal but then re-signed him after one season. So I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad trade. Trading Dumont was a money thing as they were still looking for a new owner after John Spano infamously came and went; There was a rookie salary cap but ELCs weren't as regulated as they were today, so they risked losing Dumont for a compensatory 2nd and they opted to trade him.



I always find it amusing that the co-owner (Sanjay Kumar) who announced the DiPietro pick ended up in jail a few years later. Definitely a bad mix to be a questionable GM with shaky ownership.

 

[Bring Bak Damphousse]

It can't be anyone other than Mike Milbury.

DiPietro will be getting paid until 2029.

TWENTY. TWENTY-NINE.

Thats nuts, I had to check hockeydb, but guy hasn’t played an nhl game since 12-13

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Rob Blake may not be at the top of most list is, but I’d honestly love to see a worse trade (and development tree) from any other GM

In:
Kevin Fiala
Darcy Kuemper
2M Salary Retention on Ivan Provorov
Vladdy Gavrikov (for now)

Out:
Brock Faber
Matt Roy
Sean Walker
Sean Durzi
Helge Grans (35OA pick)
Gabriel Villardi (13OA pick)
Rasmus Kupari (1st round pick)
Alex Iafallo
Arthur Kaliyev (33OA pick)
Tobias Bjornfot (1st round pick)
2022 1st round pick
2023 1st round pick.


It is a level of bad that almost has to be deliberate.

Rob Blake inherited a championship infrastracture, several future HoFers in their prime, limitless AEG resources, TONS of assets and picks, and carte blanche to do whatever he wanted including restart a rebuild TWICE and has done nothing but blackhole for a decade while leaving the franchise's future in absolute ruins.

His trades make Milbury laugh, and waiting for the inevitable Clarke-Greentree-1st for a middle six winger trade this deadline to solidify it. He hands out NTCs/NMCs like candy, and has handed out several buyout-proof contracts to failures like Petersen, Fiala, and PLD (LA version, calm down Washington fans). And it's nepotism at best, corruption at worst with the franchises Luc-Brisson client shenanigans, including Pacioretty firing Brisson nixing an LA trade and the Bergevin Gm-in-waiting hire. Their development team is arguably worst in the league with blue chip talent, and arrogance/ego forces them to let go of players they shouldn't have who dare question why they bury kids in the minors until they're 25 (rumors of Gabe Vilardi being discontent and they didn't even talk contract with him--shipped off shortly after, Kaliyev getting sent to Robidas island.

He hasn't done anything that the average HFer couldn't for the last decade, I guess except stay employed by AEG because uncle phil wouldn't have the nuts or years of his life left to fire 'franchise legends' who should have their numbers ripped out of the rafters.

It doesn't maybe look like it to outsiders yet, but the Kings are f***ed until at least 2030 after this. But hey, maybe they'll win 3 games in the first round to a team that goes deep and hang another 'we were right there' banner and dodge media availability until the following season because they've successfully beaten the local media into being nutless to hold them accountable and for all intents and purposes banned anyone that would ask a hard question.

 

[TehDoak]

I'm not sure how the answer isn't Kevyn Adams, the current GM of the Sabres.

You can hate on Murray, but he added legit NHL talent (O'Reilly, Kane, and Lehner) within a few months. He also secured the option to draft Eichel rather than possibly falling to Strome.

The issue was he failed to address the defense.

Adams, in a must win season, took his team from .500 to dead last.

He then tried to blame it on 'players who didn't want to be here' (Reinhart, Risto, and Eichel) rather than his shitty offseason moves that bombed terribly (Hall, Eakin, and Staal)

He moved Reinhart and Risto for futures. He then stripped Eichel of his captaincy because they wouldn't allow him to get his preferred surgery and rocketed the Sabres to the top of every players NMC by putting Eichel's career on hold for six months while he got a similar package to what he likely could have gotten in June.

In 5 years of GM, his biggest achievement is almost making the playoffs in a league where half the teams make the playoffs.

The current office cannot sign impact UFAs, cannot make impact trades, and have given out long term contracts to players well before they have earned them (Samuelsson and Power). They have failed to add impactful veterans to support and provide examples for their young players.

Adams has provided a textbook on how NOT to run a rebuild and why you shouldn't have a lengthy drawn out fight with your 24 year old franchise center your team threw away two whole seasons to get.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

This is the most insane thread. Wow.

Especially EDM fans. Your team is 1st in the Pacific +30 goal differential. What the hell? You went to game 7 last year and you'll go deep again this year. There's no reason to panic.

 

[qc14]

Ron Hextall has ruined both Pennsylvania franchises and I cannot do enough to thank him for it

 

[Miller Time]

Bergevin destroyed what should've been a decade + of contention built around Price, PK a solid prospect pool, great cap situation and ownership willing to spend.

Instead, Habs got a decade as a middling team that occasionally rode the back of their HOF goalie to playoff runs deeper than expected but ultimately well short of real contention.

Left the team with a gutted prospect pool and cap ceiling roster that literally finished dead last in the league.

About as inept a management run as any I've seen

 

[kevistar]

Marc Bergevin for Montreal

Hum I don't know about that one. Remember that Suzuki, caufield, guhle were all acquired/drafted while bergevin was the DG. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's gone, but there are way worse than him.

 

[the]

Hum I don't know about that one. Remember that Suzuki, caufield, guhle were all acquired/drafted while bergevin was the DG. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's gone, but there are way worse than him.

Caufield and Guhle would have probably busted if Bozo was still around. They weren't able to develop anybody during their tenure and I'm convinced that tradition would have kept going.

 

[TheBeerNerd]

An aside about the Sabres recent run of GMs: not a single one of them have returned to that position with another team after being dumped by the Pegulas. That's pretty telling given how the NHL loves to recycle GMs and coaches.

I know someone said that Adams has taken accountability for the Sabres not spending much on free agents under his tenure, but come on. Being cheap on acquiring talent seems to be in character for the Pegulas. A rebuilding team needs veterans to improve the culture of a young team and I think that's a big reason why the Sabres are always stuck in neutral.

 

[Ianturnedbull]

Brian Burke with Toronto:

Bringing in the wrong kind of defencemen, Komisarek and Beauchemin, for too much money.

Traded up in the 2011 draft to take Biggs (giving away the picks for Gibson and Rakell)

The Kessel trade was bad. But failing to ever get a top line C for him while missing the playoffs every year was despicable.

And you can then add that Burke brought in his own successor, Dave Nonis, who just doubled down on Burke's failures and kept the status quo of mistakes. Burke and Nonis wasted a decade for Leafs fans.

I don't disagree, but how are you so certain that Burke would have drafted Gibson/Rakell?

 

[5 14 6 1]

The Oilers hat trick of Chiarelli, Holland, and now Stan Bowman has done immeasurable damage. They would have at least one Cup by now if the team was properly run, but here we are in Year 10 of Connor McDavid wondering if John Klingberg’s bionic hips and a goalie with a .902 save percentage are the solutions on defence and in goal. Just complete idiocy from a group of has beens every season.

The Oilers have been one of the leagues best for 6 straight years and made the playoffs every single year of Hollands contract after being a lame duck team prior. I guess if the argument is they should have won a cup by now, sure but he isn't the "worst"

Holland traded for Ekholm, signed Hyman, brought in Kane, made smart trades for guys like Foegele and helped stabilize the team.

However Chiarell?, yes, I definitely agree, he SUCKED