Sorry for piling on.
The context:
And I don't know if it's so much about cost-cutting, but more about how it's being handled.
- If they decided Francis had to go, better optics to let him go in the off-season than mid-February.
Well, no. This happened during the ACC Basketball Tournament, and one week before March Madness (with 6 North Carolina teams participating!) . 99.9 The Fan sent Adam Gold and Joe Ovies to New York the week of the ACC tournament while the N&O sent DeCock. Adam and Joe spent most of their time talking bball and New York City sports and culture, interrupted with talk of Ron Francis' "promotion". And at this moment, the fanbase, faced with another bust season, is not exactly preparing a monument to Ron Francis the GM outside PNC.
From a local perspective, that was the perfect time. This wasn't any Friday news dump, it was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, Wal-Mart is running a "Free Beer This Weekend!" promotion, and CNN, Fox and MSNBC are all going on vacation.
If they decided Waddell was going to be the new GM, just announce him as such instead of having a faux search where you insult prospective GMs with low-ball offers.
It's obvious that the alleged "GM search" was just a smokescreen. Waddell was always Dundon's choice, ever since Francis was fired, possibly before then. So why put on the show of having a search in the first place? Why insult prospective GMs with low-ball offers? Just a scummy move.
Is it though? Francis was paid 2 million to run the entire organization, which included micromanaging the early rounds of the draft (and
Lavoie implies this was just an example of a general mindset). Glorious Leader Tom Dundon wants a guy whose official job description is, "1) Do what the Council of Storms tells you to do, and 2) be able to explain it to me, in a way I can understand, without using, 'Because that's how the hockey biz rolls' or "Because that's what Tulsky told me.'"
His unofficial job description being, "Get fired when the Council of Storms screws up".
And then you factor in that a lot of success in the NHL comes down to dumb luck. A team doesn't become a Cup contender through shrewd move alone; but also by getting lucky. A 5th rounder becomes a franchise defenseman; Calgary calls and is willing to part with their top pairing powerplay specialist dman for your pair of underachieving 5th overall selections because he goes to museums; we won the draft lottery the year Sidney Crosby/Connor McDavid were available; we won 2nd overall the year a franchise center went 2nd and the worst draft bust ever (yes, worse than Yakupov) went third.
So alternate theory (finally): Tom Dundon asks "But why" as much as a precocious 4 year old, and has as much patience for "Because that's the way things are" as a precocious 4 year old. He's told, we pay GM's 1.5-2 million at least in the NHL. He does research and finds getting the best (most expensive) executive talent doesn't mean much, inasmuch as actually improving your hockey club. He's told Jim Rutherford is an awesome GM, then does his research and discovers that Jim Rutherford effing sucked in Carolina and is the reason we're in this mess in the first place. He read in Harpers last week that [redacted] thought [redacted] had yellow [redacted] and [redacted] of mass [redacted] because the [redacted] was plagued with circular thinking, no fresh blood or new eyes to question the assumptions which formed a foundation of lies and [redacted], and the worst circular thinking is in an individual who has unilateral control. "OH MY GOD PLEASE GOD PLEASE RON PLEASE DRAFT NYLANDER FLEURY SUCKS SO, SO, BAD, WHY DOES IT MATTER YOU WON'T WATCH LIGA GAMES OH GOD PLEASE". 'And Ron looked down at poor Tony MacDonald and whispered, "No"'. So he wants to use a council, the Council of Storms, to prevent this circular thinking and assumption making. The GM, in this schemata, will be (see above).
So he thinks all this and asks aloud, "Why should I pay 1.5-2 mil for this guy to just wait around until the Council trades Jaccob Slavin for Leon Draisaitl and the fans riot after another bust season in which Draisaitl puts up 40 points while Slavin plays 30 minutes a night en route to an Oiler Cup victory?". And no one can answer save, "Because that's how the hockey world rolls" and "Well this one guy on HFBoards....". Which aren't good answers.
There's only one GM slot. You just gotta get one guy to say "Yes". So GLTD decides this is what the GM slot is worth to him, and lowballs the crap out of everyone.
This blows up in his face, and he has to admit he was wrong. Which is why Don Waddell's hiring, unlike every other bit of 'Canes news, was snuck in under the shadow of HCRBA.
- If they decided Kaiton was too expensive to keep around, don't insult him with an 80% paycut, knowing full well that it's not going to be accepted.
I agree.
Don Waddell's phrasing was insulting. He could have at least added, "but he didn't like our non-negotiable 80% paycut".