no circularity. Nuance. I appreciate that it's difficult to understand.
There is no moving goal post I see, other than those who were either "off" the MB bandwagon, or deafly silent, in the weeks before the game 7 win vs the laffs.
There are a myriad of ways to evaluate managerial effectiveness... and i certainly wouldn't argue that my particular approach is the gold standard or "best". I would argue, that some approaches are more robust than others, and that relates to things like logical consistency, well-defined parameters, clear standards, evidence et.
It's not a matter of "chicken and egg"... If the only criteria one chooses to consider is cup success, than of course it would be easy to simply assert that all cup winning GM's were "good" managers, and all non-cup winning GM's are "bad" GMs. I don't suscribe to that approach.
Yes, the outcome of winning a cup is what all fans want, and, most GMs... Though there are certainly established situations where the GM was hired/directed towards other priorities (including our own Houle during the late 90's). Achieving that outcome does not, I would argue, by definition assert the quality of the management approach. You can achieve good outcomes with a bad approach.
MB's approach, well-argued and debate for years now, is symptomatic of many things that I consider to be poor practices. This cap-spent roster, despite the "he's been different/better since 2018" narrative, imo continues to reflect many of those poor practices. That Carey Price at the peak of his game is a very influential difference-maker is one of many factors that have allowed us, this post-season to avoid the disappointing outcomes that his type of decision-making/management are more likely to lead to, imo.
