Who would you rather have? Best player vs Best GM

Who would you rather have in your organization?


  • Total voters
    242

Freedom

Registered User
Jan 23, 2017
462
117
Czech republic
Best player easily. Best gm's without good players can do crap.

at least a best player can win the championship for his team.
Yeah, right. That´s why Edmonton is so successful.

Best GM, easily. Hockey is team sport and one great player alone can do nothing. But mix of great/good players (what GM could effect) can do anything.
 

KMart27

Registered User
Jun 9, 2013
1,051
664
I have yet to see any evidence that the best GM even exists. Most people consider Chiarelli a terrible GM and he is probably in the top 5 or at least top 10 most successful active GMs. Dean Lombardi was the GM for two fairly recent Stanley Cups and he is now a senior adviser to Ron Hextall. I believe only 2 GMs have ever won the Stanley Cup with more than one franchise.
 

tucker3434

HFBoards Sponsor
Sponsor
Apr 7, 2007
19,792
10,543
Atlanta, GA
Having best player is like GMing on easy mode. As long as you aren’t the worst manager (looking at you Chia), you’ll have great success. Even the best manager in the world will struggle to obtain the Crosby’s and Ovechkins without crippling his team.
 

Martin Skoula

Registered User
Oct 18, 2017
11,639
16,315
Having best player is like GMing on easy mode. As long as you aren’t the worst manager (looking at you Chia), you’ll have great success. Even the best manager in the world will struggle to obtain the Crosby’s and Ovechkins without crippling his team.

Having a good owner > having the best player. Good luck putting a team around the best player if the owner tells you that your internal budget is the cap floor and you have to take on Datsyuk and Pronger type contracts to artificially hit the floor.
 

Boud

Registered User
Dec 27, 2011
13,562
6,984
This is a very tough question because you need both almost equally to win a cup.

Nashville is an interesting case where you look at them and they were not that good of a team team a couple years ago but then the GM made some savvy moves and aquired guys like Subban, Turris, Johansen, Forsberg, and now they are one of the very best teams.

You look at Edmonton, they have a great foundation, they look to be like one of the best teams in the league going forward and the GM makes some terrible moves. They trade Hall, Eberle for bad returns, trade the Barzal pick for Reinhart, sign Lucic and Sekera both overpaid. Had the GM been Poile instead of Chiarelli, that team is one of the best teams in the league today if not the best.

You need the GM because even if you have the best player, there's no way you win without a smart GM. You need a GM that can acquire players that will make a great team surrounding that star player. But you also need that star player. (Kane, Crosby, Kopitar/Doughty, Ovechkin) The competition is stiff in this league. You need top 5 GM and top 5 player at his position (F or D) to even have a chance at the cup.

However, I would choose GM over player because if you have a smart GM, your team will be competitive all the time even if you don't win the cup. Having the best player doesn't mean you'll be competitive.
 
Last edited:

thadd

Oil4Life
Jun 9, 2007
26,717
2,718
Canada
If you were old enough to remember the 90's and what Detroit's management team did, you'd take the best GM in the world in an instant.
 

Deficient Mode

Registered User
Mar 25, 2011
60,348
2,397
If you were old enough to remember the 90's and what Detroit's management team did, you'd take the best GM in the world in an instant.

And then you'd rightfully doubt whether many of the conditions that facilitated their success - payroll spending 60%+ above league average, poor league-wide European scouting, Iron Curtain coming down - are reproducible in this era.
 

Icebreakers

Registered User
Apr 29, 2011
9,260
4,163
There is no right answer because we are assuming the "worst" gm is going to make the team worse. To be real, there is no worst gm. Its entirely subjective and situational depending on their circumstances. Would I be surprised if Benning got hired by Edmonton and they won the cup? Nope. A "bad" gm could move teams and win gm of the year. Unless we are assuming the gms role is to purposely screw over the team, there is no right answer.
 

Lebowski

El Duderino
Dec 5, 2010
17,585
5,218
How good a GM is considered is almost entirely results based and that can change very quickly. Guys like Chiarelli and Holland were considered the cream of the crop not so long ago. McPhee was a pariah a year ago.

I'll take the best player in the league, please and thank you. Finding an adequate GM isn't that hard.
 

treple13

Registered User
Sep 1, 2013
2,818
1,504
I guess how easy this is to answer depends on how you define the terms, especially in the case of Best GM. I mean if someone is considered the Best GM, it's usually because they have had a lot of success. And not just making the playoffs success, they are Stanley Cup contenders (and often winners). If that's what we are asking, then you'd be an idiot to not select having a Stanley Cup contending team.

On the other hand, if you an existing team adding one of those to your organization today and ignoring those past results, I'd say teams with bad management should take the GM and teams with average to good GMs and good to take the best player.

But you have to think the best GM, if he's really the best, is going to find a way to draft and develop great players or he's not really the best GM. Can someone really be the best GM if they don't provide their team with either elite players or amazing depth?
 

Boom Boom Apathy

I am the Professor. Deal with it!
Sep 6, 2006
48,174
97,101
I'm surprised this is so close. Best player hands down for me. Teams that have won the cup have been player driven. I'm not saying you can have a BAD GM with the best player and still win, but you can have an average GM with the best player and win. Look at the cup winning teams. Most, if not all of them have had an elite player at their position at the time of winning the cup. Sure, they had a good surrounding cast, but without that elite player, your chances of winning a cup are slim IMO.

Caps: Ovi
Pens: Crosby/Malkin
Pens: Crosby/Malkin
Hawks: Kane
Kings: Doughty
Hawks: Kane
Kings: Doughty
Bruins: ? maybe no-body? Was Chara considered top 3 at the time of their win, can't remember and too lazy to look up?
Hawks: Kane / Keith
Pens: Crosby/Malkin

Talent > GM IMO.
 

Christ

Registered User
Mar 10, 2004
12,131
474
Canada
Pretty hard to say here. I would have gone best player without much thought until I started thinking of Edmonton with McDavid. McDavid is considered by many to be the best player in the world but his team's GM may be the worst in the league, last year illustrates where that combination finishes. That said, pretty hard to say who the best GM in the world is any given year. Mostly the title goes to the guy whose team wins the cup that season but then I think of the Caps this season or more specifically in the past off season. The Caps GM was considered insane by many for the moves that he made in the summer but somehow his team won the cup anyway. I think I am going to lean towards the best GM (whatever that means) as a team needs many good players to win not necessarily a single great one.
 

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