Management GM Pierre Dorion/Front Office Thread - Part 2

[lancepitlick]

I get trading picks if you think a rebuild is at the next stage or you are trading for a younger player who will be a part of that. But the team isn't at that stage, Stepan won't help get there in the short-term and is useless in medium to long-term.

The only universe these trades make sense in is if Melnyk/Dorion thought the team was ready to make the playoffs this year. Instead have the worst winning % in the league.

 

[JungleBeat]

Huh? I just showed you that our young guys are contributing more to our offense than the Leafs were. Leafs just had better complementary players and SIGNIFICANTLY better goaltending, we also have boatload of cap space, Leafs utilized theirs more. If Murray played beginning of season like he is now, we would be in a playoff spot and your post wouldn't exist.

We are 4-1 in last 5 games and surprise surprise it's cause we have good goaltending. Not to mention a full season facing other bottom feeders.

So you’d take Stutzle and Batherson over Mathews and Marner? Ok..

White, Brown Dadanov and Tierney must be terrible complimentary players in your eyes than.

 

[branch]

Balcers putting up 6 points in 9 games whilst Galchenyuk/Paquette are playing on other teams.

 

[ReginKarlssonLehner]

So you’d take Stutzle and Batherson over Mathews and Marner? Ok..

I will take:

Stutzle+Tkachuk+Chabot+Norris+Batherson

over

Matthews+Marner+Nylander+Gardiner

I'll glady take

JVR+Kadri+Bozak+Rielly, Andersen's statistical season in 16/17.

over

C.Brown, Tierney, White, Brannstrom, Murray's season this year thus far.

 

[JungleBeat]

I will take:

Stutzle+Tkachuk+Chabot+Norris+Batherson

over

Matthews+Marner+Nylander+Gardiner

I'll glady take

JVR+Kadri+Bozak+Rielly, Andersen's statistical season in 16/17.

over

C.Brown, Tierney, White, Brannstrom, Murray's season this year thus far.

I don’t know about that; Mathews, Marner, Nylander, and Rielly seem to be the better core to build around. Unless you think you’re getting players that can be equal to them, hopefully Tim.

 

[JungleBeat]

Balcers putting up 6 points in 9 games whilst Galchenyuk/Paquette are playing on other teams.

We got Haley though.

 

[Hale The Villain]

We got Haley though.

As I pointed out at the time, he wasn't given a chance.

We had 10 forwards on one-way deals + Tkachuk, Stutzle, Batherson, Norris

Absolutely no room for him to make the team.

 

[swiftwin]

As I pointed out at the time, he wasn't given a chance.

We had 10 forwards on one-way deals + Tkachuk, Stutzle, Batherson, Norris

Absolutely no room for him to make the team.

Ok, but who do you bump out of the lineup to make room for Balcers?

Peca/Haley? He sure as hell wouldn't be scoring 6 in 9 for Peca's 6 mins a game. To to mention the fact that those guys are about to get replaced by Dzingel. Balcers doesn't provide much value as a 4th liner, nor would we giving him a fair chance to prove himself there either, and we're not doing him any favors for his career sticking him on there either.

Who else would be bump out of the top 9? We currently have 7 wingers fighting for 6 spots in our top 9: Tkachuk, Batherson, Stutzle, Dadonov, Brown, Paul, Dzingel. Plus we have Formenton (who is a far better prospect than Balcers) likely working his way into that top 9 next season, or later this season.

The fact is, he's a tweener prospect making the most of a good opportunity with prime minutes on a team completely deprived of prospects. He was never going to get that opportunity here regardless of what vets we added in the offseason.

 

[Micklebot]

Ok, but who do you bump out of the lineup to make room for Balcers?

Peca/Haley? He sure as hell wouldn't be scoring 6 in 9 for Peca's 6 mins a game. To to mention the fact that those guys are about to get replaced by Dzingel. Balcers doesn't provide much value as a 4th liner, nor would we giving him a fair chance to prove himself there either, and we're not doing him any favors for his career sticking him on there either.

Who else would be bump out of the top 9? We currently have 7 wingers fighting for 6 spots in our top 9: Tkachuk, Batherson, Stutzle, Dadonov, Brown, Paul, Dzingel. Plus we have Formenton (who is a far better prospect than Balcers) likely working his way into that top 9 next season, or later this season.

The fact is, he's a tweener prospect making the most of a good opportunity with prime minutes on a team completely deprived of prospects. He was never going to get that opportunity here regardless of what vets we added in the offseason.

Idk, this seems like it could have worked;

Tkachuk-Norris-Brown
Balcers-White-Dadonov
Stützle-L.Brown-Batherson
Paul-Tierney-Watson

Maybe slide Paul up with Stützle and Bath and have eithe Stü or Paul play center if Brown isn't ready as both are natural centers, go back to Peca or whoever at LW on the 4th.

There seems to be some weird rule that you can't have 4 good lines here, one line needs to only play 8 mins a game, but the nice thing about having depth is being able to use all four lines and roll them.

 

[Beech]

Melnyk is that you?

Hardly, I am well entrenched in the Melnyk out, Dorion out camp..but the reality is: We may be eating crow.

 

[swiftwin]

Idk, this seems like it could have worked;

Tkachuk-Norris-Brown
Balcers-White-Dadonov
Stützle-L.Brown-Batherson
Paul-Tierney-Watson

Maybe slide Paul up with Stützle and Bath and have eithe Stü or Paul play center if Brown isn't ready as both are natural centers, go back to Peca or whoever at LW on the 4th.

There seems to be some weird rule that you can't have 4 good lines here, one line needs to only play 8 mins a game, but the nice thing about having depth is being able to use all four lines and roll them.

So shoving Nick Paul on the 4th line in order to make room for a Balcers that proved so little in the 51 games he played for us? What about Dzingel? What about Formenton next season?

The fact of the matter is, Balcers 100% would have been sent down if he was waiver exempt. We shouldn't be forcing players into the lineup who haven't earned it simply because we're afraid of losing them on waivers. If they don't make the cut, they don't make the cut. If someone claims them off waivers, take it as a compliment that a player that can't make the cut on your team can make another team.

 

[Agent Zub]

So shoving Nick Paul on the 4th line in order to make room for a Balcers that proved so little in the 51 games he played for us? What about Dzingel? What about Formenton next season?

The fact of the matter is, Balcers 100% would have been sent down if he was waiver exempt. We shouldn't be forcing players into the lineup who haven't earned it simply because we're afraid of losing them on waivers. If they don't make the cut, they don't make the cut. If someone claims them off waivers, take it as a compliment that a player that can't make the cut on your team can make another team.

You realize depth is a good thing right? You also realize that you can roll lines right?

 

[Fuhrious]

I hate the Balcers waiver loss because I struggle to think of it in an isolated vacuum. I look at it as tangential to the Stepan acquisition, which has been proven over and over to have been an entirely unnecessary waste of assets for a player this team simply didnt need. Worse, it tied up a roster spot that could have been used on a player like Balcers that may still had even a shred of potential upside.

There was zero need to acquire Stepan on a roster that already had Anisimov and Paquette. None. It's wildly negligent personnel management, and Dorion rightfully should be getting taken to task over it (and some of his other off-season roster decisions) by NHL media pundits...and simply isnt.

 

[Agent Zub]

I hate the Balcers waiver loss because I struggle to think of it in an isolated vacuum. I look at it as tangential to the Stepan acquisition, which has been proven over and over to have been an entirely unnecessary waste of assets for a player this team simply didnt need. Worse, it tied up a roster spot that could have been used on a player like Balcers that may still had even a shred of potential upside.

There was zero need to acquire Stepan on a roster that already had Anisimov and Paquette. None. It's wildly negligent personnel management, and Dorion rightfully should be getting taken to task over it (and some of his other off-season roster decisions) by NHL media pundits...and simply isnt.

I don't really let these Dorion trades get to me too much. Considering the catastrophically bad trades Dorion is capable of making (Zibanejad, Stone, Duchene) these small bad trades feel like victories.

 

[God Says No]

Ok, but who do you bump out of the lineup to make room for Balcers?

Peca/Haley? He sure as hell wouldn't be scoring 6 in 9 for Peca's 6 mins a game. To to mention the fact that those guys are about to get replaced by Dzingel. Balcers doesn't provide much value as a 4th liner, nor would we giving him a fair chance to prove himself there either, and we're not doing him any favors for his career sticking him on there either.

Who else would be bump out of the top 9? We currently have 7 wingers fighting for 6 spots in our top 9: Tkachuk, Batherson, Stutzle, Dadonov, Brown, Paul, Dzingel. Plus we have Formenton (who is a far better prospect than Balcers) likely working his way into that top 9 next season, or later this season.

The fact is, he's a tweener prospect making the most of a good opportunity with prime minutes on a team completely deprived of prospects. He was never going to get that opportunity here regardless of what vets we added in the offseason.

You keep mentioning Dzingel, but Balcers would be playing instead of Dzingel. That's the thing. We got Dzingel because Galchenyuk/Paquette were useless. So there's your answer. Balcers should have been kept over Galchenyuk and Paquette.

 

[Micklebot]

So shoving Nick Paul on the 4th line in order to make room for a Balcers that proved so little in the 51 games he played for us? What about Dzingel? What about Formenton next season?

The fact of the matter is, Balcers 100% would have been sent down if he was waiver exempt. We shouldn't be forcing players into the lineup who haven't earned it simply because we're afraid of losing them on waivers. If they don't make the cut, they don't make the cut. If someone claims them off waivers, take it as a compliment that a player that can't make the cut on your team can make another team.

Again, there is no rule the the 4th line has to be bad, i was also going from the perspective of from the offseason.

There is need to account for where Dzingel will play because he is only here because we opted not to protect Balcers and all the guys that we chose over Balcers out failed. Had we kept Balcers we likely never trade for Dzingel.

You say that if he were waiver exempt he'd have 100% been sent down, well of course he would, we waived him for that purpose that doesn't really do anything to justify the decision to waive him or for that matter send him down if they could. On the flip side, had he been on a 1 way contract he'd likely still be here like Wolanin, and like galchenyuk managed to stick around, the difference being he is proving right now that he can play at this level. The decision to waive him and not Galchenyuk, Paquette or Anisimov initially was almost certainly financially driven as none of those guys were likely to get claimed but would still cost the same where as we save 100s of thousands of dollars moving Balcers to Belleville.

 

[swiftwin]

I hate the Balcers waiver loss because I struggle to think of it in an isolated vacuum. I look at it as tangential to the Stepan acquisition, which has been proven over and over to have been an entirely unnecessary waste of assets for a player this team simply didnt need. Worse, it tied up a roster spot that could have been used on a player like Balcers that may still had even a shred of potential upside.

There was zero need to acquire Stepan on a roster that already had Anisimov and Paquette. None. It's wildly negligent personnel management, and Dorion rightfully should be getting taken to task over it (and some of his other off-season roster decisions) by NHL media pundits...and simply isnt.

I really really struggle with this type of "asset management" take I keep seeing.

It goes both ways.

You're simultaneously complaining that we're "wasting" assets like draft picks, but also complaining that we have too many prospects, and therefore have to let some of them go on waivers. Yet draft picks turn into prospects, which have have too many of right now.

It's pretty clear that when we started rebuilding that we went for the "buy a ton of lottery tickets and hope some of them hit" by acquiring many assets in trades instead of only a couple higher quality assets. Now we're in the envious position that too many assets were winning tickets and we're struggling to move things around because there are only so many spots on the roster.

The Stepan trade might have been a flop, but the intent behind the trade was the right one. We're not just trying to fill 20 spots with whatever players have the best stats line. Someone like Stepan (or atleast what we believed Stepan was going to be) fills a very different role from someone like Balcers. Heck, they don't even play the same position! We already had many young offensively minded wingers on the team. Balcers was just the guy at the bottom of the totem pole.

Not only that, but I find it completely insane are winging over draft pick asset management. We've had by far the most picks, and the most high quality picks in the league in the past few years, and the upcoming years. All because of great asset management. For example, with the Karlsson trade alone we still have a 2nd round pick at the next draft, which is what? the 4th or 5th highest value piece from that trade? After Stutzle, Norris, Tierney, 2019 2nd rounder (which we used to trade up to get Sogaard). Or how we traded Dzingel for two 2nds, then traded a player that was given to us along with a 2nd round pick to re-acquire Dzingel. We basically traded Dzingel for Dzingel and three 2nd round picks. How is that not amazing asset management?!?!??!?! But somehow, it's wildly negligent that we used a 2nd round pick on a flop of a trade for Stepan? Or an even deeper 5th round pick for someone like Gudbranson who's been filling a very specific role we didn't have?! You can't just hoard picks indefinitely. At some point, you have to use them as capital to acquire players. Otherwise, you end up with too many prospects, and you end up losing them on waiver like we did with Balcers. We were able to make trades like these BECAUSE of our amazing asset management.

 

[topshelf15]

PD has been good at certain things ,out of league in others...What was needed was a man to replace the late Brian Murray,someone that can give him advice ...And save him from going overboard...This is on EM

 

[Fuhrious]

I really really struggle with this type of "asset management" take I keep seeing.

It goes both ways.

You're simultaneously complaining that we're "wasting" assets like draft picks, but also complaining that we have too many prospects, and therefore have to let some of them go on waivers. Yet draft picks turn into prospects, which have have too many of right now.

It's pretty clear that when we started rebuilding that we went for the "buy a ton of lottery tickets and hope some of them hit" by acquiring many assets in trades instead of only a couple higher quality assets. Now we're in the envious position that too many assets were winning tickets and we're struggling to move things around because there are only so many spots on the roster.

The Stepan trade might have been a flop, but the intent behind the trade was the right one. We're not just trying to fill 20 spots with whatever players have the best stats line. Someone like Stepan (or atleast what we believed Stepan was going to be) fills a very different role from someone like Balcers. Heck, they don't even play the same position! We already had many young offensively minded wingers on the team. Balcers was just the guy at the bottom of the totem pole.

Not only that, but I find it completely insane are winging over draft pick asset management. We've had by far the most picks, and the most high quality picks in the league in the past few years, and the upcoming years. All because of great asset management. For example, with the Karlsson trade alone we still have a 2nd round pick at the next draft, which is what? the 4th or 5th highest value piece from that trade? After Stutzle, Norris, Tierney, 2019 2nd rounder (which we used to trade up to get Sogaard). Or how we traded Dzingel for two 2nds, then traded a player that was given to us along with a 2nd round pick to re-acquire Dzingel. We basically traded Dzingel for Dzingel and three 2nd round picks. How is that not amazing asset management?!?!??!?! But somehow, it's wildly negligent that we used a 2nd round pick on a flop of a trade for Stepan? Or an even deeper 5th round pick for someone like Gudbranson who's been filling a very specific role we didn't have?! You can't just hoard picks indefinitely. At some point, you have to use them as capital to acquire players. Otherwise, you end up with too many prospects, and you end up losing them on waiver like we did with Balcers. We were able to make trades like these BECAUSE of our amazing asset management.

You're wildly over-simplifying "asset management", especially in a league like the NHL where "prospects" are scattered across any of a half dozen legitimate developmental "paths". You're likewise ignoring that a team like Ottawa, which is certainly not a "destination organization" for high profile UFA's, needs to leverage every single drop of value it can out of every last draft pick it has. Saying "oh well" doesnt really factor into the math when you need those assets to not only plus up your roster but to make meaningful trade acquisitions because agents for players like Vaatanen or Hamonic wont even return your calls. Turning around and using those valuable assets (draft picks, in this case) on bums like Reilly and Stepan are terrible calls. Full stop.

 

[swiftwin]

You're wildly over-simplifying "asset management", especially in a league like the NHL where "prospects" are scattered across any of a half dozen legitimate developmental "paths". You're likewise ignoring that a team like Ottawa, which is certainly not a "destination organization" for high profile UFA's, needs to leverage every single drop of value it can out of every last draft pick it has. Saying "oh well" doesnt really factor into the math when you need those assets to not only plus up your roster but to make meaningful trade acquisitions because agents for players like Vaatanen or Hamonic wont even return your calls.

What does this even mean??? There's a limit to how many players you can have on your team. It doesn't matter what the developmental paths are. At the end of the day, you're going to end up losing prospects on waivers like we did with Balcers if you try to hoard as many picks as possible in order to "leverage every single drop". What exactly does "leverage every single drop" mean? Are you suggesting we can trade for better players if we just keep adding more and more depth picks to trade proposals???

Also, on the subject of UFAs, I distinctly remember us landing the 2nd best forward free agent just a few months ago.

 

[Fuhrious]

What does this even mean??? There's a limit to how many players you can have on your team. It doesn't matter what the developmental paths are. At the end of the day, you're going to end up losing prospects on waivers like we did with Balcers if you try to hoard as many picks as possible in order to "leverage every single drop". What exactly does "leverage every single drop" mean? Are you suggesting we can trade for better players if we just keep adding more and more depth picks to trade proposals???

Also, on the subject of UFAs, I distinctly remember us landing the 2nd best forward free agent just a few months ago.

It means the exact opposite of what you stated in your previous post. That there is no margin for WHOOPS OH WELL where Dorion's trades are graded on some curve from "cataclysmically bad" to "just terrible" and supporters should just handwave the terrible ones away as "not so bad, comparatively". Simply put, a bad trade where Dorion (or whoever is sitting in that chair) fails to leverage full value in return out of whatever asset he sent away. In this specific case, he failed to obtain full value of a 2nd round pick in exchange for Stepan. Perhaps he should have used that asset in a trade that filled a position of actual need...say, the glaring holes all over the blueline.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

I get trading picks if you think a rebuild is at the next stage or you are trading for a younger player who will be a part of that. But the team isn't at that stage, Stepan won't help get there in the short-term and is useless in medium to long-term.

The only universe these trades make sense in is if Melnyk/Dorion thought the team was ready to make the playoffs this year. Instead have the worst winning % in the league.

he was overvalued

 

[GCK]

I don’t know about that; Mathews, Marner, Nylander, and Rielly seem to be the better core to build around. Unless you think you’re getting players that can be equal to them, hopefully Tim.

Stuetzle = Marner
Chabot = Reilly
Batherson or Tkachuk = Nylander

The Leafs had the 5, 8, 4 and 1OA over a 5 year span that netted them Reilly, Nylander, Marner Matthews. The equivalent would be us getting the 1OA in 2022 and making the playoffs that year.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

Balcers putting up 6 points in 9 games whilst Galchenyuk/Paquette are playing on other teams.

Yeah but Haley peca anisimov are still here.

 

[swiftwin]

It means the exact opposite of what you stated in your previous post. That there is no margin for WHOOPS OH WELL where Dorion's trades are graded on some curve from "cataclysmically bad" to "just terrible" and supporters should just handwave the terrible ones away as "not so bad, comparatively". Simply put, a bad trade where Dorion (or whoever is sitting in that chair) fails to leverage full value in return out of whatever asset he sent away. In this specific case, he failed to obtain full value of a 2nd round pick in exchange for Stepan. Perhaps he should have used that asset in a trade that filled a position of actual need...say, the glaring holes all over the blueline.

You're still refusing to answer my question. How exactly do you leverage these depth picks into players that are better than the players and prospects already in our system?