The Jarmo Report (card)

[Socks]

What I said in the GDT:

Those are my two criticisms of him. McB got resigned due to his play while Bob was out last year. Credit to him, he kept us in it, but his past play showed that that was an anomaly. Curtis should not have been brought back. And letting Mac go was inexcusable. He was the cog on the fourth line that got things going. Even once the rookies come up we'll need 4th liners. He's perfect in his role.

Otherwise I'm kinda meh towards Jarmo right now.

 

[Mayor Bee]

When you put it like that....is F- an option?

There are some other things in there that get overlooked.

Nick Holden (defenseman) wasn't tendered a qualifying offer and was allowed to walk in the 2013 offseason. Colorado signed him and he scored 10 goals and 25 points in just 54 games, then added three more goals in the first round of the playoffs.

In the preseason this year, goalies Jacob Markstrom, Jeff Zatkoff, and Peter Budaj were all on waivers. Zatkoff is a young backup, Budaj has starting experience, and Markstrom a project with extremely high upside.

Scott Glennie and Jordan Schroeder (both forwards) were on waivers as well. Schroder can play all three forward positions and is described as an intelligent if undertalented player. Glennie is a high-intensity player who hasn't come close to living up to his billing and has battled with injuries.

Regardless, any of these players were free for the taking, and the contract list at the time was only around 43 or 44.

 

[major major]

His record thus far isn't great. Unlike most of you I've upgraded my assessment of Jarmo more recently to something like a C-, as his acquisition of Hartnell is an even bigger fleece-job than expected. I was very displeased, going back to July 1st, with keeping C-Mac and losing D-Mac.

But most of the value of a GM is in drafting, and we won't have the returns on that for another 5-10 years, when Jarmo's players enter their primes. Get ready to not make complete judgments for a long time.

 

[major major]

There are some other things in there that get overlooked.

Nick Holden (defenseman) wasn't tendered a qualifying offer and was allowed to walk in the 2013 offseason. Colorado signed him and he scored 10 goals and 25 points in just 54 games, then added three more goals in the first round of the playoffs.

In the preseason this year, goalies Jacob Markstrom, Jeff Zatkoff, and Peter Budaj were all on waivers. Zatkoff is a young backup, Budaj has starting experience, and Markstrom a project with extremely high upside.

Scott Glennie and Jordan Schroeder (both forwards) were on waivers as well. Schroder can play all three forward positions and is described as an intelligent if undertalented player. Glennie is a high-intensity player who hasn't come close to living up to his billing and has battled with injuries.

Regardless, any of these players were free for the taking, and the contract list at the time was only around 43 or 44.

Eh, he should have offered Holden something, but the only way we could have kept him off waivers would have been by ditching another NHL defender, we just didn't have the roster space.

I might have taken one of those goalies over C-Mac, but that's the thing - at the time we had two healthy goalies, and you can't keep 3. You can take one, but then you end up having to put another one on waivers, and those three are at most marginal improvements on C-Mac.

Jarmo did take Skille and Cracknell off waivers. It's unusual for a GM to take two players off of waivers, so its easier to say he's been exceptionally active than exceptionally inactive.

 

[blahblah]

Then again, Howson is looking better and better as time goes on so i'll go ahead and eat my hat.

No he doesn't. Howson is a fixed point in the sky. Nothing JK does will change that. I don't care how it works out with JK, I would not want the return of Howson - ever.

Having said that, it's easy to judge JK based on this crisis. I can't think of one thing he could have done to prepare this franchise for this. We survived the first round of injuries and we were doing quite well. I'm not sure there's any team in the league that could survive what we encountered. There isn't a way that JK could have seen in the future and predicted what happened to Horton as an example.

I looked over what MB posted. The biggest issue I have with any of it is the signing of Boll. I think he's missing a re-signing or two. I remember early in his tenure that there was a contract or two that we felt were below market. The only other issue is letting MacKenzie walk. He should be a Jacket and term shouldn't have played a factor.

The only expectations I have is that we get healthy and start to play like we are capable and hope for a miracle. We need a miracle.

 

[blahblah]

In the preseason this year, goalies Jacob Markstrom, Jeff Zatkoff, and Peter Budaj were all on waivers. Zatkoff is a young backup, Budaj has starting experience, and Markstrom a project with extremely high upside.

So we're going to jump on backup goaltenders again? Bob last 3 games before he was injured. Not sure if your judging JK unfavorably, but none of those guys on the list was going to make a difference. I know it was a West Coast road trip, but that is when the wheels fell off and it's just spiraled out of control. We've played terrible, for the most part, in front of our goaltenders.

Yes, C-Mac should have played better but this streak was coming.

Thu 10/23
@ SJ
W 5-4 59:20 4 37 33 .892 0 0
Fri 10/24
@ ANA
L 1-4 59:26 3 33 30 .909 0 0
Sun 10/26
@ LA
L 2-5 59:45 5 27 22 .815 0 0

 

[BluejacketNut]

Gaborik- Didnt work out and he went ahead and traded him essentially for a pick while heading into the playoffs. Fine if that was the going market, but he should have seen what else the market looked like for adding a player. If there wasnt any good options then he should have kept him, who cares if we didnt get the pick, he was more valuable to us for the playoff run. We sold going into the playoffs, unbelievable. And add ontop of that that we actually still had to pay part of his salary for the rest of the year made this experiment an epic failure.

Boll- Did Jarmo not see the league wanting to get away from goon fighting? Obviously not and signed him to a ridiculous $1.7m contract. Meanwhile he has 2 points and a couple non factor fights.

Horton-I dont blame him for signing him, but to a 7 year contract with his history of injuries was terrible. I know insurance will pay for most if he cant play again but I do believe the team still has to pay some portion of it....not good for a cash strapped small market team. His assessment was WAY off.

Bridge contracts-Are good far mid tier players, but not your cornerstones. He didnt believe in either Bob or Joey and they're proving to be worth it. Joey is at a point per game click and Bob has shown if he gets injured, we're in serious trouble. Both are going to want kings ransoms on the next contract, and that's not even UFA status yet! I can just hear "it was still the right thing to do", no it wasnt, the only way it was the right thing to do was if they bust, and right now theyre not looking that way. These 2 decisions will either cripple us financially, or possibly lose them come UFA time. And you can forget about any hometown deals

Dmac- If anyone earned their keep it was Dmac, he was a vital part of our lower lines. Most teams generally have 2 good lines, its the 3rd and 4th lines that lift teams to the top when theyre able to take over opponents weaker 3rd and 4th lines.....see Kings and Hawks. He should have been retained. I guess you can tell Dmac that Boll has his money

Hartnell- Really his only positive that i can think of, and as mentioned it kind of just fell in his lap. If RJ doesnt want out, I dont think that trade ever happens.

Status Quo- Of course you cant predict injuries, but they are guaranteed to happen. Even if Horton is only done for this season, he should have been replaced at least for the season. Add a couple more injuries to that and all the sudden our 3rd and 4th lines are pure AHL lines, the fact he didnt go out and get help has quite possibly ended this season. We had our 1 of 2 saving graces in the form of home games out of our next 5, ended up being a loss, so we could end up 1-14 over our last 15.

Grade is a D/D+. I seriously question his player assessment abilities. As has been in our entire existence, we got a GM with training wheels. We've never had a GM thats been an actual GM before, let a lone a successful GM. So in turn we have to deal with his on the job training, something a small market, cashed strapped team can ill afford and yet we've done it again.

 

[EDM]

GM with training wheels is a valid point.

 

[hockey17jp]

Brassard, Moore, Dorsett = Gaborik. Gaborik = Frattin. Frattin = D'Amigo.

Not a very good sequence of events there.

 

[WannabeFinn]

The best thing that Jarmo brings to this organization is his drafting ability. That takes a while to come into effect.

5 years from now you'll (more than likely) view his drafting of Wennberg, Bjorkstrand, Milano, etc. as moves that far, far outweigh his blunders to date.

He hasn't done a terrible job managing contracts. Boll is certainly overpaid, I think we can all agree on that. But at the end of the day it's only 1.7m/year. He shed Umberger (who's become even worse in Philly) for Hartnell who has arguably been one of the 3 best CBJ skaters this season.

Jarmo signed Letestu, Atkinson, and Calvert to absolute bargains of deals. How many times are you going to be able to have a 20+ goal scorer on your roster for a 1.15m cap hit? Or a 4th line center who can put up 30+ points for 1.25m?

Anisimov received a fair deal. 3.283m x 3 is solid for both sides and Anisimov has only improved since then. Johansen's extension may have been dragged out but 4m x 3 for a player of his caliber is pretty damn good. Dubinsky's extension is, perhaps, a bit much but he's an extremely valuable piece to this team. Savard has his shortcomings but he's done a fantastic job for a player that's only cost us 1.3m/year.

I don't get the criticisms about "letting Skille go". It's not like we didn't offer him a contact. Skille left for NYI on his own accord in order to get a better shot at the NHL and, when the opportunity presented itself, Jarmo reacquired him. Great move there.

Let's look at his trading on draft day. Instead of drafting Heatherington at 44th Jarmo traded down for the 50th and 89th picks. He still got Heatherington AND got Bjorkstrand. At the 2014 draft he traded the 63rd pick (Dominic Turgeon) for the 76th (Elvis Merzlikins) and a 2015 3rd. If he can acquire another Bjorkstrand-esque player because of that move it'll be another home run in my eyes.

All in all I think he deserves no lower than a C- thus far. He's really not done as poorly as many of you like to make it seem.

 

[WannabeFinn]

Brassard, Moore, Dorsett = Gaborik. Gaborik = Frattin. Frattin = D'Amigo.

Not a very good sequence of events there.

Ya let's conveniently leave out the draft picks acquired. Those don't matter or anything. Anything to make Jarmo look worse

 

[We Want Ten]

No he doesn't. Howson is a fixed point in the sky. Nothing JK does will change that. I don't care how it works out with JK, I would not want the return of Howson - ever.

Having said that, it's easy to judge JK based on this crisis. I can't think of one thing he could have done to prepare this franchise for this. We survived the first round of injuries and we were doing quite well. I'm not sure there's any team in the league that could survive what we encountered. There isn't a way that JK could have seen in the future and predicted what happened to Horton as an example.

I looked over what MB posted. The biggest issue I have with any of it is the signing of Boll. I think he's missing a re-signing or two. I remember early in his tenure that there was a contract or two that we felt were below market. The only other issue is letting MacKenzie walk. He should be a Jacket and term shouldn't have played a factor.

The only expectations I have is that we get healthy and start to play like we are capable and hope for a miracle. We need a miracle.

Lets go back to last year then. What impact did Jarmo have on the clubs run? How has he improved the team since then?

To me it looks like the answer for all of it is not much.
His draft picks I am leaving out.

At some point you have to forget about the injuries and look at how this team is playing and the answer is very badly. I don't think anyone is surprised we aren't winning a lot of games, but the product and play we have gotten is horrible. Thats all on the coaching and FO.

CM went 10-11-1 .909 last year, on a playoff team...

 

[WannabeFinn]

Lets go back to last year then. What impact did Jarmo have on the clubs run? How has he improved the team since then?

To me it looks like the answer for all of it is not much.
His draft picks I am leaving out.

At some point you have to forget about the injuries and look at how this team is playing and the answer is very badly. I don't think anyone is surprised we aren't winning a lot of games, but the product and play we have gotten is horrible. Thats all on the coaching and FO.

CM went 10-11-1 .909 last year, on a playoff team...

What's so terrible about a .909 sv% for a backup goalie? It placed him just outside the top 30 in the league for sv% among qualified goalies. Surprise.. he's not a starter.

This year he's been terrible. But last year? Certainly serviceable.

 

[EspenK]

Bottom line to me its way to early to tell how is tenure as GM will be judged. That being said there are a few things that make you scratch your head:

Trading Gabby for next to nothing unless the pick turns out to be a stud.

Letting D-Mac go- his dumbest move by far

The Boll deal-

Plusses:

Trading for Gabby. It just didn't work but at least he tried. I don't think Howson makes that deal.

Signing Horton. Again it didn't work but it was a smart move.

Things I would have liked to have seen:

Adding a scoring RW last off season (Iginla 2 years @ a boatload might have worked, Vrbata) Maybe he poked around, who knows?

Strengthening the backup G. But if McB played behind the same team as last year a point per game isn't bad. I think we could have done better.

Overall - C - Nothing overwhelmingly positive, nothing really stupid, except maybe the Gabby trade.

We shouldn't put this season on him. Go back and read through our pre-season comments. I would be amazed if you found more than a couple of negatives( excepting thebus re: Wiz and ca5150 re: the D in general) This Blue Jacket team could possibly win the East, a few bold, delusional types went as far as to say they could win the Cup. The draftees were going to light it up, HCTR was the second coming of Scotty Bowman, etc,etc,etc.

I said this before and I think it bears repeating - you don't rebuild the youngest team in the league that qualified for the playoffs and gave the Pens a scare. Would a solid RW addition have made sense? Yes but it wasn't a necessity. Would an upgrade to the D have helped? Maybe, but if the team is healthy and playing their style of hockey, the D is serviceable.

All in all I give him a C (meaning neutral) to date. His true measure will come down the road.

 

[Viqsi]

With regards to each area of responsibility in "who he gets"...

Personnel Selection, Amateur (the draft, prospects): Obviously too early to evaluate, but this is looking unbelievably awesome so far. I have no worries here.

Personnel Selection, Pro Additions (roster guys): Kind of neutral, leaning towards good. When adding new guys, so far the return on investment has been limited (Howson had this gift of consistently finding castoff depth gems; JK doesn't seem to do that as well, judging by how his Euro FAs have gone so far). Obviously going for Gaborik was a major whoopsie. That said, one must admit that guys like Comeau, Skille, and Hartnell have fit in just fine (even if he allowed Skille to briefly depart), and Gibbons is starting to look a whole lot better too.

Personnel Selection, Pro Subtractions And Retentions (roster stability): Overall OK. He's made some controversial selections, but none that I think are all that substantially bad. I mean, I miss Vinny and DMac and kvetch about keeping Boll as much as the next fan, but I'm not seeing how they're the difference between life and death or something. Keeping a close hold on guys like Letestu, Atkinson, Calvert, Anisimov, Savard, and Dubinsky rates higher to me, as does his willingness to pick Skille right back up after he was put on waivers (tho I would have preferred no temporary departure in the first place). And I for one no longer miss anybody who left via the Gaborik trade.


And w/r/t responsibilities in how he gets/keeps them:

Contract Negotiation and Extensions: F***ing brilliant, IMO. I think we have a definite upgrade on Howson here. The only black mark I can think of is that the Johansen negotiations got a little twitchy. If that pattern continues with other players, then maybe we have cause for concern, but unless and until that happens I'm happy with his performance here.

Trades: Some are decent, some not so great. JK's "disaster recovery" hasn't been at the level of Howson's, to be sure, but Howson's was pretty damn awesome so that's probably an unfair comparison. He's had some very nice little tactical trades on draft day, and one that looks like a major success (Hartnell for Umby), but also one experiment that did not work out at all (Gaborik).

Free Agency Acquisition: Not enough data to fairly evaluate. We've had a number of low-cost tries that haven't worked out, but that's been at minimal cost to the Jackets organization. And for the record, I do NOT give him a black mark for Horton, because the first year's shoulder injury was a known and planned-for issue, and the back condition came out of nowhere. Linking the two is absurd; it's more indicative of a slavish obsession with narrative quasiconsistency on the part of those making such an assertion rather than anything grounded in reality.


So basically... he hasn't been the epic badass that the narrative used to suggest, but he's hardly poor quality either. I'd give him a B average.

 

[DarkandStormy]

This thread isn't even created if this team is just .500.

 

[cslebn]

This thread isn't even created if this team is just .500.

It's like someone drove the bus most the HFBoards CBJ fans were in off a cliff after telling them all their families would be killed next.

 

[EspenK]

There are some other things in there that get overlooked.

Nick Holden (defenseman) wasn't tendered a qualifying offer and was allowed to walk in the 2013 offseason. Colorado signed him and he scored 10 goals and 25 points in just 54 games, then added three more goals in the first round of the playoffs.

In the preseason this year, goalies Jacob Markstrom, Jeff Zatkoff, and Peter Budaj were all on waivers. Zatkoff is a young backup, Budaj has starting experience, and Markstrom a project with extremely high upside.

Scott Glennie and Jordan Schroeder (both forwards) were on waivers as well. Schroder can play all three forward positions and is described as an intelligent if undertalented player. Glennie is a high-intensity player who hasn't come close to living up to his billing and has battled with injuries.

Regardless, any of these players were free for the taking, and the contract list at the time was only around 43 or 44.

Other than the goalie situation I think the other points are red herrings. I mean we could point out that Nash is on fire and he shouldn't have been traded for an injury prone C.

 

[BluejacketNut]

Sometimes things happen that are out of your control, but you still have to manage a solution, thats where he fails most with me. Trade market wasnt great for Gaborik, then he should have been retained for the playoff run. We found out Horton may be lost long term, that needed to be replaced. Injuries started piling up, some help was needed but nothing was done. If his shining moments are his drafting, then we should have brought him on as a scout, not a GM. A GM needs to be good at all aspects to be successful.

 

[Viqsi]

This thread isn't even created if this team is just .500.

Obviously. That doesn't mean that some rationality can't be inserted into the debate, tho.

 

[Fred Glover]

This thread isn't even created if this team is just .500.

Perhaps it doesn't get created, but you don't know that, I don't either. It is a fair question , though, being almost 2 years into the job to ask the quesiton how he is doing. Players, coaches get evaluted all the time as do many of us who work for a living. A simple question as to how he is doing is not out of bounds. This is a discussion board, so I raise the question for discussion.

 

[Mayor Bee]

So we're going to jump on backup goaltenders again? Bob last 3 games before he was injured. Not sure if your judging JK unfavorably, but none of those guys on the list was going to make a difference. I know it was a West Coast road trip, but that is when the wheels fell off and it's just spiraled out of control. We've played terrible, for the most part, in front of our goaltenders.

Yes, C-Mac should have played better but this streak was coming.

Thu 10/23
@ SJ
W 5-4 59:20 4 37 33 .892 0 0
Fri 10/24
@ ANA
L 1-4 59:26 3 33 30 .909 0 0
Sun 10/26
@ LA
L 2-5 59:45 5 27 22 .815 0 0

For years, I've said that one of the mistakes that teams make is keeping players who are clearly not championship caliber in favor of those who might be but aren't established as such; the inverse is shedding players who might not be championship caliber in favor of those who have proven that they aren't.

Given the relative dearth of quality starting goalies around the league, Markstrom made a ton of sense. He's a guy who was regarded as being just a cut below franchise caliber, and he hasn't had a chance on anything resembling a quality team. If he comes in as a backup and plays well, someone would pony up assets at the deadline for him. From an asset standpoint it made sense.

In the interest of fairness, I felt the same way about Martin Skoula back when Howson brought him in for training camp. He was released a few days later without being signed, then was immediately signed by Pittsburgh. He didn't do much, but was still traded at the deadline for something. Nothing great, but something.

 

[We Want Ten]

So we're going to jump on backup goaltenders again? Bob last 3 games before he was injured. Not sure if your judging JK unfavorably, but none of those guys on the list was going to make a difference. I know it was a West Coast road trip, but that is when the wheels fell off and it's just spiraled out of control. We've played terrible, for the most part, in front of our goaltenders.

Yes, C-Mac should have played better but this streak was coming.

Thu 10/23
@ SJ
W 5-4 59:20 4 37 33 .892 0 0
Fri 10/24
@ ANA
L 1-4 59:26 3 33 30 .909 0 0
Sun 10/26
@ LA
L 2-5 59:45 5 27 22 .815 0 0

So SJ, ANA, And LAK are comparable to OTT X2, Caps, and the Canes? Against better teams bob was able to get a win. Using games from where he was hurt skews the stats as well.

Bottom line is Bob was playing poorly, but no way we lose 9 straight with him.

 

[Samkow]

Perhaps it doesn't get created, but you don't know that, I don't either. It is a fair question , though, being almost 2 years into the job to ask the quesiton how he is doing. Players, coaches get evaluted all the time as do many of us who work for a living. A simple question as to how he is doing is not out of bounds. This is a discussion board, so I raise the question for discussion.

Tr00 fans raging can lead to some bizarre statements.

Remember this thread?

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1121655

 

[blahblah]

Lets go back to last year then. What impact did Jarmo have on the clubs run? How has he improved the team since then?

You mean other than trading RJ for Hartnell and saving cap space to sign our two best players? I suppose you're right.

He had a team that seemed to be getting better, moved one of the "assets" tying us down for an asset that is now producing at anything beyond what RJ did for years, thought the team would improve with the return of Horton (it's not like he knew about the upcoming back issues), reserved cap space for our players that are going to need contracts, and saved a roster spot for one of our young forwards if they earned a spot. All this coming from a very young team that had it's best year in franchise history with real expectations of key players improving even more (Johansen, Jenner, Murray, Bob).

I think as fans we look at the current situation and don't look at the big picture. I'm not the least bit upset at the front office; there was no way to see this coming.

We're losing so this pops up again. Now we've got a thread talking about potentially firing Richards. I'm not the biggest fan of Richards, but I wouldn't even consider firing him at this point. But we've got to start winning some, even with the roster as it is now. I'm seeing the team starting to pick itself up a bit. Hopefully that starts translating into wins.

I can't really take some of the posters posts in here all that seriously, we've got a few that think Howson was great. I'm not going to revisit that again, but it tends to bias them even if they don't realize it.