I agree with you in general that he needs to start getting better at player acquisition through other means but I have given him a pass up until this point due to a piss poor asset base upon which to trade for players. If its status quo going into next year I will agree but I don't believe it will be.
As you said the proof will be in the pudding with regards to drafting I'm another couple of years. I disagree with your notion that they are at best above average on the basis of how many players they have in the league vs others. That runs completely against the development aspect ofthe model. For instance i dont consider teams like Buffalo that are rushing all of their picks into the league superior at drafting. I would rather focus on quality and that won't be determined for a number of years.
Too soon and a crude analysis anyways.
How many teams are rushing guys because they are tight to the cap? How many teams have had consistently high picks? How many of those teams are dressing 20 and unders because their team stinks? How many of the picks who are in the NHL were overagers? The Atlanta franchise was raked over the coals for rushing players to the NHL before they were ready, now we're taking a critical view of the number of guys on our NHL roster from the last 3 drafts, particularly when 2 of our 3 1st rounders are emerging as cornerstones on the NHL roster?
I'm just going to say, that shakehead emoticon is really not beneficial to constructive debate.
Regarding the bolded in both parts above. Sure, maybe using how many players have made the shown isn't a good metric, but its also the only one that makes Chevy look decent at this whoel draft and develop thing. Otherwise we should probably scrap them alltogether right? That's the option
. You can't arbitrarily decide which prospects are rushing and which ones are successful. What metric would be "success"? Boxcars? TOI? POsession stats? The problem is even if you switch the metric, Scheif and Trouba are actually pretty bad at all of these. You can either qualify it, or ignore it. Otherwise your leaving way too much up to interpretation and personal "feelings".
So yes, the option is either Too soon to evaluate, or "slightly above average". So if it's soon to evaluate, the only thing you can evaluate him on is the other stuff, which he hasn't been above average at.
That's the only point i'm trying to make. Very few business and professional positions are paid for 5 years in the hope that something positive comes out, especially if their isn't a single metric provided during that time that can give them the confidence their on the right path. Thats all i'm getting at.
I still support chevy. I'm at the very least indifferent to him. And i totally get that he's been in pretty unique circumstances. I get that we shouldn't expect any movement till the trade deadline due to cap.
My point being, if he hasn't done anything significant by next fall, my mind will be 100% made up on him, and I don't feel that's "being impatient". There's no way to show him as anything above what almost any other GM in the league could have/has accomplished since he got here.