Fire Deboer

[Hinterland]

All those great drafted/traded players, Yet zero cups, and only one appearance in the final. Care to list off all the trades and picks that didn't pan out? Probably going to be longer then your list above.

So honest question. How many decades will YOU give DW before you are willing to try someone new?

That list of drafted players, and traded players will just grow and grow as the decades roll on. If that is all you want from your GM then I guess your answer will be never.

Wilson is drafting and trading very well...this team may not have many superstars but many young talents and experienced vets. Wilson is hardly responsible if DeBoer is too stupid to properly use the roster he got. Sharks roster is a lot better than the one Vegas has yet still the outcome was completely different. Who's responsible for that? Surely not Wilson. The only mistake Wilson made was not to fire his idiot coach.

 

[Lebanezer]

It’s funny because when McLellan had clearly become stale, it was the 2012-2015 period of time where the Sharks won only one playoff series and missed the playoffs and got reverse swept once as well.

I think that if you ran a statistical analysis, it would show that teams do a lot better with coaches in years 1-3 than years 4+. It might be more optimal, probability wise, to fire a coach every 3 or 4 seasons.

Why do you expect great things from the Sharks no matter what? Are you saying that in the context of “there needs to be great things from this time, I will accept nothing less”, or in the context of “if I had to make a bet, San Jose will win the Pacific Division in the regular season and the playoffs.”?

The roster is still too good not to make the playoffs. Especially with a healthy Joe Thornton. If they re-sign Kane, great, if he walks, that's fine too. If the solution comes from within for that wing position, a UFA, a trade, or if by some miracle they sign Tavares, the team is good enough to make some noise in the playoffs. My only concern is on the back end, and given that the Sharks have almost nothing in the pipeline, I think it's almost a certainty that they'll make a trade for a defenseman. Hopefully they don't go on the market and overpay John Carlson, but I expect Doug to try to trade for Erik Karlsson, Dougie Hamilton, or whoever else is out there.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

The roster is still too good not to make the playoffs. Especially with a healthy Joe Thornton. If they re-sign Kane, great, if he walks, that's fine too. If the solution comes from within for that wing position, a UFA, a trade, or if by some miracle they sign Tavares, the team is good enough to make some noise in the playoffs. My only concern is on the back end, and given that the Sharks have almost nothing in the pipeline, I think it's almost a certainty that they'll make a trade for a defenseman. Hopefully they don't go on the market and overpay John Carlson, but I expect Doug to try to trade for Erik Karlsson, Dougie Hamilton, or whoever else is out there.

Really, I think they could do well by trading Tierney+Boedker for that D-Man. Boedker-Tierney are 2/3 of a solid 3rd scoring line for whoever gets them, won’t cost more than $8M on the cap at the absolute maximum and $7M in terms of pure salary, and are both relatively young. I like Boedker but if the opportunity is there to open up that spot for a young player then you should probably do it. There are too many forwards on this team with a top-9 skill set and top-9 potential to square peg them on the 4th line or let them over ripen in the AHL.

 

[Dicdonya]

Some people are content to watch this team flame out in the second round every year, so long as they make the playoffs. And that’s totally alright. But it’d be nice if they didn’t call those of us who want better “delusional”.

Yes, Doug Wilson is unquestionably in the top half of the league at his job. I’d say top third. But that’s not enough. Tell me honestly, who thinks that the Sharks are going to win a Cup under Doug Wilson? Because if you don’t think they will, why fight so hard in his favor? Because you’re scared someone else will do worse? They might! But they also might do better! Doug Wilson is a known quality: good at keeping his team competitive, never good enough to win a Stanley Cup. Who is satisfied with that? I’m not.

To be completely honest and fair, I WAS one of those people. I was content with just getting to the dance, and then hoping a stroke of luck occurred and we made a run. However as usually occurs with people, contentment leads to boredom, which leads to apathy if nothing ever changes.

At this point I have one foot in the door of apathy towards this team. I KNOW DW will not do anything shocking or different. He will continue to be a reactionary GM, never trying something new, but following the example of Cup winning teams and forever trying to adjust to the league, instead of making the league adjust to his team.

He will continue to make some good trades, that make us all amazed how he got the player, then trade for some obscure 4th liner for way too high a price, and make us all facepalm. He will continue to allow coaches to stay around too long, whether they be head coaches or asst coaches. He will continue to draft safely leaving the team with zero, or nearly zero top end talent, forcing himself to have to go out and spend assets to make the head turning trades for great players.

So after over a decade of this, yeah I am ready for a change. Doug has had more then a fair shake to get his team a cup, and failed.

Your expectation is ridiculous. there are 31 teams and 1 winner each year. We all want to win, and DW at the helm has given us an incredible chance to win each year, except that "1 step backwards, 2 steps forwards" year, and that year worked long term. Stan Bowman and Dean Lombardi are the only GMs who have won multiple cups with the same team since the lockout, and Lombardi is already gone. Winning isnt easy nor is it squarely on the GM.

Definitely wasn't DW's fault we didnt show up in Games 1 and 5 vs Vegas, but definitely was DW's doing that we even made the playoffs. If you think the GM's role is to also be the coach and also be a player, then yes, we should fire DW. But if you accept that the GM's job is to create a contending team year over year with shrewd trades, good drafting, and smart signings, then why would we fire him? His decisions to not overreact and save some cap space for bigger FA fish or trades worked out well! He said we would replace Marleau's production from within, and guess what, we did.

You had way more fodder to call for his head in 2007-2012, when we traded/signed guys like Wallin, Rivet, Huskins, Moen, etc. Since 2014, I dont we have lost one trade, except maybe Hansen if you consider him a waste of cap space. Every other trade has been a win or mutual win. Drafting and player development has been very solid, with the rise of players like Meier, Donskoi, Tierney, Labanc, Ryan, Heed, Hertl, Goodrow, Karlsson, etc.

To answer your question, if we decide to go rebuild, i'd want him gone. I'd rather start fresh all around. But as long as we are still contending (which we are), there is no logical reason to fire him, despite your unrealistic expectation that we should win every year

I never once stated we need to win the cup every year. Thats an absurd statement that no one should ever make. Hell I havent even said we needed to have more than 1 cup in the last 15 years. I only said not winning a single one with the same GM for 15 years has finally made me ready for a change.

This is wholly different then me, or anyone else, freaking out had it only been like 3-5 years into his tenure, and each year we were competitive. As I said above, I was someone who defended DW in the past, for exactly the same reason you seem to be defending him.

So Ill ask you the same question I asked the person I originally quoted. How many decades are you willing to give DW without a cup, as long as we stay competitive? At what point does simply making the playoffs become not enough for someone like you?

Wilson is drafting and trading very well...this team may not have many superstars but many young talents and experienced vets. Wilson is hardly responsible if DeBoer is too stupid to properly use the roster he got. Sharks roster is a lot better than the one Vegas has yet still the outcome was completely different. Who's responsible for that? Surely not Wilson. The only mistake Wilson made was not to fire his idiot coach.

Wilson is 100% responsible for Deboer, and every player on the ice. They all are on this team because of him. Certainly he cant coach and play on their behalf, but the buck stops with him (well actually the owner) as it should, since he is the man responsible for anyone being on this team. If its year 1-2 of a GM's tenure, and he is still molding HIS team, sure, dont blame him for idiot coaches, or players that have underperformed. After 15 fricken years, this team is 100% his creation, from top to bottom, so it is absolutely his fault for the teams outcome. Not minutely, but on the overall.

Sharks roster is in no way a lot better than the Vegas roster. Unless you pretend this whole season didnt happen, and guys like Karlsson are still 15 pt players, then yeah I guess you would think that. Vegas was clearly better than the Sharks this year. The only reason anyone here thinks differently is because they have convinced themselves that Vegas is just one huge fluke, or that there is a league conspiracy to make Vegas do well. Its total BS. They are a team that is lead by an absolute dominant first line, and a bunch of depth players who all pull the ship in the same direction. Also helps that Fluery is having a crazy resurgent year, and they have a Coach that really seems to be doing a great job.

 

[Hinterland]

That's rubbish and you know it. A team that has anchors like Engelland inside their top4 or Eakin at 3C can't be all that good. Carpenter is playing regular minutes for Vegas...a guy the Sharks waived. They have a few decent forwards but like the Sharks they don't have any superstars... just that they're not nearly as deep as the Sharks. They won because Gallant outcoached DeBoer who did just about everything wrong. Period.

 

[SnarkAttack]

That's rubbish and you know it. A team that has anchors like Engelland inside their top4 or Eakin at 3C can't be all that good. Carpenter is playing regular minutes for Vegas...a guy the Sharks waived. They have a few decent forwards but like the Sharks they don't have any superstars... just that they're not nearly as deep as the Sharks. They won because Gallant outcoached DeBoer who did just about everything wrong. Period.

and Fleury

 

[Juxtaposer]

That's rubbish and you know it. A team that has anchors like Engelland inside their top4 or Eakin at 3C can't be all that good. Carpenter is playing regular minutes for Vegas...a guy the Sharks waived. They have a few decent forwards but like the Sharks they don't have any superstars... just that they're not nearly as deep as the Sharks. They won because Gallant outcoached DeBoer who did just about everything wrong. Period.

You do realize that we had Chris Tierney (crappy broken version) as our 3C and Paul Martin in our top-4, right? Fehr was playing regular minutes for us and he was demoted to the AHL by Toronto.

But yeah, it was all DeBoer’s fault and definitely that Fleury guy had nothing to do with it.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

You do realize that we had Chris Tierney (crappy broken version) as our 3C and Paul Martin in our top-4, right? Fehr was playing regular minutes for us and he was demoted to the AHL by Toronto.

But yeah, it was all DeBoer’s fault and definitely that Fleury guy had nothing to do with it.

Fehr's performance was not the problem in this series.

Tierney was awful in this series, which is particularly disappointing when you consider his regular season, and his competition. The way that Doug Wilson talked about him made it seem like he would be re-signed for sure, which is disappointing. I think he should be traded.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Fehr's performance was not the problem in this series.

Yunno, that’s so far from my point that I don’t even know what to say. I’m saying that you can’t make statements like the poster I quoted made without looking in the mirror. Too much is made of the fact that Carpenter was waived by us. The fact is that he got regular minutes in Vegas and performed well in them is what’s relevant, just like we would say that what Fehr did before being acquired by the Sharks is irrelevant.

 

[tiburon12]

So Ill ask you the same question I asked the person I originally quoted. How many decades are you willing to give DW without a cup, as long as we stay competitive? At what point does simply making the playoffs become not enough for someone like you?

I suppose i just look at the big picture and realize that being competitive and in the mix year over year is sufficient considering how ridiculously hard it is to win the cup. Like i pointed out before in this thread, 13 teams have won the cup since the Sharks joined the league. in 27 years, only 13! the cup just doesnt rotate between teams in even distribution. It is hard to win, and the Sharks have been legit contenders for a decade+. I can understand wanting a cup after all those years, i really can, but there is really only so much a GM can do. If at any point in any year, especially the playoffs, you thought "the sharks can win this year", then the GM did his job. The rest is on the players to perform and the coach to make adjustments. And like i said many times in this thread already, both the coach and players overachieved this year.

What do you expect a new GM will be able to do that Wilson hasn't been able to do? Make better trades? Draft better? Choose a better coach? sign better free agents? Aside from drafting, all of those require another party to come to a conclusion, and despite that, Wilson has done all of those quite well. We have won the vast majority of trades in the last handful of years, maybe the only lost trade being Hansen. Our drafting has been solid given the positions we have had, though its too early to tell success of recent years. Coaching decisions have sever limitations, the primary being availability, and given those limits, he picked a damn good one. So i ask again, what do you expect a new GM to do that DW doesnt do now? How much rope are you going to give a new GM, likely a first-time GM or some other team's throwaway, who doesnt come close to having the experience or respect around the league that DW has?

Wilson is 100% responsible for Deboer, and every player on the ice. They all are on this team because of him. Certainly he cant coach and play on their behalf, but the buck stops with him (well actually the owner) as it should, since he is the man responsible for anyone being on this team. If its year 1-2 of a GM's tenure, and he is still molding HIS team, sure, dont blame him for idiot coaches, or players that have underperformed. After 15 fricken years, this team is 100% his creation, from top to bottom, so it is absolutely his fault for the teams outcome. Not minutely, but on the overall.

Sharks roster is in no way a lot better than the Vegas roster. Unless you pretend this whole season didnt happen, and guys like Karlsson are still 15 pt players, then yeah I guess you would think that. Vegas was clearly better than the Sharks this year. The only reason anyone here thinks differently is because they have convinced themselves that Vegas is just one huge fluke, or that there is a league conspiracy to make Vegas do well. Its total BS. They are a team that is lead by an absolute dominant first line, and a bunch of depth players who all pull the ship in the same direction. Also helps that Fluery is having a crazy resurgent year, and they have a Coach that really seems to be doing a great job.

Again, even if your expectation is to win once in 15 years, you are WAY to aggressive in your expectations. If you expect to win once every 15 years, you will have a miserable fandom for the rest of your life. And if anything, he should have been fired in any time between 2012-2015, but since then, he has done an excellent job at building a contender. Last year we lost thanks to terrible injuries, this year we lost to a team that DW couldnt have GM'd against. I still fail to see how this year's outcome warrants a firing

 

[Dicdonya]

That's rubbish and you know it. A team that has anchors like Engelland inside their top4 or Eakin at 3C can't be all that good. Carpenter is playing regular minutes for Vegas...a guy the Sharks waived. They have a few decent forwards but like the Sharks they don't have any superstars... just that they're not nearly as deep as the Sharks. They won because Gallant outcoached DeBoer who did just about everything wrong. Period.

Well their anchors certainly didn't play like one, in the playoffs or all year, since they are better then we were in both scenarios. So you can keep claiming that, but it doesn't mean its true. In fact I know I saw Engelland making several very important defensive plays throughout the series, and at no point looked like an anchor to me.

Eakin has 4 points these playoffs. How many does Tierney have? Yet Eakin is an anchor.....ok sure thing.

Carpenter being waived was a choice largely disliked on these boards, so him doing well on another team is not some crazy shock.

Their non "superstars" scored far more points then ours, in the regular season, and especially in our series against them. Their goalie played better then ours, their depth, especially Tuch, did better then ours. At no point, outside of 2nd line center/winger(even though hertl/cooch to me is the 1st line), and superstar defensman, do I see a clear advantage on the Sharks roster over Vegas.

So no I completely 100% do not think the Sharks are a way better team on paper, and certainly were not on the Ice. Keep dreaming that Vegas is some complete fluke, or coddled by the NHL to make them succeed. Ill stay in reality, where the Vegas Knights, smoked us in the regular season, and then again in the playoffs, because their team was better then ours this year.

 

[Dicdonya]

I suppose i just look at the big picture and realize that being competitive and in the mix year over year is sufficient considering how ridiculously hard it is to win the cup. Like i pointed out before in this thread, 13 teams have won the cup since the Sharks joined the league. in 27 years, only 13! the cup just doesnt rotate between teams in even distribution. It is hard to win, and the Sharks have been legit contenders for a decade+. I can understand wanting a cup after all those years, i really can, but there is really only so much a GM can do. If at any point in any year, especially the playoffs, you thought "the sharks can win this year", then the GM did his job. The rest is on the players to perform and the coach to make adjustments. And like i said many times in this thread already, both the coach and players overachieved this year.

What do you expect a new GM will be able to do that Wilson hasn't been able to do? Make better trades? Draft better? Choose a better coach? sign better free agents? Aside from drafting, all of those require another party to come to a conclusion, and despite that, Wilson has done all of those quite well. We have won the vast majority of trades in the last handful of years, maybe the only lost trade being Hansen. Our drafting has been solid given the positions we have had, though its too early to tell success of recent years. Coaching decisions have sever limitations, the primary being availability, and given those limits, he picked a damn good one. So i ask again, what do you expect a new GM to do that DW doesnt do now? How much rope are you going to give a new GM, likely a first-time GM or some other team's throwaway, who doesnt come close to having the experience or respect around the league that DW has?

That is not an answer to the question, and just rehashing everything I have already stated my opinion on.

So again, how many years will you accept no cup, but playoff appearances. How about another decade? Century? Millennium?

I mean you are looking at the bigger picture you state, so tell me, how long until you finally decide it might be time for a change at the GM position.

Again, even if your expectation is to win once in 15 years, you are WAY to aggressive in your expectations. If you expect to win once every 15 years, you will have a miserable fandom for the rest of your life. And if anything, he should have been fired in any time between 2012-2015, but since then, he has done an excellent job at building a contender. Last year we lost thanks to terrible injuries, this year we lost to a team that DW couldnt have GM'd against. I still fail to see how this year's outcome warrants a firing

You keep implying things about what Im saying, that I do not actually say. I never once said I "expect" a cup in any given time frame. I only ever have said that DW has had 15 years, and got no cup. I am ready to move on from DW, and believe 15 years was enough time to say we gave him a fair shake at making a championship team. He didn't, and Im bored of him now.

I just can not understand why its so hard for you to wrap your head around the idea that I don't expect anything. I also don't want to fire DW because I blame him for not winning a cup this year, or any specific year for that matter. I simply want to have a new leader for this franchise, and believe that giving DW 15 years to try to get a cup here, is more than enough time to say "Ok, we definitely gave him a fair chance to get it done, but for whatever reason it didn't work out, and we want to try something new".

Also lest it be forgotten, I only said I want to move away from DW if Thornton was not planning to come back next year. In other words, I see the ending of the Marleau/Thornton era as a good point in which to do a full reset on the organizations approach to team building. The Sharks have become stale to me, largely because of how DW manages the team, disagree with that all you want that's fine, but its how I feel. So Im ready to move on.

 

[OrrNumber4]

Yunno, that’s so far from my point that I don’t even know what to say. I’m saying that you can’t make statements like the poster I quoted made without looking in the mirror. Too much is made of the fact that Carpenter was waived by us. The fact is that he got regular minutes in Vegas and performed well in them is what’s relevant, just like we would say that what Fehr did before being acquired by the Sharks is irrelevant.

I don't think Carpenter's Vegas performance should reflect badly on the Sharks. They gave him a shot. They gave him opportunities. He failed to seize them. The history of the NHL is littered with players who started playing better once a move to a new team shook them up.

Fehr, on the other hand, was only kept down because of some comments he made to the media.

 

[Juxtaposer]

I don't think Carpenter's Vegas performance should reflect badly on the Sharks. They gave him a shot. They gave him opportunities. He failed to seize them. The history of the NHL is littered with players who started playing better once a move to a new team shook them up.

Fehr, on the other hand, was only kept down because of some comments he made to the media.

If you call 16 games on the fourth line “an opportunity”, sure.

 

[OrrNumber4]

If you call 16 games on the fourth line “an opportunity”, sure.

They gave him nearly 30 games over two years.

 

[Hinterland]

You do realize that we had Chris Tierney (crappy broken version) as our 3C and Paul Martin in our top-4, right? Fehr was playing regular minutes for us and he was demoted to the AHL by Toronto.

But yeah, it was all DeBoer’s fault and definitely that Fleury guy had nothing to do with it.

If most of the squad (Tierney just one example) didn't play the way they could then who's to blame? Gary Bettman?
Martin played limited, Engelland heavy minutes.
DeBoer didn't have to play Fehr. Goodrow was available yet hardly played.

Fleury wasn't a factor in this series. He was okayish but not that good. Saw lots of shots at times but hardly dangerous ones. Also let in a few weak ones. He was much better vs LA.

 

[tiburon12]

That is not an answer to the question, and just rehashing everything I have already stated my opinion on.

So again, how many years will you accept no cup, but playoff appearances. How about another decade? Century? Millennium?

I mean you are looking at the bigger picture you state, so tell me, how long until you finally decide it might be time for a change at the GM position.



You keep implying things about what Im saying, that I do not actually say. I never once said I "expect" a cup in any given time frame. I only ever have said that DW has had 15 years, and got no cup. I am ready to move on from DW, and believe 15 years was enough time to say we gave him a fair shake at making a championship team. He didn't, and Im bored of him now.

I just can not understand why its so hard for you to wrap your head around the idea that I don't expect anything. I also don't want to fire DW because I blame him for not winning a cup this year, or any specific year for that matter. I simply want to have a new leader for this franchise, and believe that giving DW 15 years to try to get a cup here, is more than enough time to say "Ok, we definitely gave him a fair chance to get it done, but for whatever reason it didn't work out, and we want to try something new".

Also lest it be forgotten, I only said I want to move away from DW if Thornton was not planning to come back next year. In other words, I see the ending of the Marleau/Thornton era as a good point in which to do a full reset on the organizations approach to team building. The Sharks have become stale to me, largely because of how DW manages the team, disagree with that all you want that's fine, but its how I feel. So Im ready to move on.

I'll give him until we decide to rebuild, as i've mention ITT before. As long as we plan to contend, i want him at the helm, since he has done an excellent job of creating a contending team. Once we blow it up, i agree with you that we need someone new and fresh. Until then, you have yet to provide me a reason why we should fire him beyond your lack of patience.

and dude, by saying "15 years was enough time to say we gave him a fair shake at making a championship team. He didn't, and Im bored of him now" quite literally means you expected a cup within a 15 year window. I may be not using your exact words, but sourcing from the implication of your words. your reason for firing him is that he didnt meet your expectations!

I, frankly, dont understand how one can be bored of a GM, but i can understand wanting a change. I just feel its useless to want a change in GM when, if anything, he has done his job well and has a team that overachieved. it's just not a practical solution, that's why im arguing against it. to me, its a waste of time to even consider it

 

[tiburon12]

Fleury wasn't a factor in this series. He was okayish but not that good. Saw lots of shots at times but hardly dangerous ones. Also let in a few weak ones. He was much better vs LA.

..........Fluery had 2 shutouts. He also made a series defining save on Couture in OT in Game 3. Yes he was very lucky with posts and all, and maybe he wasn't as significant as the media will have one believe, but to say he wasn't a factor is just downright wrong.

 

[Juxtaposer]

They gave him nearly 30 games over two years.

Yeah, and he was really good in the first half of those games.

 

[Dicdonya]

I'll give him until we decide to rebuild, as i've mention ITT before. As long as we plan to contend, i want him at the helm, since he has done an excellent job of creating a contending team. Once we blow it up, i agree with you that we need someone new and fresh. Until then, you have yet to provide me a reason why we should fire him beyond your lack of patience.

and dude, by saying "15 years was enough time to say we gave him a fair shake at making a championship team. He didn't, and Im bored of him now" quite literally means you expected a cup within a 15 year window. I may be not using your exact words, but sourcing from the implication of your words. your reason for firing him is that he didnt meet your expectations!

I, frankly, dont understand how one can be bored of a GM, but i can understand wanting a change. I just feel its useless to want a change in GM when, if anything, he has done his job well and has a team that overachieved. it's just not a practical solution, that's why im arguing against it. to me, its a waste of time to even consider it

Honestly its not worth the effort. You clearly cannot understand what I am trying to convey, and disagree with it in principal anyways. So no use going on and on about it.

I will say, look up the definition of expect, then show any quote I have made where I said I expected any team ever to win a cup. Hoping for a cup, is not expecting a cup.

If I turn on a movie I have not seen or heard of, and watch it for an hour, and after that hour I am bored. Were my expectations not met? How could that be, when I just turned the movie on, knowing nothing about it? You seem to think me hoping that the movie would be entertaining, is the same as expecting it would be. These are not the same thing.

Hopefully you can understand the difference, then maybe understand that is how I view DW. I never expected him to be an awesome movie, I just hoped he would be. DW turned out to be a fine movie, however its 4 hours long, and nothing new or exciting has happened in a while. So I am bored. That make sense?

 

[Doctor Soraluce]

Isn't there a list of like 10 or more teams with Cup droughts a lot longer than the Sharks? The playoffs are like lotto, there are no guarantees and you can't win if you don't play. Teams are fairly even when you get to the 2nd round, the difference comes down to injuries and sometimes luck good and bad. I would rather have a team that makes the playoffs every year than follow some pipe dream of team building that relies on tanking and hitting home runs in drafting 17 year olds. As far as deboer, the grass isn't always greener. What he did this year with this team with no Marleau, Minimal Jumbo and Jones being hurt for a couple months was as good a job of coaching as I've seen considering the amount of youth this team played with. I'm curious to see what he can do with an improved and healthy roster next season.

 

[Maladroit]

Isn't there a list of like 10 or more teams with Cup droughts a lot longer than the Sharks? The playoffs are like lotto, there are no guarantees and you can't win if you don't play. Teams are fairly even when you get to the 2nd round, the difference comes down to injuries and sometimes luck good and bad. I would rather have a team that makes the playoffs every year than follow some pipe dream of team building that relies on tanking and hitting home runs in drafting 17 year olds.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Look no further than this year's Washington Capitals, probably the weakest team that organization has iced since the Dale Hunter years. Why did this year's squad get past the Penguins as opposed to last year's, which included players like Justin Williams, Kevin Shattenkirk, Karl Alzner, Nate Schmidt and a healthy Nick Backstrom and Andre Burakovsky facing a Pittsburgh team without Kris Letang? So much of the playoffs comes down to random chance. Certainly you need to field a team with a baseline level of skill and ability but things like which stars show up in particular series, how goalies perform, when injuries strike, etc. are so variable from year to year.

There's a lot to be said for a team like the Capitals - and, of course, our Sharks - who punch their ticket every year. Eventually the stars align and you go on a run if you make it to the tournament enough times. If we're honest with ourselves I think we can admit the 2016 Sharks were not the best team of the Thornton & Marleau era. The bottom six was sparse once DeBoer moved Marleau up to the second line and the third pairing had Roman Polak on it for all 24 playoff games. But thanks to standout postseasons from Couture, Thornton, Pavelski, Burns and Jones, excellent health and some favorable matchups (could we have defeated that speedy Dallas team in the WCF? Perhaps, perhaps not) we made it within two wins of the ultimate prize.

 

[tiburon12]

Honestly its not worth the effort. You clearly cannot understand what I am trying to convey, and disagree with it in principal anyways. So no use going on and on about it.

I will say, look up the definition of expect, then show any quote I have made where I said I expected any team ever to win a cup. Hoping for a cup, is not expecting a cup.

If I turn on a movie I have not seen or heard of, and watch it for an hour, and after that hour I am bored. Were my expectations not met? How could that be, when I just turned the movie on, knowing nothing about it? You seem to think me hoping that the movie would be entertaining, is the same as expecting it would be. These are not the same thing.

Hopefully you can understand the difference, then maybe understand that is how I view DW. I never expected him to be an awesome movie, I just hoped he would be. DW turned out to be a fine movie, however its 4 hours long, and nothing new or exciting has happened in a while. So I am bored. That make sense?

I get what you are saying: you think that 15 years of no cup is grounds for starting over with a new GM. That is crystal clear. All i'm doing is pointing out that your reasons for wanting a new GM at this stage are not corporate-level reasons that will lead to his firing. You're bored with his strategy? that's not enough. You need empirical evidence, and like i have pointed out so many times, by all metrics, DW is a successful GM and has been in recent years (and ive noted so many times that if there was a time to fire him, it was years ago).

Your humorous movie bit is a false equivalency. If you turn on a movie you havent seen or heard of, how can you have an expectation? its a random act..... Hiring a GM is a calculated, informed decision with expectation. If you didnt expect him to lead us to a cup, then why did you say this: " I was someone who defended DW in the past, for exactly the same reason you seem to be defending him. " that literally means you EXPECTED him to win. thats what expectation means: a belief that someone will or should achieve something. If you didnt expect the team to win in the past 15 years, as you are saying now, then why the f*** are you a sports fan? you either are feigning ignorance on the definition of basic English words to support your poor argument for his dismissal, or you are and have only been a really apathetic Sharks fan (which fully contradicts your existence on this board).

I expect DW to lead us to a cup, and until its clear to me he can't do that (considering the immense difficulty it takes to win), i.e a rebuild, then i dont want a new GM. Boredom is a childish and uninformed reason for firing someone. Sports is a business first and foremost, don't overlook that.

I hate to come across as an asshole (and i know full well i do), but the board since our loss to Vegas has been a breeding ground for hot takes, reactionary decisions, uncontrolled emotions, and, frankly, stupid arguments. Fire this guy, trade this player, etc with no basis.

 

[Hal 9000]

Bad decision.

I agree completely!

 

[WSS11]

If most of the squad (Tierney just one example) didn't play the way they could then who's to blame? Gary Bettman?
Martin played limited, Engelland heavy minutes.
DeBoer didn't have to play Fehr. Goodrow was available yet hardly played.

Fleury wasn't a factor in this series. He was okayish but not that good. Saw lots of shots at times but hardly dangerous ones. Also let in a few weak ones. He was much better vs LA.

Switch goaltenders in the series and the Sharks are the ones awaiting the winner of Nashville/Winnipeg series. Fleury was absolutely the xfactor