Firing Regier was a mistake

[Dubi Doo]

I can't help but think that firing Regier in the middle of the rebuild was a huge mistake. He was building a team from the blue line out. It was obvious he was invisioning a mobile defensive core that could move the puck. On top of that he was hella bent on acquiring a ton of center depth. Grigs, Girgs, Reinhart, etc...it was obvious where his intentions were- a great defensive core with a strong center spine.

On top of having a vision he had a acquired a ton of assets to obtain talent, and if there are two things Regier was great at it's trading and drafting. Two things Murray proved to be wildly inconsistent at. So there's little doubt in my mind that the team would at the very least be more talented and deeper right now.

Regier had his faults - neglecting Rochester, loyalty to his coaches, and rushing young players...I just believe he would've set this team up better talent wise. Murray made a lot of questionable moves, and thinned the defensive core in the process. He also neglected defense in the first round of each draft, and used valuable resources on a goaltender and wing ( Kane). The depth that could've been was thrown away. Acquiring O'reilly was a great move, but when you look at the big picture it was one good move followed by a ton of questionable moves.

When Regier was fired Murray had an aresenal of picks and young talent to mold a great team. Instead he hired a coach who stunted development, ignored building depth both offensively and defensively, and now we're left with a team who has questionable goaltending, atrocious defense, and an entire team still in search of an identity.

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[Chainshot]

Regier was great at selling off talent for maximum return and once that was done, so was he. Let's not forget that Rolston was a Regier hire after his "exhaustive search" that seemed to involve walking down the hall to Ron's office. Regier built a dossier of his own dubiousness and deserved to be sacked. Make a case for another replacement than Murray, sure, but Regier? No. He needed to go.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Regier was great at selling off talent for maximum return and once that was done, so was he. Let's not forget that Rolston was a Regier hire after his "exhaustive search" that seemed to involve walking down the hall to Ron's office. Regier built a dossier of his own dubiousness and deserved to be sacked. Make a case for another replacement than Murray, sure, but Regier? No. He needed to go.

Good point, but Rolston was also sacked after his first season. Regier than hired Nolan with the intentions to instill a strong work ethic in the younger players. It seemed Nolan was only a place holder until the tank was over.

 

[Chainshot]

Good point, but Rolston was also sacked after his first season. Regier than hired Nolan with the intentions to instill a strong work ethic in the younger players. It seemed Nolan was only a place holder until the tank was over.

Your memory is off. Regier and Rolston were fired on the same day. Regier did not hire Nolan, that was a combo of Pegula fanboydom and LaFontaine fanboydom after Regier was sacked.

Rolston was supposed to develop the youngsters Regier wanted rushed. It can be argued that Regier's efforts messed up Grigorenko and to an extend Girgensons. It's possible his management group messed up Ristolainen's early development as well. He was terrible at the end of his tenure and he needed to go.

 

[Montag DP]

I still think Murray and then Botterill were good choices. Murray because of his tank commanding abilities, and Botterill because I think he has the right idea for how to turn this team around and the smarts to do it. However, Bylsma was a terrible choice, and the jury is still out on Housley (it's not looking promising so far, but I'm willing to give him a full season before making a judgment, as I did with Bylsma).

We know what Darcy is. He was good at winning trades but terrible at having a vision for a team and executing that vision.

 

[brian_griffin]

I still think Murray and then Botterill were good choices. Murray because of his tank commanding abilities, and Botterill because I think he has the right idea for how to turn this team around and the smarts to do it. However, Bylsma was a terrible choice, and the jury is still out on Housley (it's not looking promising so far, but I'm willing to give him a full season before making a judgment, as I did with Bylsma).

We know what Darcy is. He was good at winning trades but terrible at having a vision for a team and executing that vision.

And either slow or stubborn (or both) at recognizing his mistakes - i.e., Rochester core wasn't going to get it done - and then acting decisively and quickly to correct them.

His remaining in place would not have resulted in a brighter today / tomorrow.

 

[Samsonite23]

I say bring in Doug Whaley.

 

[Chainshot]

And either slow or stubborn (or both) at recognizing his mistakes - i.e., Rochester core wasn't going to get it done - and then acting decisively and quickly to correct them.

His remaining in place would not have resulted in a brighter today / tomorrow.

Agreed. They didn't fire him soon enough.

 

[Gabrielor]

We've made mistakes in this rebuild to be sure. Firing Reiger definitely isn't among them.

 

[Aladyyn]

Regier is not a good enough GM to get the opportunity to build a team multiple times.

 

[gallagt01]

Regier spent years failing to improve the center spine after Briere and Drury left. His "vision" for center ice came about five seasons too late after fan and media scrutiny led him to that revelation.

 

[OkimLom]

I can't help but think that firing Regier in the middle of the rebuild was a huge mistake. He was building a team from the blue line out. It was obvious he was invisioning a mobile defensive core that could move the puck. On top of that he was hella bent on acquiring a ton of center depth. Grigs, Girgs, Reinhart, etc...it was obvious where his intentions were- a great defensive core with a strong center spine.

On top of having a vision he had a acquired a ton of assets to obtain talent, and if there are two things Regier was great at it's trading and drafting. Two things Murray proved to be wildly inconsistent at. So there's little doubt in my mind that the team would at the very least be more talented and deeper right now.

Regier had his faults - neglecting Rochester, loyalty to his coaches, and rushing young players...I just believe he would've set this team up better talent wise. Murray made a lot of questionable moves, and thinned the defensive core in the process. He also neglected defense in the first round of each draft, and used valuable resources on a goaltender and wing ( Kane). The depth that could've been was thrown away. Acquiring O'reilly was a great move, but when you look at the big picture it was one good move followed by a ton of questionable moves.

When Regier was fired Murray had an aresenal of picks and young talent to mold a great team. Instead he hired a coach who stunted development, ignored building depth both offensively and defensively, and now we're left with a team who has questionable goaltending, atrocious defense, and an entire team still in search of an identity.

Grigorenko and Girgensons were his selections as franchise centers for his team going forward when . I highly doubt by 2015 he would've done enough to get the ELITE talent that he was aiming for with his philosophy of getting great talent at the top of the draft. 4 Drafts of being at the bottom would've worn thin with fans, seeing as being at the bottom of 2 drafts drove people nuts.

BUT, if he did do that, would he have been able to sign/trade for guys that could do what the idea was behind getting ROR was? The book was out on Darcy, will only trade if he wins the trade, won't sacrifice a loss in a trade if he doesn't need to, and is an Agent and Players nightmare with negotiating contracts. We were in the mess, that we were in, in the first place, because his decision with who to keep (Briere was trending up, Drury was holding steady) left us in a hole, and instead of losing ONE guy, we lost both.

We probably would've won a lot of offseasons' PROSPECT pools that certain fans hold dearly though, so we had that going for us.

I'm not sure Darcy would've had a longterm gameplan to build a team. He spent a lot of time here throwing stuff against the wall during the years he built a team and was hoping for something to stick. His team building was like watching a firework, build with all this suspense(see 02-03 and 03-04) explode (see 05-06 and 06-07) then watch as the team fizzles. Same thing happened when he had a heck of a collection of players for the 99 Stanley Cup team, and then that fizzled out a bit after the 00-01 team. He had no long term vision of what to do when his team became successful.

 

[Icicle]

Reiger's drafts all throughout the 2000s were all busts and a main reason we had to tank it the first place. GOod riddance

 

[haseoke39]

I liked our trajectory the day Regier was fired and I believed in his commitment to build a strong center/defense corps. I would have been happy to see him continue. I think he would have been patient and certainly wouldn't have done the 3-4 "accelerating" trades that Murray did. While we can debate whether Murray got good value on those deals, I think we can agree that this team wasn't ready for that brisk acceleration, and his moves (and the moves he didn't make to compensate) left us with roster balance issues that kept us at the bottom of the standings, where it looks like we might spend another year. By the time this team is ready to contend, if it gets there, I honestly don't know how big a factor ROR, Okposo, Kane, Bogo, Lehner will be to our success, or whether we'd have been better suited to simply use our futures to gear for a later window. I.e., have a deep pipeline that emerges slowly, and be aiming for Eichel's prime.

I also appreciate that there are a lot of legitimate criticisms of Regier's tenure. He was patient to a fault is one I'll gladly subscribe to. He was very conservative when giving up his own pieces. It's tough to judge Regier harshly on some other issues, though. He spent most of his tenure in one of the most precarious, under-resourced franchises in the league. His drafts sucked over a period where our scouting department was gutted, and we were first (and last, as far as I know) to go all in on video scouting. He let players go for financial reasons that were far beyond his control, and it's not even clear he had autonomy within his set budget (see Larry Quinn setting rules for when we were allowed to sign players, or even taking sides in the Briere/Drury debate). When Pegula took over, his mandate was laid down by the owner, like, in public, before the press: he wanted a cup within 3 years, and wanted us to spend to get there. A deal like Leino was an unfortunate byproduct of trying to meet that demand. I think the times he was appropriately supported and given autonomy to do his job were few and far between.

For all that, though, I think he had a sound concept of team building, the right roster balance, and had a knack for finding value pieces and the kinds of complementary players that make a winner. Lydman, Hecht, Drury, Briere -- all these guys came in because he had a good sense of value when making his acquisitions. He never had a true franchise player(s) to build around since Hasek, so I felt that if the tank gave him 2-3 shots at the top of the draft, and he could get a core of Risto, Reinhart, Eichel to build around, he might be adept at giving them a supporting cast.

It's all in the past, though. I can't blame Pegula for folding to the level of public pressure Regier was getting at the time, and it's true that the guy wasn't SO successful he couldn't be let go -- far from it.

But I do wonder what position we would be in with a different philosophy behind the rebuild. One that was patient, built from the back end, and didn't try to accelerate with the kinds of pieces Murray targeted. It would be interesting, and at this point it's hard to imagine it going much worse.

 

[Jim Bob]

Not offering Babcock $10M per year over 8 years was the mistake.

 

[TehDoak]

Oh lawd.

Regier was a yes man. Consider the crimes against his own team that Regier committed:

#1. Played a stupid game of hardball with Mike Peca during Hasek's prime. Including REFUSING to trade him to send a message despite being reportedly offered an insane return for him.
#2. Went along with Golisano/Quinn cost cutting efforts, including "video scouting"
#3. The one year deals that were given to everyone post lockout in 2005.
#4. The Jay McKee Ordeal
#5. 7/1/07
#6. After 7/1/07, doing nothing to address the center issue except getting Cody Hodgson. Who he gave a 6 year, 24M deal based on 1 kinda ok season.

I could go on. And on. And on. He was very good at one thing: extracting value in trades. At every other facet of the job, he was really horrible.

 

[haseoke39]

Just reading some of the above: I think it's fair to say he could've also been fired earlier, at the point where his last core had failed. 2011-2012, say, might have been appropriate. But going through the tear down and then handing the buildup to someone else seems less than ideal to me. By that point, Regier had started laying groundwork, and it seems clear to me that his successor didn't think much of the plan in place. You got two half-finished ideas of a roster. Hopefully Botterill can step in and give the roster an identity.

 

[haseoke39]

Oh lawd.

Regier was a yes man. Consider the crimes against his own team that Regier committed:

#1. Played a stupid game of hardball with Mike Peca during Hasek's prime. Including REFUSING to trade him to send a message despite being reportedly offered an insane return for him.
#2. Went along with Golisano/Quinn cost cutting efforts, including "video scouting"
#3. The one year deals that were given to everyone post lockout in 2005.
#4. The Jay McKee Ordeal
#5. 7/1/07
#6. After 7/1/07, doing nothing to address the center issue except getting Cody Hodgson. Who he gave a 6 year, 24M deal based on 1 kinda ok season.

I could go on. And on. And on. He was very good at one thing: extracting value in trades. At every other facet of the job, he was really horrible.

It's really hard for me to blame him on #1 - 5.

You're describing each time following the demands of his employer / other random overseers (Quinn). Golisano was out in public saying he wanted everybody on 1 year deals. Golisano was cutting costs. Larry Quinn was putting in place insane rules that led to 7/1/07. Freaking Rigas was pinching his foreskin to tighten the budget on the Peca deal. Jay McKee "ordeal" is one I'm having a hard time recalling -- just that we kept him for a playoff run, he signed a deal that he couldn't earn with St. Louis, doesn't seem like we lost a big player based on what his body was capable of after he left us.

I'll go along with the idea that he underserved the center position for the next five years. But I'll also stipulate that he was still running a budget team with the commandment to make the playoffs. I don't know how many 1Cs were floating around the market for what he could afford to spend. I mean, the Habs are in the same spot right now, and they're finding f***all out there. It's why we embraced a tank in the first place, which he clearly didn't have authority to do before he did.

I said above that his tenure was marked by being mostly under-resourced and frequently undermined. Some of the macro issues are hard for me to pin on him for that reason.

But where he did have a free hand, at creating roster balance and finding complementary players at value prices on the market, he did excel. It's tempting to wonder how that skillset alone would have benefited the team after the tank gets them 2-3 players to build around.

 

[struckbyaparkedcar]

But where he did have a free hand, at creating roster balance and finding complementary players at value prices on the market, he did excel. It's tempting to wonder how that skillset alone would have benefited the team after the tank gets them 2-3 players to build around.

This literally never happened.

 

[Djp]

Take off the rose colored glasses.....

Reiger was fine at drafting and making trades as the sellER and low radar trades., but he could not make trades when he was the buyer nor knew when to sell players lime Staford and Afinaganov.


What do you think the roster would be since Reiger couldn't make trades as a buyer selling his prospects.

 

[pigpen65]

The mistake with firing Regier was doing it 20 games into the season. Either do it before the season or after. All the good replacements are only available during the offseason. When you interview and hire a new GM during the season you only have 10% of the pool available to you, and you end up with some other GM's incompetent nephew.

 

[Bobby Bottle Service]

3 words.

Ville f***ing Leino

 

[Bobby Bottle Service]

And far as trading went, yes he did get some good deals. However, a lot of the fodder he sent out were crap that he drafted.

Hindsight is 20/20, but Soupy was worth every penny he got as a free agent.

 

[Dreakon13]

The mistake with firing Regier was doing it 20 games into the season. Either do it before the season or after. All the good replacements are only available during the offseason. When you interview and hire a new GM during the season you only have 10% of the pool available to you, and you end up with some other GM's incompetent nephew.

I typically don't like the way that you pontificate, but that made me chuckle. You really don't like Murray.

 

[Samsonite23]

3 words.

Ville ****ing Leino

Forgot about that one