You can say whatever you want publicly because they do have a 7,000 fan season ticket base to manage. But why did they let go their AHL and some NHL and junior scouts go. They have no one left in GTA zero. It was not only operations, finance and marketing people in Raleigh who were fired. ok i get firing all of Francis' hockey people but why not replace them? They are going into a deep draft in a very bad spot. I mean there are a ton of people who really don't get what they are doing in Caneland. But it all starts at top and you can't treat hockey teams like you do an LBO and skim da cash.
A couple comments on this.
First, the Canes have been getting rid Francis's guys for a while now (well before covid). Some of them, frankly, were good old boy network guys that didn't do much. Nieuwendyk as special consultant (but he stayed in Dallas). Wesley as director of defensemen, even though he already had moved to Utah, etc..
Secondly, talking specifically about scouts, they did get rid of some (and some retired) last year, but then hired 3 more scouts before the season started (Cody Nickolet, Eric Fink, Oleg Smirnov). A couple of the management/scouting director folks are no longer on the Canes Staff Directory, so I assume their contracts weren't renewed or they were furloughed, but most of the other scouts are still there on the directory. Maybe they were furloughed as well, but usually (like in Forslunds case), they remove them from the directory right off. I can't say for sure how many are there and aren't there.
I would venture a guess that since they expected the draft to be in June, the VAST majority of the scouting, write-ups, summaries, and discussions have already occurred. Yes, they'll miss some of the table pounding and discussions where a scout will try to get a guy he likes picked, and that has value, but it's not like they are going into the draft with zero information because scouts were let go in August. If anything, the remaining guys have more time to digest the information and watch film.
Regarding the other cuts, I see both sides it. I'm a believer that scouting is important so if it was my business, I'd want to try and protect that as much as possible. On the flip side, I could see an owner, worried about the bottom line say: Why do I need to have AHL scouts when the AHL isn't playing? Why do I need as many junior scouts when there's no junior hockey to scout? Why do I need operations and marketing people when there is a strong likelihood we won't be playing any home games next season? And then looking to fill those roles again once it makes sense. Not saying I completely agree with all of it, but I do see some merit in that approach.
I get that it's not traditional, but with Covid19, we aren't in traditional times.
