GM's on the "hot seat" (to be fired)?

[Wolfman Jack]

There are a lot of teams in the 705 area code. Seems like a silly way to refer to Sudbury in my opinion.

We the TRUE North! Silly you didn't get the point.

WJ

 

[EON]

What 2 jobs? Are you talking about Barclay Branch? Sudbury GM + son of David Branch?

I think he's referring to how David Branch is the commissioner of both the OHL and the CHL.

 

[OSA]

Steve Staios and coach John Gruden of the Hamilton Bulldogs. The franchise is regressing again with little improvement from a year ago with its recent string of 10 losses in their last 13 games, and the team in jeopardy of losing its Memorial Cup bid in 2018 if things don't improve after Christmas. If they blow this weekend series vs. Oshawa and Missy, and the Erie series after Christmas, Gruden and Staios are likely gone.

While injuries are an issue, the team's defense and power play/penalty kill numbers stink (15th in PP, 18th in PK). They've actually regressed from last year.

The CHL is looking at this team--they will not grant a Memorial Cup to a team that doesn't project to be championship calibre next year, which this team isn't right now. They're actually likely to be sellers at the deadline instead of buyers.

And of course, the attendance issues continue to be a problem..

The Bulldogs have the 2nd best goal differential in the eastern conference. They're not exactly some tire fire. Like most teams (especially in the East) they've hit a rough patch. No one is getting fired this year.

 

[OSA]

IIRC, they were promised a Memorial Cup when they moved--but with the team's performance, the CHL is risking another Hamilton Dukes situation if they award it there. The league cannot afford this to happen again--it would embarass the credibility of the CHL. The Memorial Cup will go to the team that best looks like they'll be a strong contender who won't be embarassing in the tournament in 2018--and right now, this Dogs team is looking at 2019 or later before being a contender, and that's dependent on the roster developing.

And right now, this Dogs team is going backwards--while they started strong, it mostly came from facing drained teams who had talent at NHL camps. Since then, they've dropped significantly, going 6-10 plus a few OT losses, so they're even worse than that. The power play's regressed from last year when Burnett was coaching them, (15.6% PP compared to 17% last year) and the penalty kill has regressed badly (77% vs 80.6% last year). And Staios has been with the team for 2 years..

There are so many other factors that go into the Memorial Cup selection that you're just not even taking into consideration. Do you know someone on the selection committee or something and can difinitivley tell us that the Bulldogs are blowing their shot at hosting?? I doubt it

And holy hyperbole about the Dukes lol. Give me a break man, this is a decent, playoff-bound team this year and they will be even better next year (particularly if they know their hosting the Memorial Cup and are able to load up).

 

[OSA]

embarrassment of watching Belleville(where the OHL Bulldogs came from) get an AHL team while Hamilton lost one is going to make the city seethe and make it difficult for Andlauer to get another lease on Copps without him making major concessions.

Embarrassment? What?

Unless your AHL hometown is the farm team of your favourite NHL team, the OHL is a far superior product.

Connor McDavid, Taylor Hall, Drew Doughty, Tyler Seguin, Max Domi, John Tavares, Aaron Ekblad, Mitch Marner, Matthew Tkachuk, Steven Stamkos, Patrick Kane etc, etc, etc. You know what all of these players have in common? They're all elite players that went right to the NHL and never stepped foot into the AHL, and who, over the past number of years, I could have gone to see on any given night because they all played in the OHL.

 

[digiblader]

There are so many other factors that go into the Memorial Cup selection that you're just not even taking into consideration. Do you know someone on the selection committee or something and can difinitivley tell us that the Bulldogs are blowing their shot at hosting?? I doubt it

And holy hyperbole about the Dukes lol. Give me a break man, this is a decent, playoff-bound team this year and they will be even better next year (particularly if they know their hosting the Memorial Cup and are able to load up).

Take off the rose-coloured glasses--they are not a decent team. That 7-2 start basically masked a lot of issues,and was heavily inflated by feasting on teams missing players who were at NHL camps. Since that start, which they had a 49-31 (+18) goal differential, they are a mediocre 6-10-3-2, and they have a 53-72 differential, which would near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and a -1 goal differential overall. Injuries hurt, but the talent isn't helping either.. a lack of scoring, plus terrible defense and issues on the power play/penalty kill are sending this team towards a low seed to get destroyed by Oshawa, Peterborough or whoever wins the Central (the only reason Hamilton is even the playoff mix--that division is AWFUL) in the 1st round.

Of course their goal differential has been good--but on the bad way, because the East is garbage. And they're barely trying to hold off "rebuilding" Kingston and Ottawa, along with surging Missisauga and Sudbury, who aren't that far behind.

And a rough patch? Losing 10 of their last 13 games and struggling to avoid last place in their own division in a weak East is a bad sign..

And another thing--just because Hamilton has a big arena and is a large city, they aren't deserving of it--especially when the team struggles to draw 3000/night (excluding School Days), and it's likely worse if season tickets are taken out of the equation. Oshawa and Regina have strong OHL history and markets--something Hamilton lacks.

 

[Fischhaber]

We the TRUE North! Silly you didn't get the point.

WJ

It's barely any further North than the Soo or North Bay. The Soo gets worse winters too.

 

[HamiltonOHL]

Take off the rose-coloured glasses--they are not a decent team. That 7-2 start basically masked a lot of issues,and was heavily inflated by feasting on teams missing players who were at NHL camps. Since that start, which they had a 49-31 (+18) goal differential, they are a mediocre 6-10-3-2, and they have a 53-72 differential, which would near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and a -1 goal differential overall. Injuries hurt, but the talent isn't helping either.. a lack of scoring, plus terrible defense and issues on the power play/penalty kill are sending this team towards a low seed to get destroyed by Oshawa, Peterborough or whoever wins the Central (the only reason Hamilton is even the playoff mix--that division is AWFUL) in the 1st round.

Of course their goal differential has been good--but on the bad way, because the East is garbage. And they're barely trying to hold off "rebuilding" Kingston and Ottawa, along with surging Missisauga and Sudbury, who aren't that far behind.

And a rough patch? Losing 10 of their last 13 games and struggling to avoid last place in their own division in a weak East is a bad sign..

And another thing--just because Hamilton has a big arena and is a large city, they aren't deserving of it--especially when the team struggles to draw 3000/night (excluding School Days), and it's likely worse if season tickets are taken out of the equation. Oshawa and Regina have strong OHL history and markets--something Hamilton lacks.

We don't draw good crowds against weak teams.. we get 3000+ fans with most of the league but some of the rebuilding teams don't draw many fans

 

[Savard18]

Take off the rose-coloured glasses--they are not a decent team. That 7-2 start basically masked a lot of issues,and was heavily inflated by feasting on teams missing players who were at NHL camps. Since that start, which they had a 49-31 (+18) goal differential, they are a mediocre 6-10-3-2, and they have a 53-72 differential, which would near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and a -1 goal differential overall. Injuries hurt, but the talent isn't helping either.. a lack of scoring, plus terrible defense and issues on the power play/penalty kill are sending this team towards a low seed to get destroyed by Oshawa, Peterborough or whoever wins the Central (the only reason Hamilton is even the playoff mix--that division is AWFUL) in the 1st round.

Of course their goal differential has been good--but on the bad way, because the East is garbage. And they're barely trying to hold off "rebuilding" Kingston and Ottawa, along with surging Missisauga and Sudbury, who aren't that far behind.

And a rough patch? Losing 10 of their last 13 games and struggling to avoid last place in their own division in a weak East is a bad sign..

And another thing--just because Hamilton has a big arena and is a large city, they aren't deserving of it--especially when the team struggles to draw 3000/night (excluding School Days), and it's likely worse if season tickets are taken out of the equation. Oshawa and Regina have strong OHL history and markets--something Hamilton lacks.

I didn't wanna be that harsh but that about says it I think. Still, think it's early to fire Staios and a bit quick on Gruden too.

 

[digiblader]

I didn't wanna be that harsh but that about says it I think. Still, think it's early to fire Staios and a bit quick on Gruden too.

Fair enough--but if the Dogs lose out on their Memorial Cup bid, there will be major changes in Hamilton--2 years of poor performance (4 overall between Belleville/Hamilton) is not acceptable, especially when the team was supposed to improve this year and be at least in the Top 4 in the East.. not struggling to hold off lower seeded teams.. when they made the Bitten trade, it's obvious Staios wanted to win NOW... so far, it hasn't paid off.

 

[dirty12]

The Bitten trade was probably at least as much about next year as winning now, I think. Burnett knew the players he was getting and it seems he made a good trade; but, no one thought Staios got fleeced. What could he have done or not done in six months that really warrants being on the hot seat? The team's record is more a reflection of injuries and maybe coaching than anything Staios could have done, IMO. Maybe more than anything else, the play of the 17 yr olds at the start of the season was a little better than anyone could have expected from 17 yr olds.

 

[Voice from the North]

If something is going to happen in Sudbury, it won't be until the end of the Wolves season. Around the league, I don't see anything brewing unless Mississauga goes back into the tank and (I am guessing here) potentially Ottawa given that the GM has had an incident , the team is a bit behind schedule as far as contending and it doesn't sound like at least NHL team will send players their way for development. Hamilton just put new people in place as has Saginaw, Flint and Niagara so those four would get some time to put together their plan.

 

[OSA]

Take off the rose-coloured glasses--they are not a decent team. That 7-2 start basically masked a lot of issues,and was heavily inflated by feasting on teams missing players who were at NHL camps. Since that start, which they had a 49-31 (+18) goal differential, they are a mediocre 6-10-3-2, and they have a 53-72 differential, which would near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and a -1 goal differential overall. Injuries hurt, but the talent isn't helping either.. a lack of scoring, plus terrible defense and issues on the power play/penalty kill are sending this team towards a low seed to get destroyed by Oshawa, Peterborough or whoever wins the Central (the only reason Hamilton is even the playoff mix--that division is AWFUL) in the 1st round.

Of course their goal differential has been good--but on the bad way, because the East is garbage. And they're barely trying to hold off "rebuilding" Kingston and Ottawa, along with surging Missisauga and Sudbury, who aren't that far behind.

And a rough patch? Losing 10 of their last 13 games and struggling to avoid last place in their own division in a weak East is a bad sign..

And another thing--just because Hamilton has a big arena and is a large city, they aren't deserving of it--especially when the team struggles to draw 3000/night (excluding School Days), and it's likely worse if season tickets are taken out of the equation. Oshawa and Regina have strong OHL history and markets--something Hamilton lacks.

It seems foolish to treat the 7-3 start an outlier but not the recent stretch of losses. Are they as good as they were at the start of the season? Probably not. Are they as bad as they are playing right now? Probably not. Niki Petti is an integral part of their team and his injury earlier in the year was significant. He still doesn't look 100% so the break will most definitely help.

I'm confident that the Bulldogs will finish in the 4-6 seed for the playoffs. The team didn't make the playoffs last year so expecting a worst to first sort of year is unrealistic. The team has some good young players and a few of the best OAs in the league. A trade for some PP help on the backend is likely incoming and will help out immensely.

With respect to be Memorial Cup, I'm not a guy that is in favour of Hamilton getting it (I think Oshawa is the most deserving for such a historical tournament). My point is that the Bulldogs' roster will be of no detriment to them during the bidding process. They are a decent team this year and will be on the upswing even more so next year. To compare them to the Dukes is ridiculous.

 

[HamiltonOHL]

Def add staios and gruden name to list.. if u don't make changes and such in this kind of slump you should be fired

 

[Bra Wavers]

Mike Oke and Jody Hull seem safe what with their 8 game winning streak and the fact that their contracts are through the 2017-2018 season. I will not make a premature judgement on moves that Oke makes at the deadline (or doesn't make!). I really don't think it will be fair to judge until after next season.

They could make no moves, have a successful playoff run and be one of the best teams in the league next season with a real chance at winning it all.

They could make a big deal at the deadline, giving up assets that would have made them a force next year and they could still have deep playoff runs both years.

IMO Oke makes two minor deals to add some experience and stability.....one forward and one Dman

 

[digiblader]

Def add staios and gruden name to list.. if u don't make changes and such in this kind of slump you should be fired

Agreed. A .500 team (sub .500 if you consider their OT/SO losses) at the halfway point and near the bottom of the OHL in PP/PK stats(16th in PP, 19th in PK), and in a horrible slump requires a major change in the organization. I mean, this team should be much better than it is--some of the blame has to go with the coaching, injury to Luff and Petti, and major pieces regressing like Trent Fox and Will Bitten who were expected to help lead this organization to a strong season and a deep playoff run.

 

[digiblader]

It seems foolish to treat the 7-3 start an outlier but not the recent stretch of losses. Are they as good as they were at the start of the season? Probably not. Are they as bad as they are playing right now? Probably not. Niki Petti is an integral part of their team and his injury earlier in the year was significant. He still doesn't look 100% so the break will most definitely help.

I'm confident that the Bulldogs will finish in the 4-6 seed for the playoffs. The team didn't make the playoffs last year so expecting a worst to first sort of year is unrealistic. The team has some good young players and a few of the best OAs in the league. A trade for some PP help on the backend is likely incoming and will help out immensely.

With respect to be Memorial Cup, I'm not a guy that is in favour of Hamilton getting it (I think Oshawa is the most deserving for such a historical tournament). My point is that the Bulldogs' roster will be of no detriment to them during the bidding process. They are a decent team this year and will be on the upswing even more so next year. To compare them to the Dukes is ridiculous.

They look nothing like a 4-6 seed at the moment. And those OAs will be gone at the deadline due to the team's implosion in the standings. There's no point keeping Cramarossa, Petti, or Fox if this team is looking like a 6-8 seed and likely to get demolished by Oshawa or Peterborough in the playoffs.

 

[Hammer9001]

Anyways, I doubt Staios is going anywhere. Realisitically he hasn't made any glaringly poor moves (apart from hiring Gruden of whom the jury is still out on that one.) and took a team that was already missing the playoffs, with a transistional coach and basically horded draft picks that season, which as far as I'm aware is what you do when you don't make the playoffs and are unlikely to do so in the OHL.

He orchestrated a trade for Will Bitten (which while Bitten hasn't shown it this season so far, was still a solid trade to make) that didn't cost an arm and a leg and has been a fairly decent ambassador in Hamilton. I think Gruden gets the axe before Staios does. There was no question his firing from Flint was unwarranted, but taking a team that lit up the league the first month and turning it a frequent losing streak team to me screams either opposing coaches are figuring out his systems (of which right now he's playing a bizzare 3 man on point power play), a lack of discipline or a lack of trust between him and the players. Given just how many dumb penalties we seem to be taking that are costing us games (and doing little to improve the PK or PP) I'd say he's more at risk then Staios.

That said, I still think the team has a good shot of making a 4-6 seed if they can address the special teams issues. They are losing games, but almost always by a single point (due to a PK typically).