Post-Game Talk: 18/19 Endless boilerplate arguments regarding Management thread | Pt. V. Oil up your mouse wheel.

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I in the Eye

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Fair enough, I wanted a GM that could draft and develop more than Hodgson, Connauton, Gaunce, Hutton, and Horvat in a 6 year span. Shame on me.

Shoulda learned faster. Next time I’ll ask the owner to hire Ray Shero instead of Benning.

Did Gilman deserve to be fired too? You must think so... Gilman has said he oversaw the draft. He's just as responsible, given he had a loud and trusted voice in the room. You're using the drafting as the reason a firing was deserved and justified. Why would one deserve a firing but not the other based on the drafting record?
 

Melvin

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Fair enough, I wanted a GM that could draft and develop more than Hodgson, Connauton, Gaunce, Hutton, and Horvat in a 6 year span. Shame on me.

Shoulda learned faster. Next time I’ll ask the owner to hire Ray Shero instead of Benning.

Absolutely shame on you. All "drafting GMs" are terrible because drafting isn't a skill.

You might as well have said you wanted a GM who can find water with rods.
 

CanaFan

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Did Gilman deserve to be fired too? You must think so... Gilman has said he oversaw the draft. He's just as responsible, given he had a loud and trusted voice in the room. You're using the drafting as the reason a firing was deserved and justified. Why would one deserve a firing but not the other based on the drafting record?

Maybe Gilman did, if that was one of his areas of responsibility, though ultimately the GM bears the brunt of all responsibilities.

Gillis did some good things in his time here and was ideally suited to support a team where the entire core was already drafted and in place. He did for Vancouver what Burke did for the 2006 Ducks, minus the ultimate prize. But he added only Hamhuis and Tanev to the core roster in his entire time here and relied heavily on UFA to fill out the roster, which is fine when you are a cup contender, tougher when you are not. Nothing in his tenure gave me confidence that he could rebuild a new core effectively. His skill set was a perfect match for the 2008-2012 team. The next phase of the Canucks required a different set of skills that had not shown himself to possess.
 

CanaFan

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Absolutely shame on you. All "drafting GMs" are terrible because drafting isn't a skill.

You might as well have said you wanted a GM who can find water with rods.

Maybe it’s not a skill, but it can damn well be a deficiency.
 

CanaFan

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That doesn't make any sense.

Unless you're doing crazy wacky things and taking no hopers. We made reasonable selections and got unlucky. It happens.

Except for Patrick White.

You can make good bets and still lose. That doesn’t mean all bets are good. While it’s possible the Canucks were in the far corner of the curve for over a decade, probability suggests it’s far more likely they were placing poor bets than getting a decade-long run of bad luck.
 

Melvin

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You can make good bets and still lose. That doesn’t mean all bets are good. While it’s possible the Canucks were in the far corner of the curve for over a decade, probability suggests it’s far more likely they were placing poor bets than getting a decade-long run of bad luck.

Can you show your math?

In a small sample where the odds are unknown, there is no observable difference between someone who made a good bet and lost vs someone who made a bad bet and lost.

And since we're talking about like Gillis, it's not close to a decade.
 

PuckMunchkin

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Patrick White is basically the only ridiculous first round choice we have made. All other choices were reasonable selections that didn't turn out. Low firsts only turn out about 20-30% of the time.

Did I sense wrong, and you are not a fellow Nonis supporter?
 

y2kcanucks

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Patrick White is basically the only ridiculous first round choice we have made. All other choices were reasonable selections that didn't turn out. Low firsts only turn out about 20-30% of the time.

Eh, passing on Anze Kopitar was also a huge blunder. Even if tragedy didn't strike, I still see it as being on par with Benning taking Juolevi over Tkachuk. Bourdon was never going to have the impact that Kopitar has had.

Did I sense wrong, and you are not a fellow Nonis supporter?

Nonis was an awful GM, though even he wasn't as bad as Jim Benning.
 
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CanaFan

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Can you show your math?

In a small sample where the odds are unknown, there is no observable difference between someone who made a good bet and lost vs someone who made a bad bet and lost.

And since we're talking about like Gillis, it's not close to a decade.

It’s detectable if you don’t need a 95% CI to be convinced something is wrong. 6 drafts = 30-40 picks, which while not large in the absolute sense is fairly large for a single GM to be evaluated on.

And it’s not just me, Gilman himself has said on 1040 that their drafting was not good enough. I didn’t catch the Gillis interview but I’d be stunned if he didn’t feel the same.

The NHL is the get it done league, not the try hard league. Results matter, regardless of how difficult they are to achieve. That’s why I don’t need to give Jim Benning another 6 years to show without a shadow of a doubt he’s incompetent either.
 

PuckMunchkin

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Nonis was an awful GM, though even he wasn't as bad as Jim Benning.

What did he do so poorly?

He manufactured one of the most lopsided trades of all time.

The summer he finally would have had some room to maneuver he was removed from the team.
The core that went to the finals in 2011 was mostly built by Burke & Nonis was working under Burke during that time.
 

Melvin

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It’s detectable if you don’t need a 95% CI to be convinced something is wrong. 6 drafts = 30-40 picks, which while not large in the absolute sense is fairly large for a single GM to be evaluated on.

Do the math. You are talking about 2-3 players and they got 1-2 depending on your criteria. I'll do the math when I get home if you don't want to.

And it’s not just me, Gilman himself has said on 1040 that their drafting was not good enough. I didn’t catch the Gillis interview but I’d be stunned if he didn’t feel the same.

The NHL is the get it done league, not the try hard league. Results matter, regardless of how difficult they are to achieve. That’s why I don’t need to give Jim Benning another 6 years to show without a shadow of a doubt he’s incompetent either.

Wtf is this?

If the results are just random chance then of course they are irrelevant, regardless of how they feel about it.
 

CanaFan

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Do the math. You are talking about 2-3 players and they got 1-2 depending on your criteria. I'll do the math when I get home if you don't want to.



Wtf is this?

If the results are just random chance then of course they are irrelevant, regardless of how they feel about it.

Except they aren’t random. If they were players drafted in the 7th round would be indistinguishable from players drafted in the 1st. There are visible markers combined with an element of variability that keeps drafting from being wholly predictable, but it is also not wholly random. Otherwise why is Virtanen a poor pick and not just bad luck?
 

I in the Eye

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Maybe Gilman did, if that was one of his areas of responsibility, though ultimately the GM bears the brunt of all responsibilities.

Gillis did some good things in his time here and was ideally suited to support a team where the entire core was already drafted and in place. He did for Vancouver what Burke did for the 2006 Ducks, minus the ultimate prize. But he added only Hamhuis and Tanev to the core roster in his entire time here and relied heavily on UFA to fill out the roster, which is fine when you are a cup contender, tougher when you are not. Nothing in his tenure gave me confidence that he could rebuild a new core effectively. His skill set was a perfect match for the 2008-2012 team. The next phase of the Canucks required a different set of skills that had not shown himself to possess.

In addition to Gillis and Gilman, I guess Lorne Henning and Eric Crawford too... for their role in drafting and player development. Why would they get a pass given their areas of responsibility in drafting and development? Maybe you can justify to yourself that Henning didn't need to be fired, but to be consistent, I'd think that in your mind at least Crawford surely deserved it if Gillis and Gillman also deserved it.

To be clear, in your mind, because of the poor drafting record... Gillis, Gilman, Crawford, (and perhaps Henning being the GM of a team where prospects are expected to develop), all deserved to be fired. Is this accurate?
 

Melvin

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Except they aren’t random. If they were players drafted in the 7th round would be indistinguishable from players drafted in the 1st. There are visible markers combined with an element of variability that keeps drafting from being wholly predictable, but it is also not wholly random. Otherwise why is Virtanen a poor pick and not just bad luck?

He wasn't.

Obviously I don't mean they are random in the sense thst the seventh round is the same as the first. We've talked about this before.

With every pick there is a half dozen guys who represent a reasonable selection and which one if them turns out is random chance.
 

CanaFan

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In addition to Gillis and Gilman, I guess Lorne Henning and Eric Crawford too... for their role in drafting and player development. Why would they get a pass given their areas of responsibility in drafting and development? Maybe you can justify to yourself that Henning didn't need to be fired, but to be consistent, I'd think that in your mind at least Crawford surely deserved it if Gillis and Gillman also deserved it.

To be clear, in your mind, because of the poor drafting record... Gillis, Gilman, Crawford, (and perhaps Henning being the GM of a team where prospects are expected to develop), all deserved to be fired. Is this accurate?

Depending on their role in the draft struggles, yes a case could be made for that. Without knowing the exact dynamic I can't say for certain.
 

CanaFan

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He wasn't.

Obviously I don't mean they are random in the sense thst the seventh round is the same as the first. We've talked about this before.

With every pick there is a half dozen guys who represent a reasonable selection and which one if them turns out is random chance.

Ya, no I don't agree with that.

Here's something to chew on:

2008-2013 drafts:

League average GP per pick: 87.1
St.dev: 149.9
N: 1126 picks

Canucks average GP per pick: 41.4
St.dev: 90.2
N: 37 picks

Mean difference has a P value of .0654 or nearly significant at 95% CI, significant at 90% CI. The effect size is .369 (cohen's d), which can be interpreted as about halfway between a small and medium effect size. The numbers bear out the Canucks were either extremely unlucky or extremely bad at drafting. I view it as the former, you clearly view it as the latter. Not sure we are gonna resolve this anytime soon.

Edit: Also for further context, here's how NHL teams stack up for average GP/pick from 2008-2013:

LcpwlzT.png


I'll concede that Vancouver's regular season success put them at a disadvantage, particularly in the first round but still, those are some grizzly results.
 
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Melvin

21/12/05
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Ya, no I don't agree with that.

Here's something to chew on:

2008-2013 drafts:

League average GP per pick: 87.1
St.dev: 149.9
N: 1126 picks

Canucks average GP per pick: 41.4
St.dev: 90.2
N: 37 picks

Mean difference has a P value of .0654 or nearly significant at 95% CI, significant at 90% CI. Numbers bear out the Canucks were either extremely unlucky or extremely bad at drafting. I view it as the former, you clearly view it as the latter. Not sure we are gonna resolve this anytime soon.

Edit: Also for further context, here's how NHL teams stack up for average GP/pick from 2008-2013:

LcpwlzT.png


I'll concede that Vancouver's regular season success put them at a disadvantage, particularly in the first round but still, those are some grizzly results.

Not accounting for where they were selecting makes little sense.

I'll respond more when I get home tonight. *bookmark*
 

CanaFan

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Not accounting for where they were selecting makes little sense.

I'll respond more when I get home tonight. *bookmark*

Sure, and if you can figure out how to scale GP/pick by where the pick is then that would add further clarity to the picture. But we are at the ABSOLUTE BOTTOM, meaning pick any team you want - Chicago, Boston, LA, NY Rangers, Pittsburgh, etc etc - and they are ALL ahead of us. And while we had several years of low 1sts, we also had a 10th and 9th overall in there, so we aren't without *some* representation high in the draft.

Certainly if you can scale this for pick quality, it will make things look somewhat better but it's already so bad I don't think it can meaningfully redeem it. But at least we've moved the conversation away from "you won't find a difference in all the noise" to "how can we better construct the relevant data to answer this question". Feels like progress and a much more enjoyable discussion for us both.
 
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y2kcanucks

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What did he do so poorly?

He manufactured one of the most lopsided trades of all time.

The summer he finally would have had some room to maneuver he was removed from the team.
The core that went to the finals in 2011 was mostly built by Burke & Nonis was working under Burke during that time.

Missed the playoffs 2 out of 3 years with that’s core. Wasn’t willing to really address the teams needs. Rather than fixing our offense going into 2007 he spent more money on the defense bringing in Aaron Miller. He relied too much on Taylor Pyatt being a top 6 forward. I didn’t like his first round picks in 2005 or 2007. Overall he seemed to trigger shy. He was OK as GM but wasn’t someone who was going to make the necessary moves to take the team to the next level.
 

RandV

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It’s detectable if you don’t need a 95% CI to be convinced something is wrong. 6 drafts = 30-40 picks, which while not large in the absolute sense is fairly large for a single GM to be evaluated on.

And it’s not just me, Gilman himself has said on 1040 that their drafting was not good enough. I didn’t catch the Gillis interview but I’d be stunned if he didn’t feel the same.

The NHL is the get it done league, not the try hard league. Results matter, regardless of how difficult they are to achieve. That’s why I don’t need to give Jim Benning another 6 years to show without a shadow of a doubt he’s incompetent either.

It's one thing for a Jim Benning but if you're applying that to Gillis, which maybe you aren't specifically now but many detractors did in the past, it's nonsense. Ultimately you only have 1 out of now 31 teams that 'gets it done' every season. In terms of making the playoffs, only Pittsburgh has a lengthy streak going on right now at 11 seasons, followed by I think Anaheim and Minnesota at 6. Chicago just had their 9 year run ended last season.

What this should have come down to is you don't treat a good GM like you treat a coach. In other markets guys like Doug Wilson and David Poile are allowed to ride their ups & downs and correct their mistake. In Detroit a lot of people wanted Holland fired for trying to extend Detroit's run and signing guys like Frans Nielsen, but ownership stuck with him and while it's still early now that the team has shifted gears he looks to be doing a fine job rebuilding.

Here in Vancouver though, with flaky ownership and hordes of bandwagon fans who came onboard when we were winning, after guiding the team through the franchises most successful run ever Gillis gets canned at the first sign of a stumble. It was a knee jerk reaction and an extremely dumb way to run a pro sports team because there are always factors outside of your control.

I've never really bought into the drafting criticisms either. Certainly the legitimate criticism is that he took too long to correct it, but there really isn't much out there as an example for a) how long it should take a non-scout GM to analyze the amateur scouting team and b) how long it should take to fix it.

While so many so he simply inherited a good team, they overlook that he also inherited an extremely shitty amateur scouting team lead by Ron Delorme put together by Burke and left in place by Nonis. Going by results I think it's pretty safe to say that he left the same group in place for 2008-2010 before starting to tinker. From Gillis' interview yesterday his scouting team was lead by Eric Crawford. You could see the gears turning in 2011 and 2012 but Crawford was only officially given the head scout role I believe in 2013(?), held it through the 2014 draft, then was fired before 2015. Going by 2014-15 I think it's pretty safe to say that you can criticize him for taking too long but our drafting would have been just fine moving forward with Gillis, because ultimately smart managers are going to recognize deficiencies and hire smart people to fix them.

Either way though detractors overwhelmingly just go 2008-2013=Gillis=Bad and 2014-on=Benning=good, which is a results only way of looking at it but extremely short sighted as this is a very complex process with a lot of moving parts and tons of luck.
 

CanaFan

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It's one thing for a Jim Benning but if you're applying that to Gillis, which maybe you aren't specifically now but many detractors did in the past, it's nonsense. Ultimately you only have 1 out of now 31 teams that 'gets it done' every season. In terms of making the playoffs, only Pittsburgh has a lengthy streak going on right now at 11 seasons, followed by I think Anaheim and Minnesota at 6. Chicago just had their 9 year run ended last season.

What this should have come down to is you don't treat a good GM like you treat a coach. In other markets guys like Doug Wilson and David Poile are allowed to ride their ups & downs and correct their mistake. In Detroit a lot of people wanted Holland fired for trying to extend Detroit's run and signing guys like Frans Nielsen, but ownership stuck with him and while it's still early now that the team has shifted gears he looks to be doing a fine job rebuilding.

Here in Vancouver though, with flaky ownership and hordes of bandwagon fans who came onboard when we were winning, after guiding the team through the franchises most successful run ever Gillis gets canned at the first sign of a stumble. It was a knee jerk reaction and an extremely dumb way to run a pro sports team because there are always factors outside of your control.

I've never really bought into the drafting criticisms either. Certainly the legitimate criticism is that he took too long to correct it, but there really isn't much out there as an example for a) how long it should take a non-scout GM to analyze the amateur scouting team and b) how long it should take to fix it.

While so many so he simply inherited a good team, they overlook that he also inherited an extremely ****ty amateur scouting team lead by Ron Delorme put together by Burke and left in place by Nonis. Going by results I think it's pretty safe to say that he left the same group in place for 2008-2010 before starting to tinker. From Gillis' interview yesterday his scouting team was lead by Eric Crawford. You could see the gears turning in 2011 and 2012 but Crawford was only officially given the head scout role I believe in 2013(?), held it through the 2014 draft, then was fired before 2015. Going by 2014-15 I think it's pretty safe to say that you can criticize him for taking too long but our drafting would have been just fine moving forward with Gillis, because ultimately smart managers are going to recognize deficiencies and hire smart people to fix them.

Either way though detractors overwhelmingly just go 2008-2013=Gillis=Bad and 2014-on=Benning=good, which is a results only way of looking at it but extremely short sighted as this is a very complex process with a lot of moving parts and tons of luck.

When I say "the get it done league" I'm not talking specifically about winning the Stanley Cup, I'm talking about results in general and specifically about drafting and development. Certainly there are 29 "not winners" (now 30) every year, so I'm not holding that up against him. But I am viewing his performance in various areas - with an emphasis on drafting and development - and arguing that there were weaknesses that justified him being let go. Your main defense seems to be that he inherited a scouting staff that was already performing poorly though I'm not sure I agree with that. I'm not sure how the group evolved between 1999 and 2008 and perhaps we lost scouts along the way, but the results from 1999-2006 are noticeably better than the results from 2008-2013. Is that the staff, or is it the direction and deployment of that staff? I don't know for sure but either way, I do hold it against Gillis for taking 6 years to notice the problem and even begin to address it. That's pure negligence and not something I think should be overlooked by "oh well, he would have addressed it eventually."

Look, I think Gillis was a good GM for what was needed of him, namely taking a team that had already drafted or otherwise acquired a strong core nucleus of players (Sedins x2, Kesler, Luongo, Edler, Bieksa, Burrows, Salo, Mitchell, Raymond, Hansen, Schneider) and providing it with further roster support (Sundin, Demitra, Samuelsson, Erhoff, Hamhuis, Malhotra, Higgins, Torres) mainly by UFA (which is easier to do as a contending team than as a rebuilding team) as well as other innovations like travel schedule, sleep programs, etc. All of what he did to get this team to 2 President's Trophies and 1 SCF is entirely laudable, but that doesn't tell the entire story. While espousing a "draft and develop like Detroit" philosophy, we were the worst drafting team in the entire league over that time. His trade record was very hit and miss overall and he burned through numerous draft picks on poor outcome trades that exacerbated this already poor drafting. These are important aspects of any GM's performance and that seem to get glossed over by arguing "it's random" or "not every GM can be great at everything", which sounds a lot like the arguments Benning defenders trot out tbh.

I'm not saying Gillis was a tire fire like Benning, as I'd take him back over the current idiot any day. But that doesn't mean Gillis was the right GM to transition this team from a contention window into a rebuild window. I mean maybe he would have been (we'll never know), but I am not convinced based on his track record of moves.
 
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