Give GMJR a Grade (cumulative)

[drpepper]

Are we talking Lovejoy in a top 4 role being miscast due to injuries?

I'm willing to bet it is.

I'm obviously touching a nerve, nobody talk bad about Despres.

Giving Lovejoy less minutes doesn't make him a better skater, better puck handler, better passer, better in coverage, etc

The only thing less minutes does is limit the damage he does on ice and hopefully instead of leaving Tavares open it can be Matt Martin.

Also you couldn't be more wrong about Despres. I spent several posts detailing Despres's penalty issues and defending Bylsma's benching him because of them.

 

[Ugene Magic]

It's more like Despres with penalty issues is a minor problem compared to Lovejoy's inability to skate, to puck handle, to pass, to cover players, to be in a good position, to have good gap, etc.

Pens penalty situation last year was no minor issue. It cost them PP's and put them on PK's more with how the league/refs spite the Pens for certain situations/players.

 

[Ugene Magic]

Giving Lovejoy less minutes doesn't make him a better skater, better puck handler, better passer, better in coverage, etc

The only thing less minutes does is limit the damage he does on ice and hopefully instead of leaving Tavares open it can be Matt Martin.

No, it puts him in his proper role he is quite fit to fill. Bottom pairing minutes where Despres was frequently penalized.

 

[drpepper]

Pens penalty situation last year was no minor issue. It cost them PP's and put them on PK's more with how the league/refs spite the Pens for certain situations/players.

Lovejoy cost them goals by being incompetent as a defender. He's not changing, and he isn't going to get better. There is no question in my mind which is worst - guaranteed goals or PK.

 

[Shady Machine]

And you are going to use the tiniest sample size of the playoffs where they called little in as proof I guess.

I said this stuff well back when the trade was made and people didn't want to speak of it because it went against what everyone felt about the trade. Being mad.

Digging deep...? it's is more like some just want to turn a blind eye. You all have.

You can work on penalties with a young player, especially one with that type of upside. If that's the best you can do to sell the trade, then you know it was a bad trade.

 

[Jacob]

You lost me at Lovejoy's skating. Whatever you think about his ability to be an NHL defenseman, he's an excellent skater.

 

[Shady Machine]

You lost me at Lovejoy's skating. Whatever you think about his ability to be an NHL defenseman, he's an excellent skater.

Excellent? If he's excellent then Despres is super human. Lovejoy's a pretty decent skater, but he's not excellent.

Letang is an excellent skater. Is Lovejoy on that level?

 

[Waffle Fries]

How many times were those penalties actually warranted? The Penguins, and often Despres, got a lot of really strange calls against them last year.

I will concede that in previous years, Despres did have an issue with taking holding penalties. I personally think he improved greatly on that, but he had a reputation of doing so in the refs minds.

Also you can't look at penalty minutes flat out, because that ignores fighting majors.

Anyways, last year in a Pens' uniform Despres had 22 minor penalties in 59 games or ~.37 minors per game.

Comeau had 25 in 61 (~.41 minors per game), Malkin had 25 in 69 (~.36), and Letang had 27 in 69 (~.39). No one complains about Letang taking penalties, because like BWM said, it's not much of an issue until you get to be near Downie levels.

I have to agree with BWM again that if you resort to PIM, you are digging pretty deep to find something to justify moving him.

 

[Jacob]

Excellent? If he's excellent then Despres is super human. Lovejoy's a pretty decent skater, but he's not excellent.

Letang is an excellent skater. Is Lovejoy on that level?

He's close. And given he has more size, probably even closer yet.

It's definitely not Lovejoy's skating that's holding him back as a hockey player.

 

[drpepper]

He's close. And given he has more size, probably even closer yet.

It's definitely not Lovejoy's skating that's holding him back as a hockey player.

Lovejoy is not even close to the skater that Letang is. He's not even in the same league.

Lovejoy's skating is just one of his issues, but it isn't helping him any.

 

[Shady Machine]

Lovejoy is not even close to the skater that Letang is. He's not even in the same league.

Lovejoy's skating is just one of his issues, but it isn't helping him any.

Mostly agreed. I think he's an adequate skater. Possibly slightly above average for a defenseman but certainly not excellent. Maybe there's a definition gap in what "excellent" means.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

meh you are giving JR too much of a pass. GM's are supposed to build teams with an eye to the future. They have to project and forecast how the moves will work out. JR made the same mistake mid season that Shero did. He projected this team as a serious contender and made short sighted decisions. Regardless of injuries, that team wasn't winning a Cup. He shouldn't have made the Despres or Winnik trades. Maybe his hands were tied on Despres. Who knows, but I am going to judge him for all hockey moves made unless we have concrete evidence that he fought the trade and lost by other people in the organization.

The difference between Winnick and all of Shero's TDL moves is he was 29 and had it worked out prolly would have been re-signed.

And I'll take Iced's info on the Des trade plus everything that's been said about the move as concrete as we're gonna get. Des wasn't his move.

 

[Shady Machine]

The difference between Winnick and all of Shero's TDL moves is he was 29 and had it worked out prolly would have been re-signed.

And I'll take Iced's info on the Des trade plus everything that's been said about the move as concrete as we're gonna get. Des wasn't his move.

Winnik was a bad move, period. Shero could have re-signed Poni (30 at the time) when he was brought in. Stempniak was 31 when he was brought in and could have been retained. Goc was 30. Not sure how those moves are much different.

 

[Ragamuffin Gunner]

Winnik was a bad move, period. Shero could have re-signed Poni (30 at the time) when he was brought in. Stempniak was 31 when he was brought in and could have been retained. Goc was 30. Not sure how those moves are much different.

It didn't work out but it wasn't a bad move. He was at just under .5 PPG with the Leafs at the time and the Pens were a few wins out of 1st place. He addressed a need and only cost a 2nd and 4th.

 

[Ziggyjoe21]

It didn't work out but it wasn't a bad move. He was at just under .5 PPG with the Leafs at the time and the Pens were a few wins out of 1st place. He addressed a need and only cost a 2nd and 4th.

Gotta love this logic. "It ended up being a bad trade but it was still a good trade!"

 

[Shady Machine]

It didn't work out but it wasn't a bad move. He was at just under .5 PPG with the Leafs at the time and the Pens were a few wins out of 1st place. He addressed a need and only cost a 2nd and 4th.

It's really interesting how people can justify one similar trade and not others. I know you really didn't like Shero, but you don't need to paint everything JR does as gold. The Pens weren't contenders last year. Losing those draft picks on mediocre rentals is something we bashed Shero for. JR should get the same scrutiny if the move doesn't work out that Shero did. I could just as easily say "Goc addressed a need as a shutdown depth center for the Pens because Sutter was struggling. It only costed a 3rd and a 5th. It didn't work out but that's not Shero's fault".

Poni was over .5ppg when the Pens traded for him. Did you not like that move at the time?

 

[Waffle Fries]

Gotta love this logic. "It ended up being a bad trade but it was still a good trade!"

There are different ways to judge trades/signings. You can judge the move itself and then the results.

Very, very few people hold off on having opinions or evaluating moves. If you are able to remain unbiased on every move that happens at the time they occurred and wait it out, more power to you. Most people evaluate the move long before they know the result, because it's impossible to predict how things will work out.

When a move first happens, people look to the thought process and value to grade it. If the line of thinking was solid, and the value was fair, then it would be seen as a good move at the time.

With Winnik, I felt the thought process of the move was pretty sound. He was having a very good season with Toronto and filled a need. The value was not that bad in my opinion, although I know many felt at the time we overpaid. The way I saw it was that the 2nd was a year later, which took the value down a round. The value equivalency of a 3rd, 4th and Zach Sill was pretty meaningless to me.

Now the result is different. Winnik didn't perform at the same level he did in Toronto. At the same time, we got our 2nd back.

Because of that, all in all, I think the result of the trade is fairly inconsequential, but the move was not bad at the time.

 

[drpepper]

It didn't work out but it wasn't a bad move. He was at just under .5 PPG with the Leafs at the time and the Pens were a few wins out of 1st place. He addressed a need and only cost a 2nd and 4th.

It was a bad value trade. A career fourth liner isn't worth a 2nd and a 4th even with salary retained.

It's worse because Rutherford should have signed Winnik in the off-season like he wanted and not have accepted Spaling in the Neal trade.

 

[Penguinator]

It was a bad value trade. A career fourth liner isn't worth a 2nd and a 4th even with salary retained.

TDL inflation factor...

Also, i think he's a bottom 6, not just a 4th liner.

 

[Ziggyjoe21]

There are different ways to judge trades/signings. You can judge the move itself and then the results.

Very, very few people hold off on having opinions or evaluating moves. If you are able to remain unbiased on every move that happens at the time they occurred and wait it out, more power to you. Most people evaluate the move long before they know the result, because it's impossible to predict how things will work out.

When a move first happens, people look to the thought process and value to grade it. If the line of thinking was solid, and the value was fair, then it would be seen as a good move at the time.

With Winnik, I felt the thought process of the move was pretty sound. He was having a very good season with Toronto and filled a need. The value was not that bad in my opinion, although I know many felt at the time we overpaid. The way I saw it was that the 2nd was a year later, which took the value down a round. The value equivalency of a 3rd, 4th and Zach Sill was pretty meaningless to me.

Now the result is different. Winnik didn't perform at the same level he did in Toronto. At the same time, we got our 2nd back.

Because of that, all in all, I think the result of the trade is fairly inconsequential, but the move was not bad at the time.

At the time of the trade I thought that it filled a need and was worth making, despite the fact that it was overpayment. However, the only way to judge a trade is after the games have been played. In hindsight it ended up being a bad trade. This is all that matters.

My point in this thread is that just because a trade looks good on paper doesn't mean it will end up being a good trade. So far, all we have to judge JR is based on a bad year followed by a very good off season on paper. Until we know how Kessel, Fehr, Bonino, Plotnikov contribute to the team they do not make up for a wasted season that was 2014-2015.

Trust me, I'm just as excited about these acquisitions as anyone else, however, I also look at it from a realistic point of view.

 

[Waffle Fries]

At the time of the trade I thought that it filled a need and was worth making, despite the fact that it was overpayment. However, the only way to judge a trade is after the games have been played. In hindsight it ended up being a bad trade. This is all that matters.

My point in this thread is that just because a trade looks good on paper doesn't mean it will end up being a good trade. So far, all we have to judge JR is based on a bad year followed by a very good off season on paper. Until we know how Kessel, Fehr, Bonino, Plotnikov contribute to the team they do not make up for a wasted season that was 2014-2015.

Trust me, I'm just as excited about these acquisitions as anyone else, however, I also look at it from a realistic point of view.

I think we fundamentally disagree about how to judge trades. I place value on intent and thought process because sometimes weird things happen that are impossible to predict.

I also disagree that last year was bad for JR. I felt like most of what he did last year was positive and set the team up to be able to have this great off-season. He can be blamed for putting the team in position to play 5D, but he can't be blamed for the injury side.

 

[Ziggyjoe21]

I think we fundamentally disagree about how to judge trades. I place value on intent and thought process because sometimes weird things happen that are impossible to predict.

I also disagree that last year was bad for JR. I felt like most of what he did last year was positive and set the team up to be able to have this great off-season. He can be blamed for putting the team in position to play 5D, but he can't be blamed for the injury side.

1 year is little to judge a GM, but that's all we have to go on. This upcoming season will be more telling because it has more of the JR hand print over it.

 

[Shady Machine]

I think we fundamentally disagree about how to judge trades. I place value on intent and thought process because sometimes weird things happen that are impossible to predict.

I also disagree that last year was bad for JR. I felt like most of what he did last year was positive and set the team up to be able to have this great off-season. He can be blamed for putting the team in position to play 5D, but he can't be blamed for the injury side.

You and I agree with how to evaluate a trade, for the most part, and I think it was a bad trade. I base that around it being expensive and unnecessary. I don't believe this team was a Cup contender and always saw last year as a transition year. Instead of spending a 2nd and a 4th on Winnik, they could have stuck with what they had and tried their best to compete.

The Pens weren't a Winnik and they certainly weren't a Lovejoy away from winning the Cup.

 

[Shady Machine]

1 year is little to judge a GM, but that's all we have to go on. This upcoming season will be more telling because it has more of the JR hand print over it.

But when looking at a trade, you have to evaluate whether it was short or long term in nature. The Perron trade, for example, was both short and long term. When they made the trade, I thought it was a clear upgrade now and a relatively safe bet to pay off in the mid to long term (next 2 to 5 years). I still believe that to be true. However, if Perron struggles this season or tears it up and prices himself out of Pittsburgh, then we can fully judge the trade.

The Winnik and Lovejoy deals were essentially bad trades the day they were made (to different degrees and for different reasons).

 

[Penguinzilla*]

Lovejoy is not even close to the skater that Letang is. He's not even in the same league.

He actually is in the same league