2018 NHL GM Rankings #2

Who is the 2nd best GM in the NHL?

  • ARI - Chayka

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • CAL - Treliving

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • CAR - Waddell

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • COLU - Kekailanen

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • DALL - Nill

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • DET - Holland

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • FLA - Tallon

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • LA - Blake

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • MINNY - Fenton

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • NYI - Lamorello

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • NYR - Gordon

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • PHILLY - Hextall

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • SAN - Wilson

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • STL - Armstrong

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • VAN - Benning

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    86
  • Poll closed .

M2Beezy

Objective and Neutral Hockey Commentator
May 25, 2014
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How am i the only one to of voted Rutherford here????
 

Empoleon8771

Registered User
Aug 25, 2015
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How am i the only one to of voted Rutherford here????

Because this site is really stupid when it comes to ranking GMs, because building a team from scratch somehow makes a GM better than a GM who has won cups. Poile has made it beyond the 2nd round once in 20 years? Doesn't matter, he built his current team more than Jim Rutherford did, who has 3 cups in the last 15 years and built the 2006 Canes from scratch.
 
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triggrman

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The biggest parts of Rutherfords team he didn't put together, he inherited them.

Poile built a team, then rebuilt it after the fire sale and change of ownership and still kept it competitive without a single number 1 pick through drafts trades and cap management.
 
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BlueDream

Registered User
Aug 30, 2011
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I mean Rutherford is good and will be in contention for #3 but he inherited a team with superstars, where as Poile has made a series of great moves to bring in Subban, Johansen, Turris, Forsberg, etc etc. That's a ton of talent.

If this poll is based on the GM's abilities - which it obviously should be - Poile is certainly worthy of getting the nod here for the work he has done to improve that team over the past few years.
 
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ColbyChaos

Marty Snoozeman's Father
Sep 27, 2017
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Because this site is really stupid when it comes to ranking GMs, because building a team from scratch somehow makes a GM better than a GM who has won cups. Poile has made it beyond the 2nd round once in 20 years? Doesn't matter, he built his current team more than Jim Rutherford did, who has 3 cups in the last 15 years and built the 2006 Canes from scratch.

So if Poile left the preds and jumped onto Pit right now and won a cup that would make him a better GM in your eyes? Despite having a large majority of the pieces already present? Put Rutherford in charge of the new expansion Preds in place of Poile and tell me with a straight face he does better and builds a better team. His awful end in Carolina shouldnt be glossed over he set them back hard. Cups arent end all be all when determining who is a great GM otherwise you should be arguing that Holand, Bowman, and Lombardi should be in the top tier as well if cups are end all be all after all those 3 had a lot more of their fingerprints on their championship teams than JR had on the 16 and 17 Pens.

He was good at tweaking an already great team but that should be the limit saying he is in the top is just recency bias and Pit wins another cup a lot sooner if they had anyone besides Disco Dan and Mike Johnston (who Rutherford appointed) coaching behind the bench
 
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Inflict

Registered User
Jul 12, 2011
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Poile easily. He checks off all the criteria. Good at trades, drafting, developing and getting his players to sign below market value. Doesn't hurt that he built a great team that is a perennial Stanley Cup contender
 

Voight

#winning
Feb 8, 2012
40,368
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Because this site is really stupid when it comes to ranking GMs, because building a team from scratch somehow makes a GM better than a GM who has won cups. Poile has made it beyond the 2nd round once in 20 years? Doesn't matter, he built his current team more than Jim Rutherford did, who has 3 cups in the last 15 years and built the 2006 Canes from scratch.

He did a great job building the Canes from 06 but that was also 12 years ago.

& yes winning b2b cups was great, but he wasn't exactly starting with pocket lint.
 

ClydeLee

Registered User
Mar 23, 2012
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He did a great job building the Canes from 06 but that was also 12 years ago.

& yes winning b2b cups was great, but he wasn't exactly starting with pocket lint.
Why does it being long ago matter? How does that negate building and succeededing. The notion Piole but from scratch doesn't get considered too old to count it.

I don't like the way people here seem to build these lists because it ranks like who has the best current and 3 year out outlook. It's like people are team ranking and not actually crediting or discrediting gms from anything.

It's how we get the praise for someone like Nill that only won a 1st round series and missed the playoffs half the time. But gms that won and struggle with maintaining a tough cap tightening market are considered worse somehow
 

Empoleon8771

Registered User
Aug 25, 2015
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Redmond, WA
So if Poile left the preds and jumped onto Pit right now and won a cup that would make him a better GM in your eyes? Despite having a large majority of the pieces already present? Put Rutherford in charge of the new expansion Preds in place of Poile and tell me with a straight face he does better and builds a better team. His awful end in Carolina shouldnt be glossed over he set them back hard. Cups arent end all be all when determining who is a great GM otherwise you should be arguing that Holand, Bowman, and Lombardi should be in the top tier as well if cups are end all be all after all those 3 had a lot more of their fingerprints on their championship teams than JR had on the 16 and 17 Pens.

He was good at tweaking an already great team but that should be the limit saying he is in the top is just recency bias and Pit wins another cup a lot sooner if they had anyone besides Disco Dan and Mike Johnston (who Rutherford appointed) coaching behind the bench

And then you see this same dumb argument thrown up, as if it's a trump card. No, that's obviously not the case and it's a strawman argument. The point here is that Rutherford went to the Penguins, made dramatic changes and then won 2 cups because of it. It's the same way with MacLellan, he has the cup plus he made dramatic changes to his team. A GM that just jumps on to a great team isn't better just because they won a cup, but no one has ever suggested that and it's just a cop out. No, if a GM makes dramatic changes to a team and wins cups, the foundation they had when they got there doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter than MacLellan had Ovechkin, Backstrom and Holtby when he got there, because he consistently made massive roster changes and made that team a cup contender. Same thing with Rutherford having Crosby, Malkin and Letang in Pittsburgh. This site doesn't care at all about winning cups, and they only care about who has individually built their team more. If the option is a GM who takes a struggling team with talent, makes massive overhauls and wins a cup versus a GM who built his team from scratch, but hasn't won anything, I'm taking the first GM easily.
 

ColbyChaos

Marty Snoozeman's Father
Sep 27, 2017
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And then you see this same dumb argument thrown up, as if it's a trump card. No, that's obviously not the case and it's a strawman argument. The point here is that Rutherford went to the Penguins, made dramatic changes and then won 2 cups because of it. It's the same way with MacLellan, he has the cup plus he made dramatic changes to his team. A GM that just jumps on to a great team isn't better just because they won a cup, but no one has ever suggested that and it's just a cop out. No, if a GM makes dramatic changes to a team and wins cups, the foundation they had when they got there doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter than MacLellan had Ovechkin, Backstrom and Holtby when he got there, because he consistently made massive roster changes and made that team a cup contender. Same thing with Rutherford having Crosby, Malkin and Letang in Pittsburgh. This site doesn't care at all about winning cups, and they only care about who has individually built their team more. If the option is a GM who takes a struggling team with talent, makes massive overhauls and wins a cup versus a GM who built his team from scratch, but hasn't won anything, I'm taking the first GM easily.

Sorry but doing more with less will always be more impressive than going to a team that had the best two players in the league and simply not ****ing it up. No matter how you spin it Rutherford had it 10 times easier. Also love seeing the double standards why arent you also arguing for Bowman, Lombardi and Holland since they made even bigger impacts on their teams cups than JR did for the Pens. A gm isnt out there playing the games for his team he can only try making the best lineup possible and considering Poile had a direct impact on that first Capitals team that made the finals against Detroit (made the finals a year after he left) and managed to make hockey grow and survive in a market that no free agent would sign, dealing with a limited internal budget, ownership carousels, and only having to rely on good drafting thats more impressive than jumping on a team that is automatically a high end playoff team as long as you dont have an idiot coaching (one of which Rutherford hired).Rutherford is a gigantic reason why the Canes playoff drought is likely hitting 10+ years he cant build a team from the ground up if he was the GM for a different team you wouldnt even be propping him up.
 
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Empoleon8771

Registered User
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Sorry but doing more with less will always be more impressive than going to a team that had the best two players in the league and simply not ****ing it up. No matter how you spin it Rutherford had it 10 times easier.

Are you joking me? Are you purposfully ignoring the massive roster overhaul that Rutherford did? If you think that all JR did is "not ****ing up", you don't have a clue about what you're talking about.

Also love seeing the double standards why arent you also arguing for Bowman, Lombardi and Holland since they made even bigger impacts on their teams cups than JR did for the Pens.

Where did I ever mention Holland or Bowman? They're not being mentioned in here because they haven't done good jobs in recent years. Lombardi isn't even a GM of any team right now.

It seems really clear what's going on here. You've shown in the past that you hate the Penguins, so you're not exactly a beacon of objectivity here. You're trying to diminish what Rutherford has done, which was taking a perennial underachiever and making it the first back to back cup winner in 20 years, because you don't like the Penguins. If you think I'm being biased with Rutherford (which is hilarious that you're crying about bias), why don't we just change it to MacLellan? MacLellan is the best GM in hockey right now IMO. I'd be saying the same exact things with him. Just because a GM built his team from scratch doesn't make him better than a GM who inherited good players, that's a dumb requirement that this site seems to obsess on.

A GM who takes a team from nothing to a playoff team isn't better than a GM who takes his playoff team to a cup winner. It's the same crap that's said about the Hart on this site, where a guy who takes a bad team to mediocre is somehow more valuable than a guy who takes a good team into a great team. It's going to be even more dumb when Chevaldayoff wins the next poll over actual cup winning GMs who have done fantastic jobs in recent years.
 

Sidney the Kidney

One last time
Jun 29, 2009
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He did a great job building the Canes from 06 but that was also 12 years ago.

& yes winning b2b cups was great, but he wasn't exactly starting with pocket lint.

But JR's not getting the credit for making the moves that turned the Pens from perennial underachiever into a two time Cup champ.

If it were as simple as "look who he has on his team", then why did Shero not do anything with that club from 2010 to 2015?
 

ColbyChaos

Marty Snoozeman's Father
Sep 27, 2017
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Are you joking me? Are you purposfully ignoring the massive roster overhaul that Rutherford did? If you think that all JR did is "not ****ing up", you don't have a clue about what you're talking about.

A large majority of that Pens team sans Kessel, Hornqvist, and Daley were already a part of the organization. Pit already had a strong playoff team that was expected to go deep but underpreformed massively due to horrible coaching acting as if they werent strong contenders before rutherford is just being blissfully ignorant.

Where did I ever mention Holland or Bowman? They're not being mentioned in here because they haven't done good jobs in recent years. Lombardi isn't even a GM of any team right now.

It seems really clear what's going on here. You've shown in the past that you hate the Penguins, so you're not exactly a beacon of objectivity here. You're trying to diminish what Rutherford has done, which was taking a perennial underachiever and making it the first back to back cup winner in 20 years, because you don't like the Penguins. If you think I'm being biased with Rutherford (which is hilarious that you're crying about bias), why don't we just change it to MacLellan? MacLellan is the best GM in hockey right now IMO. I'd be saying the same exact things with him. Just because a GM built his team from scratch doesn't make him better than a GM who inherited good players, that's a dumb requirement that this site seems to obsess on.

By saying GMs should be ranked factoring in all skills gm needs to be good at im hating the pens? Drafting and being able to build a good team out of nothing requires a lot more skill than going to an already strong playoff team and having your only responsibility to try and add on where you can. There is no way you could skate around it, we already saw how awful the Canes were under Rutherford he cant build a team from the ground up. Your only argument for Rutherford is team accomplishments when there are a lot of other aspects to being a GM he is behind Yzerman, Poile, for good reason. Not every GM gets to have 2 generational players on their team locked in for their entire prime and peak years. The fact that him being hired by Pit was met with large amounts of pessimism really says it all how he was percieved prior to those cups, he was ranked near the bottom of all GM polls due to failing to even make the playoffs consistently with the Canes during his tenure and not being able to scout for ****. When you are a gm of a team for what is just short of 20 years and the best you could do is just 5 playoff appearences thats a pretty crappy GM there is no defending it.

A GM who takes a team from nothing to a playoff team isn't better than a GM who takes his playoff team to a cup winner. It's the same crap that's said about the Hart on this site, where a guy who takes a bad team to mediocre is somehow more valuable than a guy who takes a good team into a great team. It's going to be even more dumb when Chevaldayoff wins the next poll over actual cup winning GMs who have done fantastic jobs in recent years. Turing a bottom team into a strong cup threat despite being in a location no player would ever want to play in makes Chevy unworthy? He had a lot more handicaps working against him than JR did in Pit.


See above
 

ColbyChaos

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Sep 27, 2017
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But JR's not getting the credit for making the moves that turned the Pens from perennial underachiever into a two time Cup champ.

If it were as simple as "look who he has on his team", then why did Shero not do anything with that club from 2010 to 2015?

He made plenty of moves that could have seen Pit go further 2012 and 2013 both were strong picks to make the finals, his downfall was his willingness to make keeping Bylsma the hill he wants to die on.
 
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Empoleon8771

Registered User
Aug 25, 2015
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A large majority of that Pens team sans Kessel, Hornqvist, and Daley were already a part of the organization. Pit already had a strong playoff team that was expected to go deep but underpreformed massively due to horrible coaching acting as if they werent strong contenders before rutherford is just being blissfully ignorant.

This is not correct, you are ignoring a ton of players that Rutherford added. Rutherford also added Hagelin, Bonino, Schultz, Cole, Sheary, Cullen, Lovejoy (although a very questionable trade) and Hainsey (feel obligated to include him since he played 21 minutes a night in 2017) that had big impacts on at least 1 of the cup runs. He added an elite RW, 2 top-6 wingers (Hornqvist and Sheary), 3+ top-4 defenseman (Cole, Schultz and Daley are definite ones, Hainsey is debatable), 2 middle-6 guys who put up elite playoff runs (Hagelin and Bonino)...you're really underrating the kind of impact he had. That also doesn't touch on that it's probably unfair to not give him any credit for guys like Rust, Dumoulin, Guentzel and Murray, they were Shero draft picks but Rutherford still gave them the opportunity to thrive here. It's like not giving Shero much credit for the 2009 cup win because Crosby, Fleury and Malkin were Craig Patrick draft picks.

By saying GMs should be ranked factoring in all skills gm needs to be good at im hating the pens? Drafting and being able to build a good team out of nothing requires a lot more skill than going to an already strong playoff team and having your only responsibility to try and add on where you can. There is no way you could skate around it, we already saw how awful the Canes were under Rutherford he cant build a team from the ground up. Your only argument for Rutherford is team accomplishments when there are a lot of other aspects to being a GM he is behind Yzerman, Poile, for good reason. Not every GM gets to have 2 generational players on their team locked in for their entire prime and peak years. The fact that him being hired by Pit was met with large amounts of pessimism really says it all how he was percieved prior to those cups, he was ranked near the bottom of all GM polls due to failing to even make the playoffs with the Canes during his tenure and not being able to scout for ****. When you are a gm of a team for what is just short of 20 years and the best you could do is just 5 playoff appearences thats a pretty crappy GM there is no defending it.

We're talking about now, not 2015 and not in the past. That's why Bowman isn't being talked about as one of the best GMs in hockey. It's why Chiarelli is considered one of the worst GMs in hockey. You're clinging to bad stuff with Rutherford and ignoring the good stuff he has accomplished recently. Who cares what he did in Carolina? That's not nearly as relevant as what he has done in the last couple of years with the Penguins. A GM who builds from the ground up isn't better than a GM who takes a struggling team into a cup contender just because they built their team from the ground. You seem to be insisting that's the case. Rutherford's strong suit is trading and reworking a team with good pieces, it's not building a team. That doesn't make him a worse GM than a guy who builds up a team, but can't take a good team to a cup winner.

Turing a bottom team into a strong cup threat despite being in a location no player would ever want to play in makes Chevy unworthy? He had a lot more handicaps working against him than JR did in Pit.

The Jets have made the playoffs twice in the last 11 seasons and most of his top pieces came from him being the GM of a garbage team. Yeah, it's really dumb that he's probably going to win #3 here. He's basically going to win #3 because of transactions he made nearly a decade ago (Byfuglien and Wheeler being the big ones) and the fact that his team sucked for a lot of the last 10 years. You can also look at it from the POV of him not winning anything yet, but actually looking at how the Jets became good further emphasizes it.
 

ColbyChaos

Marty Snoozeman's Father
Sep 27, 2017
6,140
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This is not correct, you are ignoring a ton of players that Rutherford added. Rutherford also added Hagelin, Bonino, Schultz, Cole, Sheary, Cullen, Lovejoy (although a very questionable trade) and Hainsey (feel obligated to include him since he played 21 minutes a night in 2017) that had big impacts on at least 1 of the cup runs. He added an elite RW, 2 top-6 wingers (Hornqvist and Sheary), 3+ top-4 defenseman (Cole, Schultz and Daley are definite ones, Hainsey is debatable), 2 middle-6 guys who put up elite playoff runs (Hagelin and Bonino)...you're really underrating the kind of impact he had. That also doesn't touch on that it's probably unfair to not give him any credit for guys like Rust, Dumoulin, Guentzel and Murray, they were Shero draft picks but Rutherford still gave them the opportunity to thrive here. It's like not giving Shero much credit for the 2009 cup win because Crosby, Fleury and Malkin were Craig Patrick draft picks.



We're talking about now, not 2015 and not in the past. That's why Bowman isn't being talked about as one of the best GMs in hockey. It's why Chiarelli is considered one of the worst GMs in hockey. You're clinging to bad stuff with Rutherford and ignoring the good stuff he has accomplished recently. Who cares what he did in Carolina? That's not nearly as relevant as what he has done in the last couple of years with the Penguins. A GM who builds from the ground up isn't better than a GM who takes a struggling team into a cup contender just because they built their team from the ground. You seem to be insisting that's the case. Rutherford's strong suit is trading and reworking a team with good pieces, it's not building a team. That doesn't make him a worse GM than a guy who builds up a team, but can't take a good team to a cup winner.



The Jets have made the playoffs twice in the last 11 seasons and most of his top pieces came from him being the GM of a garbage team. Yeah, it's really dumb that he's probably going to win #3 here. He's basically going to win #3 because of transactions he made nearly a decade ago (Byfuglien and Wheeler being the big ones) and the fact that his team sucked for a lot of the last 10 years. You can also look at it from the POV of him not winning anything yet, but actually looking at how the Jets became good further emphasizes it.


You lose any ounce of legitimacy penciling the Pens as a "struggling" team as if they were a bubble team that missed the playoffs frequently before JR came 3 good years on a team that was already good and was a strong playoff team before you arrived doesnt magically erase a long track record of being awful at your job for 20 years
 

Empoleon8771

Registered User
Aug 25, 2015
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Redmond, WA
You lose any ounce of legitimacy penciling the Pens as a "struggling" team as if they were a bubble team that missed the playoffs frequently before JR came 3 good years on a team that was already good and was a strong playoff team before you arrived doesnt magically erase a long track record of being awful at your job for 20 years

Are you joking me? And you're crying about losing legitimacy? Just hilarious.

They're a struggling team just like the Washington Capitals were a struggling team before hiring MacLellan. You seem to be ignoring that I'm saying the same thing about MacLellan, though, because you want to beat the "UR A HOMER!!!!" drum. You're trying to pretend I'm just saying this about Rutherford because I'm a Penguins fan, and not that I'm saying the same thing about the Penguins rival GM.
 

ColbyChaos

Marty Snoozeman's Father
Sep 27, 2017
6,140
6,374
Will County
Are you joking me? And you're crying about losing legitimacy? Just hilarious.

Youre crying over peoples opinions being different than yours on an internet poll since this a decent chunk of people on this board value more than just titles when assessing how good a GM is..
 

ClydeLee

Registered User
Mar 23, 2012
11,713
5,263
If a lot of people are against considering Rutherford and MacLellan for limited impact. How isnt McPhee so much higher than Poile or others then. People are praising Poile for building from scratch which he did building a contender 15 years out. McPhee built that in 1 year and a large bit of the caps.

Yeah notable awful trades are right to take down gms. But I think people hold it up more while ignoring equally poor GM choices like letting great FAs walk or bad heading into postseason run decisions.
 

Sidney the Kidney

One last time
Jun 29, 2009
55,516
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He made plenty of moves that could have seen Pit go further 2012 and 2013 both were strong picks to make the finals, his downfall was his willingness to make keeping Bylsma the hill he wants to die on.

Those 2012/2013 teams were paper tigers. They were heavily reliant on Sid and Geno going into beastmode for them to go far. The very second either of those two weren't playing at their best, the lack of overall depth Shero accumulated couldn't compensate. That 2013 team in particular was SLOOOOOOW as hell and Shero made them even slower with his deadline acquisitions of Iginla, Brenden Morrow, and Douglas Murray.

They also lacked an identity. I couldn't even tell you what kind of team they were built to be other than "Sid and Geno and some grind those bitches down grinders". Rutherford instilled an actual direction, an actual identity as a fast paced, skilled team. He acquired players who fit that identity. Shero had more of a mix and match approach where he'd add players based on how they were individually and not how they'd fit with the overall team.
 

triggrman

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Poile has as much success as....

well he doesnt have much success. but somehow he is the #2 GM?

Define success.

Cap management?
Trades?
Drafting?
Working with a low budget yet still getting results for 12+ years?
Asset Management in general?
Building a team, twice?
Regular season success?
Post Season success?
 

triggrman

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If a lot of people are against considering Rutherford and MacLellan for limited impact. How isnt McPhee so much higher than Poile or others then. People are praising Poile for building from scratch which he did building a contender 15 years out. McPhee built that in 1 year and a large bit of the caps.

Yeah notable awful trades are right to take down gms. But I think people hold it up more while ignoring equally poor GM choices like letting great FAs walk or bad heading into postseason run decisions.
McPhee's protected list on the entry draft wasn't anything like what Poile had to work with in 1997.
 

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