Chuck Fletcher & Management Discussion Thread

[123TripleDoge]

All this is soooooooooooo easy to easy when the signings helped us compete in the playoffs lol

 

[Victorious Secret]

At the time, the Pominville trade and even re-signing were praised. I think it's only in hindsight we're seeing them as mistakes. Hardly anyone could have predicted Pominville's sharp decline.

Not everyone. I was a fan of neither.

 

[WildisLaw]

When a team like Dallas goes from worse than you to better than you in 2 years, that screams poor management to me. Could we have not acquired Seguin? Could we have not drafted klingberg? Seguin was a no brainer. I want Fletcher gone after this year unless we win the cup. No more excuses.

 

[Minnesota]

When a team like Dallas goes from worse than you to better than you in 2 years, that screams poor management to me. Could we have not acquired Seguin? Could we have not drafted klingberg? Seguin was a no brainer. I want Fletcher gone after this year unless we win the cup. No more excuses.

Who'd you like us to hire as his replacement?

 

[Wild11MN]

Who'd you like us to hire as his replacement?

I'd also like to know the player that we should so obviously draft at #131 overall in the upcoming draft.

 

[gphr513]

Yeah I feel like you can't really knock a GM for not uncovering a gem in the draft who was taken at #131, that every other GM (except DAL) in the NHL also passed on.

 

[saywut]

The Pominville trade in hindsight is one of Fletcher's best moves. Its the extension that is the problem. If we lose Spurgeon over it then its terrible, as Spurgeon is arguably a top-3 player on this team whereas the current Jason Pominville is borderline top-10.

Development has been a major issue. Wheres the progression been from our young players? Granlund, Brodin, Coyle, Nino, and to a lesser extent Dumba haven't made the strides we've needed from them. At their best they are all high-end players in this league, but we can't seem to get any form of consistency out of them. Maybe Brodin, but playing him on the left side has caused him to regress this season. But that's what happens when you have no depth and they depth you have is on the right side.

Speaking of depth, its terrible on this roster. Porter, Haula, and Carter are all fine 4th line players in this league. They've played fantastic together. But that's what they are, 4th line players. You can't elevate them in the line-up. With nothing in Iowa there's just no answer for any injuries. I'm puzzled how we're so close to the contract limit when we don't have NHL caliber players in the minors. Like there's not even 4th liners down there.

I've been OK with how the last 3 seasons have ended. But this appears to be a downward spiral. The cap is catching up to us and its highly unlikely that we will have a better team in a couple seasons than our current one if we can't find solutions to our cap problems or find a way to get improved play out of our expensive contracts.

I don't know what the solution is, but I am concerned that Fletcher is going to be handling this. The track record of scouting professional hockey players and making trades isn't good at all. I'm not sure Yeo's the problem but if Fletcher believes in his roster then a coaching change should strongly be considered given the lack of development under Yeo from the majority of our young players. Don't think that Fletcher will think higher of his roster next season than he did this one at the beginning of the season, so decisions need to be made sooner rather than later.

 

[57special]

If Olofsson and Graovac contribute positively this year, then we'll be quite happy with our prospect development.

Playing in the Central certainly adds to the pressure.

 

[Jarick]

I think he's shown over seven years now that he is a bad GM.

He got a lot of draft picks his first couple years to stockpile young talent, but then he got in cap trouble and rushed them into the NHL. Granlund, Coyle, Brodin, Haula, Kuemper, all of them barely hit the AHL on the way up and haven't lived up to their potential. He's been doing the same thing now with Dumba, Folin, and Olofsson.

Both his head coaches were terrible hires. The first one had no clue about instilling a defensive system and was gone quickly. The second is now watching his FIFTH CONSECUTIVE COLLAPSE and admits that he has no idea how to fix it or why it's happening.

Obviously his best move was signing Parise and Suter, who were top players at their position. They pretty much dragged the team into the playoffs and are really the only reason Fletcher and Yeo have jobs right now. Of course, this is after he signed Havlat, who was such a bad fit his captain fought him in practice and he had to be traded.

So at this point you had a team struggling to squeak into the playoffs but high expectations to win. What does Fletcher do? Start dumping picks for band-aids. Pominville was a good trade because he was a proven talent with time left on his deal. But he also dealt THREE 2nd round picks and a 3rd rounder for Moulson, Stewart, and Bergenheim. Those guys were terrible and walked in free agency.

And throw the goalie issues on top of this. Harding plays very well and signs a contract but is diagnosed with MS. Fletcher's reaction is to sign a 35-year-old goalie coming off multiple injured seasons to a 3-year deal with a NO MOVEMENT CLAUSE. He goes on to play about 40 games over three years and puts the team in roster and cap trouble. Now you have two injured goalies, so Fletcher has to rush Kuemper up, who of course plays inconsistently. Because of this, he has to make panic trades for Bryzgalov and Dubnyk giving up more draft picks.

Combination of bad coaching, stunted player development, and trading away assets, and look at the state of the team. They have one of the worst prospect pools in hockey and one of the worst minor-league teams in years. I believe I read that they have lost 12 straight. There's no talent (especially up front) to step in when a player gets hurt in the NHL. The Wild weren't able to add any talent this past summer because of cap issues.

If Dubnyk doesn't come in and stand on his head for half the season, we're not talking about Fletcher right now. No idea what he's going to do this year because he's completely out of options, aside from firing his coach.

 

[Minnesota]

Yeah I feel like you can't really knock a GM for not uncovering a gem in the draft who was taken at #131, that every other GM (except DAL) in the NHL also passed on.

Dallas' scouting staff & management must be doing something right; they've pulled Benn and Klingberg out of late rounds, then developed them into studs.

I think winning the Seguin lottery was luck and timing, honestly. Johansen could be the same scenario.

 

[Ladde]

Pominville gave us value for a couple of years (especially 2013-2014). Everything we gave up in the trade haven't done anything for the Sabres as of now and the 1st and 2nd picks have been dissapointing (Zadorov is now in Colorado too).
So unless one of the prospects has a major turnaround we actually won that trade. What is biting us in the ass is the 5 year extension we gave him and that's on Fletcher. (should have only been 3 years)

 

[Victorious Secret]

Jarick

Pretty much. They look to be on their way out.

My single greatest fear of bringing in a new regime would be that they try to do too much. More or less, the same thing that Fletcher did when he hopped aboard.

It'd be nice if we treated draft picks like treasure and stockpile as much as we can.

 

[57special]

Dallas' scouting staff & management must be doing something right; they've pulled Benn and Klingberg out of late rounds, then developed them into studs.

I think winning the Seguin lottery was luck and timing, honestly. Johansen could be the same scenario.

Dallas hasn't won anything yet, and they didn't make the PO's last year. They remind me of the Avs from two years ago.

The grass isn't always greener. The Wild have been consistently competitive under Fletcher. All we need is a hot goalie or a young player to catch fire to go further in the PO's.

 

[BusQuets]

Dubnyk didn't stand on his head last season. That narrative has to end because it's a blatant lie. Wild just played amazing hockey for half a season and when they didn't play at their best against hawks Dubnyk crumbled right away.

 

[Wild11MN]

Pominville gave us value for a couple of years (especially 2013-2014). Everything we gave up in the trade haven't done anything for the Sabres as of now and the 1st and 2nd picks have been dissapointing (Zadorov is now in Colorado too).
So unless one of the prospects has a major turnaround we actually won that trade. What is biting us in the ass is the 5 year extension we gave him and that's on Fletcher. (should have only been 3 years)

This. Hackett is no good. Larsson hasn't ever shown anything (3 points in 21 games this year). Was a year and a half of (still good) Pominville worth a 1st and a 2nd for a cup run? I would say so. You can definitely criticize the extension. It will certainly come back to bite us, and to an extent, already has.

Prospects are prospects. Remember when we had the best prospect core in the league? I'd say as a whole we are certainly disappointed with that crew after 3-4 years.

Ripping Fletcher for cap trouble? We're going to lose what looks like max 1 core player in the upcoming year but should still have a very solid team. Compare that to the team we ran in the early Fletcher years. Would you rather us have worse players and be $15 mill below the cap ceiling?

 

[HollaHaula]

Would a hockey version of Moneyball work in the NHL?

Advanced stats provide tons of information to evaluate players and while the physical attributes of a player are important, they don't mean everything. The Wild, interestingly, have a comparable situation to the Oakland A's in the movie. They will be strapped for cap room due to some bad contracts and their scouting staff really needs improvement. The owner also wants a competitive team to be assembled to keep the fans interested.

It always seems like teams want to go after the high profile players that will cost a lot of money and/or assets while they could be going after multiple lower profile players that would cost less and when combined together, produce more.

I'm probably out in left with this observation but it was just something I thought of.

 

[Wild11MN]

Would a hockey version of Moneyball work in the NHL?

Advanced stats provide tons of information to evaluate players and while the physical attributes of a player are important, they don't mean everything. The Wild, interestingly, have a comparable situation to the Oakland A's in the movie. They will be strapped for cap room due to some bad contracts and their scouting staff really needs improvement. The owner also wants a competitive team to be assembled to keep the fans interested.

It always seems like teams want to go after the high profile players that will cost a lot of money and/or assets while they could be going after multiple lower profile players that would cost less and when combined together, produce more.

I'm probably out in left with this observation but it was just something I thought of.

Baseball is different than any other sport because of the isolation of every play. Every pitch in baseball is one pitcher vs. one batter. There's not a whole lot of teamwork that goes into a player getting a hit vs flying out to left field.

Football, hockey, basketball - there's a whole lot more that goes into each individual 'play' in each of these sports. Offensive line, defender falls down, etc. That's why advanced stats haven't been as prominent in any of the other sports, and they'll never be on the same level that you see in baseball.

 

[grN1g]

When a team like Dallas goes from worse than you to better than you in 2 years, that screams poor management to me. Could we have not acquired Seguin? Could we have not drafted klingberg? Seguin was a no brainer. I want Fletcher gone after this year unless we win the cup. No more excuses.

1B: no we did not have an established player the bruins were interested in(Eriksson) and it wouldnt have been smart to ship out any combo of Granny/Zucker/nino/coyle/brodin, and thats what it would have took back then. 2 of them and a 1st, thats alot for all his off ice troubles being thrown around at the time, but im sure we tried to trade for him, Fletcher always atleast calls to check on prices.

2B: yes we could have, but so could 29 other teams for 4 rounds back then, looking back any team would have picked him with their 1st, hindsight sucks but you cant blame that on our staff and say we suck cause we missed out on him thats saying all 30 teams staff suck at scouting including Dallas cause they wasted 4 rounds and could have missed out on him.

 

[grN1g]

People seem to forget he played a huge role in getting Parise and Suter here, thats a major bonus for me cause it forever changed this org for the better.

If it wasn't for Flahr and his drafting of the kids in our line up now aswell, theres a good chance they could have signed somewhere else. Thats fletchers hire.

Mike Yeo is a decent coach cause he keeps all these talented players honest and makes it a team effort to keep the puck out of the net rather than just a few players jobs, it may make players end up a lil lower on the score sheet than they maybe usually would overall but i bet we get more wins because of it and has a preety good record over 5 seasons here aswell. He just needs to grow a lil more as a coach and get better toys to play with every year.

Again a fletcher move.

Being a GM is not easy, and when you have a very rich owner who wants profit and playoffs every year you really cant do a full on rebuild. So with that in mind i'd say hes done a pretty good job all things considered as a first time GM who did inherit a mess and again pressure from the owner to turn it around with nothing to trade to do so, and no incentive to get FA's to sign here.

 

[BigT2002]

Should he be fired? No. Not yet anyway. The team is making the playoffs albeit by the skin of the horseshoe they get up their rears at the halfway mark every year. There is still something to be said for being one of 8 teams in the playoffs and then getting to the 2nd round for the last two consecutive years.

However, they are definitely in regress this year IMO. That has a lot to do with the fact Poms is hurting Parise's line and the PP is hindered with him too.

I'm more upset that Yeo continues to cater to the vets on who is out there for critical times when the better players (Zucker for example) never see the ice. No wonder Brodin's numbers are down since he is the #3 now and not playing opposite Suter and those minutes.

 

[Sarge58]

I think he's shown over seven years now that he is a bad GM.

He got a lot of draft picks his first couple years to stockpile young talent, but then he got in cap trouble and rushed them into the NHL. Granlund, Coyle, Brodin, Haula, Kuemper, all of them barely hit the AHL on the way up and haven't lived up to their potential. He's been doing the same thing now with Dumba, Folin, and Olofsson.

From what I remember when Fletcher took over he was left with one pick in the first round (13th OA) as his highest pick which wouldn't have been much of a kick start if he was thinking full rebuild. Lets face it he was left with a crap team, with almost zero in quality and quantity of depth in the minors, and nothing in the way of assets he could use as bargaining chips to better our draft position or use as leverage in trade negotiations.

His choices were to either totally tank the first few years (some think it would have been the better option) and risk being known at one time as the "team of 18,000" to becoming known as the "team of just over 9100 if you include the hotdog vendors". Or he could try a more complex approach to try and keep fans in the seats by trying to construct a competitive team using whatever means necessary whether it's spending big bucks on UFA's, or to use middle and some upper rnd picks to complete a trade or rushing our young higher draft picks into service without proper development, etc.

I'm sure the owner had much to say in what direction should be taken. All-in-all I think Fletch has done a pretty good job with what limitations he had to work with in the beginning and the pressure to satisfy the owners with a healthy bottom line. I do hope he gets the balance of the rest of the season to see where where we end up.

I totally agree with you on him just throwing away decent draft picks on bums that were supposedly going to help this team go deeper in the PO's.

 

[thestonedkoala]

As for GMs, I'd check out Pat Verbeek as he's been doing well for the Tampa Bay Lightning or Stacy Roest. I'd even look at Al Murray as well.

 

[DANOZ28]

my biggest issue is all the lost 2nd picks we dont have. 1 for stewart , 2 moulson, the 2nd we included for pommer, & 3 or 4 - 2nds we could have received for players we knew were leaving. mgmt made the decision to not do a total rebuild when CF stepped in and thats fine. dallas has certainly done a better job of adding the right pieces. if we dont do well this year trades have to be made. ps i'll never get over the leddy trade or the cooke signing , i consider those mistakes.

 

[mesamonster]

I have been promoting the idea of bringing in Dave Tippett at the end of the season! Az. will likely not be in Glendale and Tip has an "out" in his contract! Bring him in as coach , or better yet, offer him the GM job and let him select a coach!

 

[Jarick]

My single greatest fear of bringing in a new regime would be that they try to do too much. More or less, the same thing that Fletcher did when he hopped aboard.

It'd be nice if we treated draft picks like treasure and stockpile as much as we can.

I like your train of thought, not so much pointing fingers but where do we go from here?

My first priority would be to bring in a coach with a strategic mind. Even if they don't fire Yeo (yet), pick up Oates. One practice with Parise and Suter and the Wild's PP started out great. Then opposing coaches watched the tape and schemed and now they are a dud again. We need a coach who can continually make adjustments and add wrinkles.

Second priority would be to try and make changes to bring in players who better fit the team. It has to start with moving Granlund for a second line center who fits the NHL game. I would seriously be working the phones to try and get Johansen out of Columbus. Offer them Granlund + Dumba and see if they bite. Maybe Wild need to add a prospect or swap out Dumba for another defenseman and Columbus ups their offer. Either way, this team needs to get stronger down the middle, and running Koivu, Johansen, and Coyle (until next summer at least) will make a difference.

Third priority is to improve the minor league team. This would happen by keeping players who aren't ready for the NHL (like Dumba, Folin, etc) in the minors. Dump the guys who aren't performing (Gabriel, Bulmer, Sutter, Fedotenko) and sign fringe NHL'ers who can't get regular jobs to two-way deals. If a player isn't making improvements by his third year, he's gone. No more hanging on to lost picks. There should be a number of NCAA guys ready to turn pro in the next year, highlighted by Lucia and Gilmour. Make room for them.