MatchesMalone
Formerly Innocent Bystander
- Aug 29, 2010
- 1,612
- 1,071
We don't see the full picture, but the guy might be the worst talent evaluator the pro level in quite some time.
Care to elaborate? Perhaps we just need to define what we mean by "talent evaluation" but the way I see it, talent evaluation, or at least talent projection at the amateur level, is his greatest strength. He was an amateur scout for a decade and then a director of amateur scouting.
I keep pointing out that a lot of people misunderstand where he went wrong with the initial Duchene trade. Duchene was on pace for the best year of his career before being traded away last year. He finally hit his prime and looked phenomenal for long stretches. Turris rapidly declined after the trade. No issues with talent evaluation there.
The issue was with evaluating his own team, because he believed they were a contender and not about to go into a tank where trading away the first round pick would be such a disaster.
Difficult to say what exactly account for this. Sure, evaluating the talent of his own players is part of it, but there's a lot more going on. One problem was not understanding/believing the analytics experts who were screaming that the previous year's run was an anomaly and unrepeatable.
The other problem would have to do with a lack of hockey IQ, of understanding the Xs and Os, which is very different from evaluating talent. He failed to comprehend or appreciate the genius and uniqueness of Boucher's system - just how much it was able to mask the roster's weaknesses and allow it to overperform - and he also failed to account for the fact that after that run, every coach in the league was on notice and was devising strategies to counter Boucher's system, and if Boucher's system was neutralized, then the mediocre roster would be exposed for what it was.