Sam Pollocks Biggest Mistake

Frankly history ought to record that he was overrated; that he benefitted from the 2 best Quebecois rule.

His biggest mistakes:

1) Recommending a bowling alley operator Grundman as the next GM in 1978 (whatever happened to that guy)

2) Screwing Lafleur out of $$$

3) Dryden 73-74 salary walkout

4)Napier over Bossy

5) Almost every first round pick after 1971 (See Robin Sadler, Dave Hunter, Cam Connor etc etc). Anyone know how many first round picks they had 71 to 78 - something like 20? Any HoFers? No.

 

Ummmm, the only one I really agree with is your first: Grundman. As for everything else look at how many Stanley Cups the club won under his direction. And it wasn't handed to him. The 70's Habs (5 Stanley Cups) were his doing and I think he won 8-9 in total. He went out and recruited Bowman. He built the scouting team that picked Savard, Dryden, Lafleur, Lapointe, Gainey, Furgeson, Shutt, Langway, Esposito.

Maybe you should comapre him to the other Gm's at the time.

 

I have always thought it was leaving Tony Esposito unprotected in the Intra League Draft in 1969 summer. Sure he had Dryden and Resch coming along, and Vachon was a young splendid goalie that summer.

But he left Esposito dangling over 40 year old Gumper and Vachon. The players he did have coming up in the previous seasons were either delt (Gerry Desjardins, Ernie Wakely) or didn't develop to the top level (Phil Myre).

Habs missed the playoffs in 1970, the same season Tony O had a rookie campaign for the ages. .

 

To the best of my knowledge, the 2 best Quebecois rule neeted the CH 2 players, for a bit of trivia, name them. BTW, Blind Gardien gave the best explanation of that myth on the Bruins board one day last winter/spring.

 

Was it Tardiff and Houle?

 

Correct, pick a goat as first prize.

 

I believe this is the thread you're refering to.

http://www.hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=69286

 

Thanks, that's the one. For some reason, I thought DKH [excellent poster and nice guy on the Bruins board] had started the thread, I would have never found it.

 

What about Gainey? That was a great draft year for the Habs....Pollock kept trading down and acquired three extra picks for the '74(Riseborogh, Tremblay) and ended up with the player he wanted all along.


Pollock made his share of mistakes there is no doubt about that. He also had a lot of ingenuity. Like trading away his washed up veterans for draft picks. This gave him top picks in future drafts. He could afford to make many mistakes.

However, this is a great thread. Should bring a lot of interesting comments

 

I disagree. Sam Pollock's highest philosophy was that no player was ever bigger than the team. No exceptions. He inherited the ideal from Frank Selke. You better believe every other star on the Habs at the time was watching very carefully what happened, because if Dryden got more money they ALL would have been beating down the door. In the short term the Habs played without Dryden and were not nearly as good without him, but had he caved there was no way they could have afforded the salary demands of the other players and we never would have seen the great 76-77 and 77-78 teams.

It boils down to two very strong-willed men who could not come to an agreement. When they eventually did, the disagreement was buried and neither has ever commented on it since.

Name one GM in the past 20 years who would stand up to salary demands for the sake of keeping the team together. That's right there isn't one.

 

Lou Lamariello.

But your point about Pollack is well taken.

 

His biggest mistake? The year he drafted Lafleur #1 he had a deal on the table to acquire the #2 pick overall, but backed down. The Habs could have had both Lafleur and Dionne. As much as I liked Lemaire and Mahovlich, neither was on the same planet as Dionne talent wise. The late 70's team could have been even better and with Dionne as his center, Lafleur could have been a 70+ goal scorer and 150+ point player. Come to think of it, they both may have topped 150 points on a regular basis. With Dionne as his center, Lafleur may have remained a dominate player in the NHL longer than he did.

 

Never heard of that one.
Thanks

As Dionne was a right handed shot might not have worked well with Guy. They played together on the power play for a few games in New York 1988.

Lafleur was 60 goals and 136 points with a semi defensive player like Lemaire.

Back in my montreal high school there were a few who thought dionne was lafleurs equal. No way, baby.

 

Yeah if Dionne had played with Lafleur then these two could've dominated the game like Gretzky and Kurri did. Lafleur could've easily scored as you say 70 goals and Dionne could've easily gotten 90-100 assists a season with Shutt on his left wing too.

 

Forgot about Lou. Although none of the players he has stood up to were as integral to the success of the team as Dryden was to the Habs.

But yes, Lamoriello is one of the few.

 

Martin Brodeur, and probably Scott Stevens, were more important to the success of the Devils than Ken Dryden was for the 70's Habs teams. Either Rogie Vachon or Tony Esposito could have won several Cups, especially with Savard, Lapointe and Robinson in front. The Devils teams had some drastic changes, with only Brodeur, Stevens and Niedermayer being the constants. The supporting cast wasn't always of HOF caliber, like so many of the Montreal teams had.

 

Agreed, but he did eventually compromise closer to what those gentlemen were after. In terms of "standing up to " on the level of what Pollock did the only other GM that to do that was Marshall Johnson with Yashin in Ottawa.

While Lamoriello has been more than willing to dump big pieces like Guerin or Holik in trades, ha hasn't forced a big name to sit an entire season as Pollock and Johnson did. I admire Lamoriello's willingness to trade popular players when they demand too much money or start to slide. It takes a strong GM to do that.