GDT: carwpg

[zman77]

'Canes making a lot of noise in the Hockey World!

Jim Matheson‏ @NHLbyMatty 16h16 hours ago

Jets prevail behind terrific netminding from Brossoit
but Canes are helluva fast, puck-moving team.
Very entertaining. Aho is heckuva player

 

[raynman]

'Canes making a lot of noise in the Hockey World!

Jim Matheson‏ @NHLbyMatty 16h16 hours ago

Jets prevail behind terrific netminding from Brossoit
but Canes are helluva fast, puck-moving team.
Very entertaining. Aho is heckuva player

Which is better? Helluva or heckuva?

 

[The Faulker 27]

Which is better? Helluva or heckuva?

Hellebuyck

 

[My Special Purpose]

Maybe Francis wasn’t the guy to get us over the hump or make the big trade like we did this summer but I will forever be grateful to him for his drafting and for restocking our system to a level of talent we’ve never experienced before.

I'm sorry, but what exactly did Francis do that an empty office couldn't do? He traded away pending UFAs, stockpiled draft picks, and took a player whenever it was our turn to draft. He didn't even do very well with his first-rounders, which are the only picks that are heavily scouted by the GM. We did well in lower rounds under RF, but that's when the scouting staff takes over. So we can give RF "credit" for Fleury, Hanifin, Bean, Gauthier and Necas from the draft. Not exactly dazzling and a couple of complete misses, especially in light of the players we could have had.

Add in the Darling disaster and the trades he *didn't* make, and I have a hard time giving the guy any credit at all. If you all want to give him a passing grade for Aho and Aho alone, fine, I get it. But I'm not buying it. He had four years to give this franchise a jolt and instead just piled up prospect depth. If you want to give him credit for making Charlotte the best team in the AHL, I'm all for it.

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

I'm sorry, but what exactly did Francis do that an empty office couldn't do? He traded away pending UFAs, stockpiled draft picks, and took a player whenever it was our turn to draft. He didn't even do very well with his first-rounders, which are the only picks that are heavily scouted by the GM. We did well in lower rounds under RF, but that's when the scouting staff takes over. So we can give RF "credit" for Fleury, Hanifin, Bean, Gauthier and Necas from the draft. Not exactly dazzling and a couple of complete misses, especially in light of the players we could have had.

Add in the Darling disaster and the trades he *didn't* make, and I have a hard time giving the guy any credit at all. If you all want to give him a passing grade for Aho and Aho alone, fine, I get it. But I'm not buying it. He had four years to give this franchise a jolt and instead just piled up prospect depth. If you want to give him credit for making Charlotte the best team in the AHL, I'm all for it.

Ok!

 

[The Faulker 27]

Is Tuesday here yet.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

I think a lot of people forget what a mess JR left behind and how much cleanup Francis had to do to even set this franchise on the right path.

 

[FreshSeabass]

RF did also get us Teravainen for virtually nothing.

EDIT: Check that i think the 2nd we traded in this deal was used to draft Alex Debrincat

 

[Cardiac Jerks]

RF did also get us Teravainen for virtually nothing.

EDIT: Check that i think the 2nd we traded in this deal was used to draft Alex Debrincat

It actually wasn’t. The pick we traded them was the rangers 50th overall pick which they used on Artur Kayumov. That was their third pick that round.

 

[SaskCanesFan]

I think a lot of people forget what a mess JR left behind and how much cleanup Francis had to do to even set this franchise on the right path.

Yup. Not to mention how easy it is to say "he did nothing" as a negative, when a lot of GMs actively sabatoge themselves by trying to do "something" to shortcut a rebuild (hello Edmonton and Buffalo). Sitting back IS the hard move, because nobody has an ounce of patience. It's much easier for a GM to make terrible decisions that set his team back years, but at least he can throw his hands up and say I tried.

It's pretty telling to me that the team we played last night has a GM that was almost run out of town for being too patient and not making enough changes. But he didn't cave to the pressure, stayed patient and the team is now in a much better place because of it.

 

[The Faulker 27]

I think Francis lost his job due to incompatibility with Dundon not necessarily performance, but that wasn't helping his case.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

Just for the record, the season that Rutherford left and Francis took over in the off-season?

We had Brett Bellemore playing 68 games that year. Drayson Bowman played 70. Kevin Westgarth was still on the team, for reasons unknown. And not in a “Well, let’s see what the young kids can do” kind of way, but in a serious “They can be contributors to this team” kind of way.

 

[The Faulker 27]

Just for the record, the season that Rutherford left and Francis took over in the off-season?

We had Brett Bellemore playing 68 games that year. Drayson Bowman played 70. Kevin Westgarth was still on the team, for reasons unknown. And not in a “Well, let’s see what the young kids can do” kind of way, but in a serious “They can be contributors to this team” kind of way.

It was all part of JRs master plan to win 2 cups with Pittsburgh. One less team to worry about in the division. He knew the magic this Team possessed. Oh, but we will rise again, Jim, WE WILL RISE!!

 

[Svechhammer]

It was all part of JRs master plan to win 2 cups with Pittsburgh. One less team to worry about in the division. He knew the magic this Team possessed. Oh, but we will rise again, Jim, WE WILL RISE!!

Its amazing how well JR can build a team around the likes of Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury. Now imagine if only he was talented enough to actually get those kinds of players on a roster to begin with.

 

[NotOpie]

Its amazing how well JR can build a team around the likes of Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury. Now imagine if only he was talented enough to actually get those kinds of players on a roster to begin with.

I know you're just funnin' us....but JR did/does a good job when needing to "get the team over the top". He's not much of a builder. He's more of an accelerator....and to do that he absolutely destroys a team's prospect depth. All one has to do is look at the Penguin's farm system today (or remember ours 4 years ago). The Kessel move was spot on and picking up Schultz wasn't bad as well. We can hate on JR and rightly so for what he did to this franchise trying to "small ball" the Canes into contention....but he's got 3 Cups and deserves all of them.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Its amazing how well JR can build a team around the likes of Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury. Now imagine if only he was talented enough to actually get those kinds of players on a roster to begin with.

He is. In 6-7 years the Pens will be getting top 5 picks on the regular.

 

[emptyNedder]

It's pretty telling to me that the team we played last night has a GM that was almost run out of town for being too patient and not making enough changes. But he didn't cave to the pressure, stayed patient and the team is now in a much better place because of it.

For Carolina, while much is going well, the management/ownership has made a significant mistake by not signing Aho and Teravainen this offseason. I understand that Aho's and Teravainen's agents have been negotiating the other side, but there is a strong history of players signing during the offseason (Forsberg, Huberdeau, Couturier; Carolina's own Slavin and Pesce) before their last ELC year. Management should not have gambled with either Aho or Teravainen. The extra salary that both will require will eventually seem pound foolish when Foegele, Svechnikov, Necas and others are due for longer contracts.

 

[Unsustainable]

Mzarek has played really good in 2 games, 0-1-1, played crazy in a game 1-0-0.

 

[cptjeff]

Just for the record, the season that Rutherford left and Francis took over in the off-season?

We had Brett Bellemore playing 68 games that year. Drayson Bowman played 70. Kevin Westgarth was still on the team, for reasons unknown. And not in a “Well, let’s see what the young kids can do” kind of way, but in a serious “They can be contributors to this team” kind of way.

And when push came to shove, those JR teams had as good or better results on the ice than every team Ron Francis and Bill Peters iced. End of the day, it's a results business. JR got us to the playoffs and won us a cup. We came a game away from the playoffs two other times. As lousy as missing the playoffs more seasons than not was, Francis simply never got us anywhere close to that.

And we were quite excited about many of our JR era prospects as well. Many of 'em turned out to be crap, some, like these "Slavin" and "Pesce" guys that we hear so much about as cornerstones of the franchise, turned out to be pure gold. Likewise, many of the prospects being cited today as evidence of Francis's rebuilding will turn out to be pure crap. Some hyped Francis prospects already have.

Francis pursued a strategy of treading water with draft picks. Unless you frequently win the lottery, you cannot build purely through the draft. Every other team gets draft picks with pretty equal odds for finding quality players outside of the 1st round. That is, if you have a competitive scouting staff, which ours never was. Under Francis, our drafting in the later rounds was typical and our drafting in the 1st round was terrible. Every team adds a roughly similar amount of drafted talent every year over a long average. In order to move up in the standings, some other team has to lose relative talent. You have to make big free agent splashes or big trades. Francis never did. He decided to tread water, and that kept the team at or below the bubble for his entire tenure. When you suck, treading water simply isn't enough. Building through the draft just means that you're replacing the talent you're losing to aging. It doesn't actually make you better relative to other teams, which is kinda what the whole endeavor is about.

 

[Blueline Bomber]

And when push came to shove, those JR teams had as good or better results on the ice than every team Ron Francis and Bill Peters iced. End of the day, it's a results business. JR got us to the playoffs and won us a cup. We came a game away from the playoffs two other times. As lousy as missing the playoffs more seasons than not was, Francis simply never got us anywhere close to that.

The difference is that Francis made it clear from the beginning that they would be rebuilding his first few years. Hence why Danny Biega got 10 games that first year, Patrick Brown got 7, Rasmus Rissanen got 6. He was finding out what prospects were actually worth a damn from the mess JR left him.

That's not even mentioning the contracts JR left behind. Semin earning $7 million to put up 19 points? Staal slowly giving less and less of a damn? Add in PK's somehow even more reluctant desire to spend money, and the playoffs were never in the cards.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Oh god, Rasmus Rissanen. There's a barometer for just how far down into the barrel we were reaching for prospects. In his past 2 seasons (39 games) in the KHL, during what is presumably his athletic prime, his line is 0-3-3.

 

[geehaad]

Any analysis of Francis' mark on this franchise is decidedly premature. Ridiculously so.

 

[RodTheBawd]

Lots of revisionist sour grapes in here. In a culture of everything having to happen yesterday, I think it took balls to be as patient as GMRF was. He did a rebuild the right way and we are reaping many of those benefits now. He was a little too cautious in Y4 (and really f***ed up by saying that was THE year), but when you set out with a 5 year plan and things have happened quicker than anticipated, it can be difficult to pivot that quickly.

 

[Roboturner913]

Only thing I can fault RF for is the goalie situation. He got things going in the right direction. He inherited a disaster that was almost entirely devoid of depth and talent at every level of the organization. JR has to have been of the most short-sighted GMs in recent sports history I can think of. And you can't say he was just hampered by ownership, that didn't stop RF from building through the draft the way normal teams do.

 

[cptjeff]

Lots of revisionist sour grapes in here. In a culture of everything having to happen yesterday, I think it took balls to be as patient as GMRF was. He did a rebuild the right way and we are reaping many of those benefits now. He was a little too cautious in Y4 (and really ****ed up by saying that was THE year), but when you set out with a 5 year plan and things have happened quicker than anticipated, it can be difficult to pivot that quickly.

Sitting and waiting on draft picks is not rebuilding. It is treading water, unless you're hitting home runs on lottery picks. Which he f***ed up. Routinely. Those are the only draft picks a GM is generally directly responsible for, and our first round drafting was flat out bad.

Teams routinely go from bad to good in a single season in this league. A 5 year plan, with absolutely no upward trend in actual results by year 4, is not a success. And remember, the plan was supposed to make us a contender, not just sneak into the playoffs. It was a miserable failure. That's not revisionist history, that's just facing the plain reality. Francis was a do nothing GM who kept this team wallowing in failure.