Ranking the NHL's GMs

[joe dirte]

Great post .

yeah, a well thought out post. it look like it took some time. you can disagree with some of his choices if yoiu want but he deserves credit.

 

[Pirate Deadpool]

I feel that too many GMs get too much credit for drafting and head scout doesn't get enough credit. Sure the GM is the one that people think of when it comes to drafting, but scouts do a lot of the work. Especially when your draft spot is outside of the top ten.

 

[joe dirte]

I feel that too many GMs get too much credit for drafting and head scout doesn't get enough credit. Sure the GM is the one that people think of when it comes to drafting, but scouts do a lot of the work. Especially when your draft spot is outside of the top ten.

sure.

they also say a good leader surrounds himself with the best.

 

[Super Hans]

All these guys cracked your top 10 and have a combine zero cups as GM. Your number 31 has 1 cup... Your number 31 has also taken the helm of the NHL's Cleveland Browns, he has a Mt Everest to climb then attempt to jump and land on the moon...

Most people that attempt to climb Everest don't spend the week before drinking 12-packs at base camp.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Pretty good list. Nill would be in my top 10, and Sweeney just out of it. Wilson quite a bit lower and Steve Yzerman for #1.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

GM's with no cups shouldnt be at the top. Dont give a damn if they were 1 goal away from winning, made brillant moves due to internal caps, or wrecked their team long term after the Cup win. The point of the NHL, is winning the damn cup. While some GMs did great things with little wiggle room, they have ZERO cups which is the end game. No cup in June is a failure.

1. Poile
2. Yzerman
3. Mcphee
4. Armstrong
5. Trevling
6. Murray
7. Chevy

All these guys cracked your top 10 and have a combine zero cups as GM. Your number 31 has 1 cup... Your number 31 has also taken the helm of the NHL's Cleveland Browns, he has a Mt Everest to climb then attempt to jump and land on the moon...

I have no idea how you can look at his body of work as GM of the Oilers and think him winning a cup actually outweighs that. You're also wrong if you're implying the Oilers were in some sort of hopeless state when he took over. he made it that way

 

[Porkleaker]

Pretty accurate list, but I'd put Chiarelli even lower.

 

[Jetsfan79]

I agree with pretty much all the rankings of the OP except for Holland. Not the best GM for sure but he should be higher on the list IMHO.

 

[Hockeyholic]

So Connor McDavid isn't a top-2 player in the NHL because he has no Cups? We can't take Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, Johnny Gaudreau, Jamie Benn, or Alex Ovechkin seriously as players with accomplishments because they have no Cups?

Sure, Chiarelli has a Cup. I'd argue that Jeff Gorton and Jim Benning truly built that team. And it was Chiarelli's ineptitude that kept the Bruins from contending again until really this season.

Oh okay. So if Gorton & Benning truly built that team, maybe his assistsnt gm's were the ones that also gave out the atrocious contracts & trades?

You can't have it both ways.

 

[Estlin]

Good work.

Sweeney, however, should be ranked a few spots higher.

 

[bearcountry17]

"(The Bruins are probably listed a little low here, considering their position in the standings, but how much of their success this year can you really attribute to Sweeney?"

See: Charlie McAvoy, arguably the biggest reason for the Bruins turn around, anytime a GM adds a top pairing d-man from the first game of their career to their roster and he ends up being perhaps the biggest reasonable for their turnaround, I think he deserves a lot more credit.

How about the contracts? Marchand for 6.1M, Pastrnak for 6.6M, the arguable best first line in the league is locked up long term for just over 18M total.

I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to fire Julien, he was and is a very well respected coach, but let's see how that turned out:

Goals Per Game
Cassidy (3.37), Julien (2.63)

Goals Allowed Average
Cassidy (2.39), Julien (2.78)

Shots Per Game
Cassidy (31.52), Julien (33.78)

Power Play
Cassidy (23.5%), Julien (18.1%)

Penalty Kill
Cassidy (83.2%), Julien (82.6%)

May have sounded a little harsh but I swear with Sweeney that only thing that gets brought up is missing out on Barzal, it's like people shut their brain off to anything good he does. The Lucic trade for example was a massive win.

Good post. I’ll add on top of that Jake Debrusk(14th OA)and Brandon Carlo(37th OA) from the 2015 draft have been key parts of Boston’s top 6 and top 4 all season long.

 

[Damisoph]

Good list, thanks for putting it together. Lou may be a tad high, but I agree with that bottom 4 that's for sure.

 

[Wayne Primeau]

Thanks for all the comments, guys.

Sweeney was hard to place. He's faced a lot of criticism during his tenure but it's also hard to argue with the results this season. I'd argue that the guys ranked like 9-25 all could be up/down like four or five spots, it's all a matter of personal opinion.

 

[McGarnagle]

I'm not the biggest Sweeney guy, but he's got to be top 15, and closer to 10. They're literally the best team in hockey since December.

We can laugh at him for passing on Barzal 3 times, we should laugh at him for the Rinaldo trade, but he put together a roster that's doing special things. He trusted the rookies who would come in, padded it out with guys like Riley Nash and Tim Schaller in the right spots. Hasn't made any panic moves to blow it all up yet.

Even I have to give him credit.

 

[joemon999]

Lol they gave Garth Snow his on tier on the tier list.

 

[LordNeverLose]

Bowman is inexcusably low. Should easily be top 10. Yeah he had a bad offseason, does that mean we all forget the decade+ of incredible maneuvering to put out a Cup contender (and 3-time winner) for that long a period of time?

 

[ViktorBaeArvidsson]

I like how David Poile is all of a sudden the best GM because before we made the Cup we were always a 1st, or 2nd Round exit team. I really think he has changed his mentality when making trades ever since that debacle of acquiring Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli for a 1st. Now he's gotten Ryan Johansen, Kyle Turris, and P.K Subban for Shea Weber, Seth Jones, Samuel Girard, Vladislav Kamenev, and a 2nd Round Pick. Our team looks the best it has, since, EVER. Hopefully, with this core they can bring a Cup to Smashville and break the streak of the same boring teams winning it every year. As for all the other GM'S idc lol. Also he drafted Arvidsson which automatically makes him the best GM.

 

[Osprey]

sure.

they also say a good leader surrounds himself with the best.

I think that, in most cases, the current GMs didn't hire most of their scouts (at least the more senior ones that really influence drafts). Unless a team has been bad at drafting, scouts are generally kept on when management changes. It's risky to throw out years of preparation and bring in a new team that has to largely start from scratch with less than a year before the next draft. It's not uncommon for scouts to stay with their organizations for 10 or even 20 years, outlasting multiple GMs. I know that the Kings still have a pro scout that they originally hired in 1997.

 

[NeedleInTheHay]

Explain how JR isn’t number 1, but the guy who couldn’t beat JR’s team is.

Scuderi for Daley
Schultz for a 3rd
Oleksiak for a 4th
Kessel for spare parts
Sheary and Zar for free
Sheahan for junk

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

So Connor McDavid isn't a top-2 player in the NHL because he has no Cups? We can't take Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, Johnny Gaudreau, Jamie Benn, or Alex Ovechkin seriously as players with accomplishments because they have no Cups?

Sure, Chiarelli has a Cup. I'd argue that Jeff Gorton and Jim Benning truly built that team. And it was Chiarelli's ineptitude that kept the Bruins from contending again until really this season.

You forgot to mention how amazing of a player Dan Carcillo is because he has a cup (Or two I don't remember exactly).

 

[CanuckGame39]

Just LOL at the Chiarelli write-up. So brutal.

The fans deserve everything they get after how they were last season. I hope Chiarelli ****s that team up even more before he rides off into the sunset.

 

[CanuckGame39]

Explain how JR isn’t number 1, but the guy who couldn’t beat JR’s team is.

Scuderi for Daley
Schultz for a 3rd
Oleksiak for a 4th
Kessel for spare parts
Sheary and Zar for free
Sheahan for junk

Rutherford inherited most of that core. The best pieces were in place and he just tinkered a bit...

 

[McRpro]

Just LOL at the Chiarelli write-up. So brutal.

The fans deserve everything they get after how they were last season. I hope Chiarelli ****s that team up even more before he rides off into the sunset.

"How they were last season."

Oilers fans put up with so much shit on here for years. We deserved to give it back to you people.

Get your jabs in again because you can expect Oilers fans to be 10x worse next time.

 

[Soundgarden]

Explain how JR isn’t number 1, but the guy who couldn’t beat JR’s team is.

Scuderi for Daley
Schultz for a 3rd
Oleksiak for a 4th
Kessel for spare parts
Sheary and Zar for free
Sheahan for junk

You do realize that just because your team was gifted Crosby and Malkin doesn't mean you have the best GM in the league right?

Poile traded:
Erat for Forsberg
Weber for Subban
Jones for Johansen
Girard and Kamenev for Turris
Legwand for Jarnkrok

Negotiated:
Josi contract
Ellis contract
Ekholm contract
Jarnkrok contract
Arvidsson contract

Drafted:
Rinne in the 8th round
Saros in the 4th round
Ekholm in the 4th
Josi in 2nd
Weber in 2nd
Smith in the 4th
Arvidsson in the 4th

 

[Wayne Primeau]

The Chiarelli one was most certainly the most fun to write. Bergevin's was, too. There's not much room for incompetence in the NHL among GMs so I figured I'd really rip into the awful ones.