McIntosh is a professional scout and has zero to do with the amateur draft.
Takko is the Director of European Scouting, the location where Dallas has done the best for years in terms of mining talent. He's been hugely successful in his role that includes amateur and pro players. Lehtinen gives the tip, Takko does the scouting and tells Dallas to pull the trigger on Kiviranta. He's the guy Nill was talking about when he said "our scouts" focused on him after talking to Lehtinen. Dallas is incredibly fortunate to have him in the organization. When you talk about John Klingberg and a late round steal ... that's Takko scouting the lowest leagues of European juniors which weren't commonly scouted or paid much attention to in the past.
Regardless ... none of them are making the picks. Every article you read, and the standard for most NHL teams, is the Director of Amateur Scouting making picks. That's Joe McDonnell. That's why we're discussing Joe McDonnell. The GM sets the priorities for what qualities they're looking for and what types of players they want, but Joe pulls the trigger on all picks.
Dennis Holland, Jiri Hrdina, Jimmy Johnston, Rickard Oquist, Shane Turner, Alex Lepore was an amateur scout under both regimes, that's some half of the scouting staff that long predated the Nill/McDonnell regime. Nill and McDonnell are leadership so they're the ones who officially pull the trigger and take the responsibility for decision making. But they're extremely reliant on the input of the employees who work under them. If the individuals giving the input are the same, then how can you expect a different result? Someone over a region says "I oversee this region and I don't like this kid." The head scout inevitably will have seen this kid less than the specialist. And this isn't theory, it's borne out in practice because the drafting patterns of the Stars haven't changed. McDonnell has continued the philosophy drawn up by the previous regime. And the results are what they are.
I don't understand why blind faith and devotion is the only acceptable speed for a fan. Any reasonable discussion about limitations is labeled as belly-aching or bitching by the "real fans."
Why are you using plural "fans"? It's just me. Not a single other person has argued in favor of the administration. Everyone else is panning the administration.
And what do you mean by "blind faith and devotion"? This team just made it to the Stanley Cup Final. They've now won 4 playoff rounds in 2 years. Many clubs haven't won that many in a decade. Dallas has a philosophy. And the results are there. They're good. They're winning. And people are still complaining. Because they don't like the style of hockey that Dallas plays. If you're that opposed to the philosophy that Dallas has taken on, that even when they're winning, you still believe the administration is failure, then I think it is absolutely reasonable to ask if you'd just prefer to support a team that takes on your philosophy so when they succeed you can better enjoy it. You can come from 2 different sentiments. Someone can come from the sentiment that "I just don't enjoy watching Dallas hockey, so I disagree with the administration", and in that case, maybe that person shouldn't be a Dallas fan. And some others come from the perspective that "Dallas hockey is not the most conducive to winning, so I disagree with the administration." And you can have that view, I think you do have that view, and that's fine for a "true Dallas fan"...but let's just say that view would have made much more sense 2 years ago as opposed to right now.
It's not remotely the same in Dallas, and it hasn't been for years. If it was the same, Les Jackson would be running the draft still. There may be a few hold over scouts like Holland, but they don't mold or dictate draft strategy. There have also been several new scouts brought in. It's not a reasonable argument.
Finally, drafting in the 2000's and 2010's was all about size. It's not an indictment for those years when you say they're drafting the same way now. It's an indictment of the current philosophy and not changing with the times. Many teams have been slow to accept smaller, skilled players. The teams that adopted early have had more success.
The idea that Dallas can do no wrong is just as silly as the idea they are terrible. There both irrational positions, and the bulk of the conversation today talking about McDonnell's limitations has been very balanced acknowledging what Dallas' drafts have looked like with him at the helm.
As I said, half the scouting department is holdovers, half the scouting department is imports from Detroit. McDonnell could have drastically altered the vision of the game that was set forth before him. He could have wiped the cupboard of scouts, and brought in an entire new cabinet of scouts who see the game an entirely different way. Instead of picking solid two-way forwards, he could have gone on to pick glass cannons. He didn't, and you can see the result today. To go with a solid defensive core, Dallas has great two-way forwards ahead who can contribute to a defensive system, and also step back to man the point if a defenseman jumps up in the zone. He could have even picked Makar over Heiskanen. Maybe even some Dallas fans will some day wish he did pick Makar over Heiskanen. Because Makar has less than 20 points fewer with almost 100 games fewer. He will pass Miro in points sometime in the middle of next season, if we have a full-length season. And maybe some people who think offense is everything will be upset years from now if Makar has so many more points than Heiskanen. But McDonnell took the best guy in his own end of the the two-way guys, because that's the system, that's the philosophy. And it's no different from picking Radek Faksa, or Esa Lindell. The year after picking Radek Faksa, the Stars picked Valeri Nichushkin and Jason Dickinson. Nichushkin finished 8th in Selke voting this year. Nichushkin and Faksa finished with very similar point totals this year. They basically picked the same guy two years in a row. Different regimes. Same concept. And Dickinson is just poor-man's Faksa. He literally took Faksa's spot when Faksa got injured.
But to the bolded. Really? I feel like that analysis of the modern hockey scene is about 3 years old now, though it takes time for people to come around to the modern trends.
All 6 of the biggest teams in the league made the playoffs. Above average sized teams outnumbered below average sized teams by a large margin. All of the 4 semi-finalists were above average in size, with Dallas being 1st, Vegas being 6th, New York being 9th, and Tampa being 15th iirc. And Philadelphia was 2nd, Vancouver was 5th, among the 2nd round teams. This comes on the heels of a big St. Louis team winning the cup last year. When the playoffs also were skewed in favor of big teams. This comes on the heels of the big Washington team that ran a 1-1-3 trap winning the cup the year before.
And really the period where this was considered "less valuable", how long even was that period? You had the 2014 Kings. Then you have the 2015 Blackhawks who were a defensive juggernaut who beat Tampa basically by being a better version of the current Dallas team (Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, Oduya logged heavy minutes with Toews and Hossa), people remember Kane from the playoffs but he only had 3 points in the series, same as Richards, Shaw, Sharp, Toews. As far as size is concerned, they were the smallest of the Hawks winning teams, they were average. But between them and Tampa, they were the less "skilled" team and won by winning games 2-1, 2-1, 2-1, 2-0. The further you go back before then really the bigger the teams get. So which teams actually fell outside this window? The Pens in 2016 and 2017? Is that it? Some teams drafted some small players, and those players scored some points. But the vast majority of teams that adopted that approach, how has it translated into success in terms of winning?
It's a bit annoying that you're saying that I said "Dallas can do no wrong." Nobody said that. Every front office makes mistakes. But here we have 3 solid pages of people panning McDonnell. The closest thing to a compliment I've seen was that maybe he did average. I think the results suggest that he did much better than average. Which is not to say that he did no wrong. Like would it have been nice if he got Barzal in 2015. Sure. But Boston had 3 picks in a row and didn't pick Barzal. Does that automatically make Boston terrible at drafting because they missed out on this kid? No. San Jose, Florida, New Jersey, Arizona, Carolina, Philadelphia, all also missed out on him. Even Tampa, they had a chance to take Aho, they took Mitchell Stephens. Is it a mistake? Yeah it's a mistake. All teams make mistakes. But the good teams draft towards a system. They draft towards a concept of the game. So even when they make a mistake, the picks they do make help them play the game the way they want to play it better. Dallas' picks have let them play the style of game that they want to play. And they're winning with that style. So they deserve some credit for that.
