Flames Hire Jay Feaster as Assistant GM
Kent Wilson
July 08 2010 04:05PM
According to twitter reports, it looks like Sutter has found someone willing to make balloon animals. Ironically, it's Jay Feaster, the GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning team that defeated the Flames in the 2004 Stanley Cup finals.
That sounds like a good resume, of course, but frankly I'm unimpressed by Feaster. His team slid into terrible territory soon after winning the cup and his writings at the Hockey News since being deposed have caused me to both laugh derisively and raise my eyebrows more than once.
So, yeah...color me less than thrilled.
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Folks - good analysis isn't "balanced". It strives to find the truth. The truth isn't balanced - it just is. When Sutter does something I like, I'll say so. I'm guessing when that happens, no one will come around and say they want it balanced by the negative side.
The year has been a poor one for the organization. Full stop. They missed the playoffs and Sutter made bafflingly bad decisions at the deadline. The team is one of the most cap strapped in the league, the prospects are middling and the core is mostly on the decline. There's problems everywhere. The last time they were this far away from being an elite squad was when Sutter first took over the team. He's done good things in the interim, no question, but his recent resume (starting around the first Jokinen trade) is riddled with errors.
There's no "agenda" here. Or, if there is, my agenda is "I want the Calgary Flames to be good". I celebrate moves I think take the team in that direction. I denigrate moves I think don't do that. I'm not always right, of course, but I always try to back my opinions and assertions up with facts.
Everyone is free to disagree. If you like a move that I don't, I can be convinced. Not through rhetoric, insults or pleas to artificially add balance because it would make you feel better about things. But through rational discourse. That's why the comments are here.
What you can be assured of is what I write is my honest assessment. I'm not grinding axes here, I'm not trying to be artificially controversial and I'm not serving any perceived consensus. I call it like I see it.
For those who doubt that, I've frequently praised Sutter in the past. I liked the Bouwmeester acquisition, I wrote favorably about Bourque (both the trade and the recent re-signing), I was supportive of the Brent Sutter hiring. Had he actually landed Savard last week, I would have been effusive in my praise.
I realize my style may put some people off. So be it. Not everyone can be pleased all the time. However, I hope those of you who disagree but are willing to hash things out rationally don't run from the site. Debate and discussion are what make this truly fun and rewarding even when we don't see eye-to-eye. I never mean my articles to be a personal affront to anyone and I'm always willing to change my perspective in the face of evidence. If you take me as too negative, so be it...bring the positivity here yourself.
I would have to agree with post #29 by Drew. I have only been coming to flames nation for the past few months and i doubt i'll be back. It is a very negative site towards the Calgary Flames, analytical yes but the posters are the negative ones. Everyone in here thinks they could be the GM of a NHL team and i doubt your name would even be in a whisper of conversation so give Feaster the credit he deserves. We always talk about our Flames of '04 and how good they were, well this guys team beat us. (technically yes, but we all know "it was in") All the debacle that went on in TB i don't rest entirely on Feaster. He was just the figure head, the fall guy for their ownership problems. I personally am willing to give the guy a chance because i think he deserves a chance. I understand everyone's entitled to their opinions, but i won't be reading them anymore on this site...
JT provides the first laughs for the day.
The adults here don't talk about the 04 Flames being all that. It was Iginla and Conroy and a hot goalie and then varying shades of poo-brown. I think RCleave made the point once that the shot differential implied a better regular season team than expected, but luck drove the post-season play.
It's alright if you or others don't like it here, it really is. Not everyone can perform the intellectually arduous task of thinking before speaking.
To get back on topic, Puck Daddy actually found a Feaster Hockey News article I actually agree with:
Overreach in any area - such as when owners solicit the input of players about signings or who the player would like to play with, or when players decide they know more than the coach and don't need to play his system - and you create an environment in which success may not be impossible, but will be inherently more difficult. The no trade/no movement clauses are perfect examples of overreaching. While GMs may have great reasons for agreeing to them at the time, in short order they find their hands tied and options limited."
So that's encouraging, assuming Feaster can convince Sutter of this stuff.
I have only been a citizen for a short period of time (a few months anyway) and I have also found the overall tone to be fairly negative especially directed towards Sutter. That being said, I also believe that this site is one of the better ones for the informed writing (especially you Kent) as well as the connection to the team (mainly through Pat). The voice here can often be critical but is usually honest in its assesment, which a lot of fans don't like to hear. Unfortunately, the team had it's worst season in nearly a decade, so it's not surprising and should be expected that the overall tone is going to be more on the negative side. Even Mr. Optimism (Iggy) has said that the fans have every right to be mad. Calgary is a city with passionate fans and a knowledgeable fanbase. This site is evidence of that. Despite the outpouring of honest assesment/negativity, I still am hooked and log in everyday (usually a few times a day) to see what is going on with the team that I love and to hear from other hockey crazed fans who still want to talk hockey in July!
Now that I got that last part out of the way, I would actually like to comment on the article. I'm not going to say that I'm a huge fan of Feaster but the man has won at every level. I mean, a Calder Cup and GM of the year in the AHL, a Stanley Cup and Sporting News Executive of the year. Those are solid credentials. Not a lot of GM's can claim that success, so either he is the luckiest SOB in the hockey world to just walk into that kind of success or he's been able to build a winner (even if it's only in the short term). Look at his bio, he had quick success in both the AHL and NHL winning a few years after taking over in both leagues, so maybe he can help turn the team around in a hurry with a 1-3 year timeline. That fits with this aging core.
Oh ya, RO you crack me up sometimes. Way to pile on, to the guys who are saying they want to leave if there isn't more positivity!
Don't worry Kent, I love the stuff you spew. Personally, I like that someone out there is doing the math and presenting it in a way that can be easily digested. I think that's how you make comparisons among teams/players meaningful.
A lot of the negativity is just coming from the off-season absence of actual hockey after a bad season. Once we get to camp and start seeing what we've got out of these prospects and trades, I fully expect to read lots of quality commentary on actual performance (good and bad), just like you always read here (or on M&G and FHF).
In the spirit of positivity, I'd like to take back any comments I've ever made calling the ownership a bunch of lying liars because they didn't follow through hiring an AGM. I was wrong, they did what they said they would. For what its worth, he's a very different sort of manager from what we have, we'll see how he does working with the jolly rancher.
I realize hockey players are professionals, but in terms of who works together and who doesn't (I'm speaking in terms of who becomes trade bait, not who to acquire), I would think that player input could be quite useful; maybe there's someone on the team that very few people get along with.
@CP is garbage
I know a lot of people fear the witchcraft of mathematics and scientific analysis, and if you feel that having a conversation with a GM or a player will give a person great understanding of hockey, then more power to you. I'm not well-versed in advanced sports statistics, but I am well-versed in statistics in other areas, and I know that you can get a lot of information from those little numbers. You can't get context necessarily, and you can't get a lot of "soft" information, but if someone gave me demographic information about the US, for example, I could tell you which states have a higher standard of living without EVER HAVING LIVED THERE. Shocking, I know. So yes, experience in any area is useful for determining information (eg having played hockey to a high level, as you mentioned in this case) however it's not necessary for a lot of analysis, and certainly not fan-based analysis.
I'd wager that most guys who have played even to the level of junior hockey aren't better than Kent is at analyzing players; simply playing something does not make you good at analysis. In order to analyze properly from the point of view of an insider you need to be good at it. When provided with statistics such as the ones he uses, it makes things a lot more straightforward for at least a partial understanding of whether someone is good/bad/average in relation to the rest of the league.