Modifié 13 mars à 21 h 49
Quoting: Ledge_And_Dairy
I actually liked Brad for the most part as GM. UFA signings were certainly questionable but he did well on successful trades (except Harmonic) also his drafting was excellent. It's important to remember that ownership interfered with what he could do a lot. They made us constantly try to make the playoffs even when the team wasn't ready or should have leaned towards a rebuild
I disagree. Brad got lucky on two trades both involving Hamilton. The Tkachuk trade itself wasn't bad the big mistake there was giving Huberdeau that ridiculous contract. Another huge mistake was not signing Matthew to a long term contract like Matthew wanted instead of that stupid bridge deal. Matthew would still be in Calgary now and we wouldn't be stuck with Huberdeau's contract if Brad had done the smart thing then. Not seeing through little johnny's transparent act, offering him the same ridiculous contract and losing him for nothing should have been 3 strikes to get him fired all by itself.
Then there are all the terrible free agent signings, undermining the coach by bringing in the wrong type of players for his systems. Sutter says he wants players with size and speed so Brad brings in mostly big slow low skill players the cheapest available of course instead of paying a little more for guys who have both size and speed.
And his drafting? Nearly all of the forwards he drafted with high picks were undersized wingers (Bennett and Tkachuk don't count since there's no way Brian Burke would have let him pass on those two). Sure several of the little guys turned out ok but you can only have so many small wingers. If you don't have some forwards with good size (not just in the bottom 6 either) including a few centers you'll never be a real contender.
I could go on but really Brad should have been fired years ago. Yes ownership meddling (Murray Edwards) did have something to do with it but most of it was still Brad. Conroy is under the same restraints as Treliving was but he's already proven to be a whole lot smarter on the drafting, trade and waiver fronts. I'm quite confident Conroy will continue to do far better than Treliving. Meanwhile Treliving has barely gotten started on destroying the Leafs, just look at his UFA signings and trade record with them so far for proof of that. Overpays all the wrong guys (Domi, Klingberg, Reaves, etc.) and too cheap to trade anything of worth for better players. The Leafs have proven willing to let him go deep into LTIR which is one thing Edwards never let him do but that just allowed him to waste even more money on signing all the wrong guys. Did even just one of his free agent signings this past summer work out well?