aziz

Ah. Thank you. Thing is: there IS an alternative. It involves buying out multiple contracts, at a reduced cap hit, but lasting forever, trading a high-ish (but not high-est) pick next year, and grabbing at least one 30+ year old FA, and signing him to an 8 year deal. That is how the Flyers do. Can the next GM not do that? Can he not do that for several years? Will he be ALLOWED to not do that for several years? Weirdly, that's the test. The next guy needs to let the Flyers be really bad for a few years. Otherwise they'll be pretty bad for ever. But can that be swallowed?

what does this mean? I have an ex-girl friend named Tina, and I don't want her involved, if possible. Couldn't be worse, I guess. She did have 4 cats, though. So.... Do the Flyers need more cats?

So, with the whole "Why Briere" thread exploring that question (and thank you to those that got involved, trying to get myself back up to speed), my next question is: if the "next guy" is chosen from outside of the ol' boys club Clarke is running...how do you think he will be evaluated? I ask because....I don't know what the next guy will really be able to do, other than stand pat for a few years and let some bad contracts expire, or shorten to the point where the buy-out doesn't hurt too much. There really aren't any tradable assets around, it doesn't look like help will come from outside the organization. And inside the organization takes time. How would the next guy be received if he says, somewhat like Torts, "hey, look. I have no cap space to work with, I have terrible contracts I can't move, and few quality prospects in the pipeline. We are not going to see actual results for years. I'm really sorry, but that is the spot we're in, the spot the previous regimes presented me. My first task is to not make this worse. And will be for the foreseeable future." I don't honestly know what someone can do, other than let time pass, and the team collect high picks. Cap space will start to open up year after next, and will really start to be available two years after that (25-26), but I think they are fully backed into a corner until then. Can Philadelphia handle that? A GM could maybe play some weird games between now and then and provide a quick shock that could momentarily change things...but it'd almost certainly be at the cost of continued growth a year or two later. Would it be demanded, anyway? Or can the guy be given the 5 years to let the dust settle and the picks/prospect pool to refill? I feel like that was what Hextall was trying to do, but was fired for it. I wasn't paying all of the attention, though.

I'm going to keep it vague, because frankly, the approach is vague. But roughly, it is the idea that the future can work itself out and doesn't need to be built towards. When there are problems, significant changes to the team's in-the-moment roster need to be made as soon as possible, and any eventual complications from those additions can be ignored until they manifest. This is why Kevin Hayes, a big, slow, and decidedly one-way player, will be a $7.1mil cap hot for the team until summer of 2026. It is why Ristolainen, a big, slow, untalented career -179 defenseman will be a $5.1mil cap hit, also until 2026. Ryan Ellis with a $6.25mil cap hit (which does NOT just go away with the LTIR) until 2027 (when he'll be 36). Cam Atkinson at $5.8mil until 2025. As some of the current examples. Many of these moves involve the loss of prospects and/or picks, and ALL of them will hurt the team badly over the next 3, 4, 5 years. Even if they were able to help in the very short term (which they aren't). Historically, we could go on all day with the Flyers' need for immediate returns while ignoring long-term sustainability. Oats, Forsberg, Reonick, Briere (interestingly), Primeau, Pronger, Brysgalov, and so on. These kinds of moves have constantly reduced the Flyers' ability to develop prospects, and ensured the Flyers have ongoing cap problems without a roster to match, and Bobby et all have encouraged -demanded- them going back into the 90's. If the next guy that comes in maintains that approach, the Flyers will continue to have bloated and deeply ineffective rosters, period. You cannot bleed young assets/picks in favor of either middling talent, or talent at the tail end of their careers, in a capped league and expect to be competitive over anything resembling the long term. The piper will demand his pay, and generally quickly. And in many cases, immediately. They are, though. They always are. Get the new name in here and the ship will be righted. Have a prospect the move will bury? Who cares, get the big name right now. That's why Bobrovsky has had himself a really solid career elsewhere, while the Flyers got enjoy paying through the nose for Bryzgalov, AND ARE STILL PAYING FOR HIM. Look, the approach had some viability before the cap. The Flyers had the cash to sweep mistakes under the carpet, and be at or near the top of bidding for FAs every summer. It used to work. Hell, Detroit had a mini-dynasty building with their wallet in the 90's. It could even almost work in the first few years of the cap, before the league tightened up the vague areas of the cap language and the Flyers had committed themselves to 10+ year cap hits for not-amazing players. Now, the maneuverability is not there anymore, and the approach has the Flyers where they are right now. The Flyers will stay where they are until they commit to a different approach, one that respects and relies on picks and prospects, and sees the trading of either as deeply undesirable. And, just as importantly, thinks about the cap situation 4 years down the road as much as they think about the current one. Well, for starts, I'll never get on a GM for their drafting history. It really is little different than playing darts blindfolded, anticipating what children will be when they become adults. But on the traded horribly and overpaid the wrong people....I promise you he was following orders on both fronts. The moves he has made have all smelled exactly like Bobby and Paul moves. Just with depleted resources available to spend. Fletcher is exactly what Clarke and Homer want. He just had the misfortune of showing up when the cupboards were bare of developed talent and the team's cap commitments gave him (relatively) little to work with. He did his damnest, though, to fit in their shoes. And that's what can't happen again. And that is why the next GM needs to have NOTHING to do with the current inner circle. That circle is fully toxic. The only thing that has kept the Flyers from the very bottom of the league over the last 30 years they've been in control have been its very very deep pockets. But that doesn't mean anything, anymore. And their current "choice" for the GM's chair is proving it. The next guy can't be their choice. Which means it can't be Briere. Much luck to the guy, but his mentors have been exactly the wrong people. EXACTLY the wrong people.

Well, yeah. Random person looking for a job after their previous career ends. A group of people for whom he'd worked in that previous career say, "hey, come on, we'll hook you up." He has no experience or qualifications, other than this particular group of people like him. They give him a series of jobs, of increasing importance. They teach him the ins and outs of these new jobs, passing their values and priorities on to him. He moves on to those new and more important positions based on how well he satisfies their expectations, how fully he embodies and implements their values and priorities. All within the philosophical rubric of that group of people. So, now, he is being considered for possibly the most important job available. He is, again, no doubt being considered based on his proven ability to participate in the conversations they want to have, endorse the perspectives and parameters they value. He isn't in the equation because he keeps rocking the boat. I feel like that's just obvious. So far, his advancement has been entirely at the discretion of Flyers' executive management. Executives who delegate these kinds of things to Assistants to the General Manager, as a matter of course. He has operated in and incorporated their approach and philosophy. The approach and philosophy that has been, frankly, meme-worthy for a decade plus. But here he is, the heir apparent, as suggested by The Powers That Be within the Flyers. Which is to say, Booby Clarke and Paul Holmgren. You think a directional change comes from that? You think, "No, we are not doing it the way we have always done anymore; we are carving a new path, a path that takes into the account the smaller, faster, more skilled/less in-your-face style the game requires in the modern age" comes from a person Bob and Paul have specifically groomed from the very beginning of his post-player career? No. It does not. IF, and double up on the all caps, IF Briere were to do un-Flyer-like things once he assumes the mantle, he'd be fired. Just as Hextall was. Not making deals for short term gains that will at least (and only) put the Flyers in the playoff picture is unacceptable. Even if those deals would hurt the team badly for years to come. Not being in the conversation for every high value (and high price tag) FA is unacceptable. Even if the player does not fit the Flyers' situation or roster, and the required cap hit and term would again cripple the team for years. If Briere took the reigns and declined to chase expiring FAs with picks and prospects at every deadline, passed on making offers to standout FAs regardless of their fit with the rest of the roster, etc, etc, etc, he'd be fired. Again, we've seen this. We've seen that GMs hired with the approval of Bobby and Paul see the axe fall quickly if they don't do exactly the same thing all of the other Flyers' GMs have done. Briere would be particularly vulnerable, as he has no resume at all, other than what Bobby and Paul have given him. He gets fired as the Flyers' GM, that career is over. He better tow the line. What needs to happen is someone from Comcast Spectator needs to step in and say, "you all are insane. Not to mention shockingly incompetent. Bob and Paul, you can keep your salaries, maybe, but please sit in the corner and eat potato chips, and be quiet. You, too, Barber. Why are you even here? Anyway, XYZ is your new General Manager, as hired directly by Comcast Spectator, and he answers to us, not you. Your input is not wanted or welcomed. Push me, and I take that salary I just promised away. Be good puppies, and lick your food bowls. You don't deserve them, and haven't for literally 40 years. Be thankful, and for fcuk's sake be quiet" Briere can only be more of the same. Because he was literally created by more of the same. And I mean no particular disrespect to Briere himself. He's just a guy with zero leverage, he'd have no choice but to do what he was told. The Flyers NEED someone that is allowed to say, "no, this has been a stupid and destructive approach for decades, and stops now." That definitionally requires telling Bob and Paul they have been horrifically wrong for decades. Think Briere can say that to their faces and keep his job?

I won't speak for anyone else, but my fear is exactly what you facetiously suggested: that he'd basically ask for permission to use the rest room. Putting aside his career with the Flyers as a player, every single bit of his management experience -and more to the point, his management opportunities- came from Flyers' front office's facilitation. How to do things came from Flyers' brass. What things to do came from Flyers' brass. The very chance to do things came from Flyers' brass. His entire post-player career has been because Bobby and Paul made it happen. This is not a cauldron from which I would expect anything even vaguely resembling a unique approach, much less a bucking of a decades-long trend, to arise. New directions do not come from nepotistic conditioning. I could be wrong, of course, but...why would you assume he'd set off sternly in his own direction, having been whole-cloth created and shaped by his bosses? Isn't is most likely he'd completely embody the philosophy of those that built him as an executive? Which is the philosophy that has the Flyers a laughing stock, with no clear options or path from changing that. Do we want more decisions shaped by that philosophy? If only to rebuke past decision making, hiring from outside the established "club" is absolutely required. What you thought of Briere as a player is irrelevant. He is fully a creature of the existing management structure. He would be expected to play that part to the beat. His job would require it. And his training would insist on it. edit: for grammar. I learned where the Shift key is.

And this right here is what makes ALL of them entirely unqualified to be running anything this side of a lemonade stand. And even then, I'd want adult supervision. I think you are probably right. I also think thinking someone being "from the Flyers' family" is even worth noting, much less a deciding data point, makes as much sense as insisting the next GM has to be left handed with good hair.

That's a great point: outside of experience specifically managing an NHL team, how do you even judge candidates for the GM position? I'm not sure there's an answer. I do know, however, that the two maybe-qualifications you mentioned don't impress me much. Played in the NHL for 15 years. Successfully and not a goon. So what? What skillset of a GM is in any way related to the skillset of a successful NHL player? Yes, the GM needs to know the game and the nuances of what makes a team win consistently, and having played can give you some insight into that. I rather think being an obsessive fan can, too, though. None of the negotiating, financial management, building to a long term strategy, projecting how the league and the game will shift over the next ten years, none of those are things a good player needs to have. A good GM does. Eating a lot of food doesn't mean you can cook. Became an ECHL GM. Yes. But. That's like a pretend GM. For the most part, the roster is given to you by the parent organization. You aren't drafting, you aren't signing impactful deals, you aren't making trades. You are basically the accountant for the farm team. Heating up frozen meals also doesn't mean you can cook. Of course, that kind of makes the whole thing a bit of a crap shoot. The person should be smart, think long term, negotiate well, be open to new ideas but have a strong idea of the kind of team they are trying build. And so on. I guess you can pick up some of those things in interviews, or translate from other work they've done where there are similarities. I think the biggest anti-Briere thing for me has nothing to do with being unqualified, exactly. I think the insistence on hiring former Flyers players for management and coaching positions is a big problem, and needs to end as soon as possible. It's become laughable. Or, it was. Now it's just kind of pathetic.

So long as the team is terrible, and nothing on the ice is really worth talking about, and the only thing that could change that is a new direction, the "who replaces fletcher" question is prominent. And there seems to be a significant population of fans, and at least some management, looking at Danny B as the guy to take over. And I don't really understand. So, want to find out: why would Briere look like a good call for the Flyer's next GM? As I see it, here are his qualifications: 1. Knows how hockey works, generally 2. Has been actively involved in the game and the league since his retirement, so knows who the current players are, both on the team and around the league 3. Used to play for the Flyers, and wasn't terrible That doesn't really seem like a convincing Curriculum Vitae to me. And, frankly, has the fatal point 3: "Used to play for the Flyers, wasn't terrible", which has been the Flyers guiding light for 3 decades. And a main reason everything has gone to complete crap. I'm not arguing or disagreeing, but there has to be something I'm missing. Those of you hoping for Briere in the GM's chair, can you tell me why? "He isn't Fletcher" isn't an answer, because we live on a continent of some 400 million people that aren't Fletcher. Need more than that. But totally welcome more than that. Please bring me up to speed on the thinking there?

not following you on this. if the first isn't a thing, why would the second be a thing? if they don't care about the brand, why would they care about the brand? i don't think i missed the point you were making: don't expect pressure from the owners of the team to demand results and reject outright failure, with all of the shake ups to the flyers' management staff and essential team philosophy that would seem to require, because they don't care enough to get involved at that level. it just made me wonder why comcast would have gotten involved with an NHL hockey team to begin with. and that made me start thinking/hoping it was as simple as branding, and if that were true, the joke "their" team is at the moment would be a problem they'd be motivated to solve. i mean, wells fargo (who may or may not be the large bank i mentioned i work for) wanted their name on the building for that reason. they can't be happy with how everything is playing out. and now that I am thinking about it, i may (or may not) need to track down someone from marketing and see what they think about their investment right now. but the first part of your response seems to suggest you think their motivation with the flyers IS making money? even if only internally, with basically asset swaps between lines of business? if that were true, would you expect them to get involved when ticket sales collapse completely and merchandise sales evaporate? moving money around internally is ultimately zero sum within that reference frame, and as less money enters the biosphere, for lack of a better word, less can move around, and the overall point to owning the team starts to vanish. not disagreeing, just trying to work this thing through. because i really don't know why they are even involved. and the reason they are involved, if it could be understood, might give us some idea where their heads are and what they might do about this dumpster fire. If they just needed to park money somewhere, and don't care what becomes of any of it, they will watch the whole thing burn. if they have some level of interest in things going well, someone in the LOB directly attached to comcast/spectator will eventually start demanding changes, if only for selfish reasons (i.e., their bonus structure is at risk when the flyers can't sell tickets). and that has the potential of forbidding the "we prioritize former flyers players for all management positions" approach the team has taken for the last 30 years. which is what needs to happen, in the worst way. but in the end, i have no idea. just theories. edit: i meant to respond to your last line, too, but forgot. so here it is (I forget how to manually create quotations on this site, bear with me): Radoran: Which is why if they're just a midding bubble playoff team that "makes the playoffs and anything can happen" then Comcast is just fine with it. they are several years removed from being even that. they haven't reliably made the playoffs for literally a decade. so that "Comcast is just fine with it" condition hasn't existed for a long while. that no longer explains their acquiescence with how the team has been run.

all well said. and I work for one of the big banks, see similar stuff. though, from what I see, it might not be so much they are big enough to not care as they are big enough to not be capable of caring. not at any coordinated and meaningful level. a bunch of small fiefdoms worried about their silo, fighting over internal status. but, 6 of one, half dozen of the other. so, yeah, you're right: don't expect much pressure from the top.

you're right, of course. they don't own the flyers to make money, and any money the flyers actually lose is peanuts to comcast's overall bottom line. from there, though, you have to ask: why DOES comcast own the flyers, if making money isn't a motivation. tax write off opportunity, i'm sure weighs in. and available perks for executives and clients in the form of box seats. but there are other options for both of those. i have to think it comes down to PR. down to a chance to keep the comcast name in the daily vocabulary of the customer base. advertising, basically. and the thing there is, that isn't just limited to the philly area. owning a badass hockey team might perk up the ears of people across the country. not, "oh, they own a hockey team, now i'm going to switch my cable provider," but again, that almost subliminal branding thing. which is why i would suggest they really wouldn't want the flyers to be terrible. would actually be motivated to make sure they aren't terrible. the only thing worse than not having the positive branding of owning a good hockey team would be having the negative branding of owning a really bad hockey team. people start tying the comcast name with incompetent chronic losers has to have comcast's marketing dept climbing walls. or at least not happy. none of this means anything specific or definite. just saying i don't think they are quite as ambivalent as you suggest.

he's already signed with Columbus

@radoran you are the perpetually angry version of Douglas Adams. And I love it. Just make sure your phone is clean and you have a towel.

And there it is. I had it stuck in my head that Drouin was also a D (and ignored that detail on the stats sheets I was obviously looking at). Sorry, carry on, nothing to see here (other than aziz being an idiot. Just like old times. :)) Edit: and Yzerman did not sign him to that dumb contract, le Habs did.

I've been out of it, of course, but pure numbers...seems close to a wash. Or down to preference/need. More offense on one hand, more defense on the other. Was it a landslide?

Out of curiosity, how do you figure? looking at numbers, seems pretty much like an apple for an apple. What was the landslide part of it?

I think what I was trying to get at is that whatever they "try" to do will likely not work out, and the issue is less about trying something new, and more about stopping trying to do specific things. Because things GMs try to actively do in the modern game likely won't work out. Everything is too fluid. The draft as the example. The Flyers have had two top 2 picks over the last 15 years, and neither worked out. The first ended up a one dimensional net-front guy barely worth top 6 minutes, the other very well might not break 100 points in his career. How do you make sure that doesn't happen again? You don't. There were clues JVR might be weaker than he was projected, but only clues. Patrick just melted, not sure anyone saw that coming on draft day. They also collected a bunch of relatively high picks and stocked their shelves pretty fully of high-upside prospects. None of whom have turned out to be close to what they were projected to be. Laughton, Stolarz, Gostisbehere, Morin, Hagg, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Frost were supposed to be the team's core at this point, 7 top line/top pair players and 1 stud goalie were supposed to anchor the team for the next decade. Except a decade later, and only 2 of those players are really worth a mention, and even then, they are far from what people thought they'd be. So, I mean, they had their tank seasons and got zero from them. They held onto picks and got little more than zero from them. What is it they have been doing for 15 years that hasn't worked and they should change? Again, my theory here is the best thing a GM can do is not get in his team's way. There are very very very few things a GM can do to improve their team in anything vaguely like the short term. With the salary cap and NMCs, value for value or need for need trades simply don't exist, anymore. Cap hits and player agreements are the primary considerations for trades these days. The best a GM can do is not make mistakes. Which, most of the time, means sitting on his hands and letting things play out. Basically, I think the modern GM that manages the best, manages the least. There are no sure fire solutions, there are no approaches that reliably result in a strong team. Any draft pick can bust, any prospect can top out early, any vet can be injured tomorrow. Which means every sacrifice for a pick, a prospect, a vet, can bomb entirely. So don't make those sacrifices. I think there are several "Do Nots" that can help, but I can't think of any "Do"'s that can be leaned on. For what it's worth, here are my Do Nots: 1. Do Not: overpay salary for a player, unless you are that specific player away from a serious serious cup run, and I mean this year. And the term has to be SHORT. Every player you sign for 1.5x what they are worth is one less player a few spots down your lineup that you can afford. A third of your cap total on a single line doesn't work (usually). 2. Do Not: over term a player, unless the term has resulted in a weirdly low annual cap hit. And even then, tend towards not. Carrying dead weight around for years, be it on a washed up player, a buyout, or LTIR is the actual worst thing you can do. 3. Do Not: retain cap hits for players you trade away. You either get rid of the player entirely, or you find a way to make him work on some level. Or you put him waivers, send him to the farm, and hope he gets frustrated enough to retire early. Spending a few million dollars of cap hit specifically to not have a person play for you is insane. If you've followed points 1 and 2, this won't be a problem. If you haven't followed those, then you should be fired, anyway, let the next guy figure out what to do with your mistakes. 4. Do Not: trade up for draft picks. If you have a decent prospect and the 23rd pick, don't trade him and it away for the 10th pick. You are trading two rolls of the dice for one. This changes a bit if you have a reasonable shot at the first overall spot, but only just. Remember the Daigle/Yakupov lesson. Even clear cut #1 picks can fall exactly on their faces. These are children we are looking at. They started shaving last November. 5. Do Not: sweeten deals with picks in the first or second rounds. Unless, as with #1, the player you'd receive would put you over the top in an absolute, definitely going to work sense. Which is almost never the case. 6. Do Not: trade away prospects unless you are getting something you specifically need in return. In a capped league, in a sport that currently favors youth and speed above all else, prospects are the vegetables in a GM's garden. They are the point, they are what you are trying to produce. Every time a team's prospect is traded away, or released to RFA (or even UFA, depending), the garden gets a bit more fallow. There are more, but I'm going to go do some other things. My judgement of GMs at this point is basically based on the above. Stay out of the way. Make the deals that are obvious, that at the very least benefit your team as much as the other. Don't commit your team to stupid terms, or stupid salaries. Don't get into bidding wars. Don't fixate on acquiring a specific player. Don't get rid of draft picks just because. And really, don't try to construct your team in any particularly shaped sense. The dice will roll as they will, and your main job is to not get in the way. And add more rolls, if you can. That's your main task, other than taking care of paperwork. Don't get me wrong. I dearly miss the NHL of the 80's and 90's, when there was no cap, and GMs could play an active role in shaping a team. I miss the era of those uber teams of the mid/late 90s, the Wings, Hawks, NJ, Colorado, Dallas. I miss watching the perfect assembly of talent and grit, all of it top shelf. I miss it when the best teams were the teams that had no weaknesses. I miss when there were 3 or 4 or 5 perfect teams that would go at it for best of 7's every spring. I miss when your team could strive to become one of those elite teams, if only your GM could swing the moves to complete the ultimate roster. That isn't the game, anymore. The game today is about whose prospects work out best. It is a simpler game, in terms of team building. But simpler doesn't mean easier; there are very few levers a GM can pull to accomplish anything positive these days. Simpler just means less interesting, to me. But the thesis stands: the best GM for the Flyers is the one that will do the least, because the worst GMs have been the ones that did the most. GMs today can't do much to help, but they can do a lot to hurt.

Ah, ok. So he happened to go to the team where the insane color guy called everyone Chief, having already been Chief. Thank you, sir.

Ha, fair enough. And yes, the Laughlin ran his mouth in some weird directions, pretty much always. Those two are my all time favorite "partisan" broadcast team, though. Beninati calls a really strong, engaging and fair game, and Laughlin is like your crazy uncle that can always be counted on to make Thanksgiving dinner vaguely uncomfortable but fun (for the kids, anyway).

I think the issue is they CAN'T do anything about this disaster. Here's the thing: no approach to building a team works reliably. It just doesn't. There are just too many variables with WILDLY broad possible values. How will a given prospect develop? The answer is anywhere from "he'll be out of the league in a year" to "HOF lock". For ALL of them. How effective will a given established player be in two years? Anywhere from "knee injury, forced retirement" to "strung together a series of career years". What will the league's meta be in 2 years, what will be the dominate style? Ranging from "no flipping idea" to "could be anything". I'd point to specific teams that have spent like 20 years in rebuild mode or whatever, but I'll just point to our very own Flyers. One day, I'll dig into the posts from 8-10 years ago when this very site was projecting the amazing careers of Hagg, Alt, Morin, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny, Gostisbehere, several others. And.....? I said at the time that -at best- 2/3rds of those players would end up bottom half jobbers if they were in the league at all, and got yelled at. I didn't know what I was talking about, building through the draft was reliable and the right and only way to do things, and these were all locks to be high impact players, no worries. But they weren't. Player development is just such an opaque question mark, it isn't possible to have any idea what a given 17 year-old child is going to be like 6 years later. And then the game changes. It isn't the same today as it was 10 years ago, and effective players 10 years ago may very well not be effective today. Who knows what comes tomorrow? The only effective plan I can see is to not get in your own way. Fletcher has made objectively terrible trades and signings; he is a majority reason the team is as it is. Very true. Getting rid of him, and making sure the next guy isn't nearly as dumb is required. Beyond that...it's just down to hope. Hope you pick the right guys, hope they turn out as you project, hope your errors are happy ones, hope the game evolves in a way that supports your drafting philosophy. There's no actual math to any of it, though, no science. You can make smart moves, wise picks, thoughtful signings. But they could all go sideways, regardless. You can hurt your team's ability to win easily, but you can't do much to help it. Winning either develops or it doesn't. Which should make any GM think two or three times before doing something...weird. That thing you are doing is probably going to go poorly. The best a GM can do is not hurt the team.

I did high school in Pittsburgh, so only caught Flyers games when they came to town, and then it was always Pens' coverage. Never heard anyone call Berube "Chief". Of course, when the color guy is Paul Staigerwald, you don't expect much in the way of interesting or endearing regarding the visiting team. Anyway. I then moved to Va Beach in '91. Va Beach is in the Caps' broadcast area, so saw a ton of Caps' coverage. At the time, Craig Laughlin seemed to call the team's tough guy of the moment "Chief". I don't remember anyone specifically, just whoever was moving the needle physically seemed to get that name. Eventually, Berbube went to the Caps, and he became "Chief". Kind of figured it was a weirdo title bestowed for a few minutes by a weirdo color guy. Now, I'm watching clips from Nasty Knuckles, and they all (who ever happens to be on the episode) call Berube "Chief", if they are telling an old story or whatever. Was that his long-time nickname? Or did it just stick, for some reason, from his time in Washington? Was he "Chief" while in Philly, people who were watching in the late 80's?

i think the point is the above could be said about literally anyone. walk outside of your house, stop the first car that drives past. we have exactly as much reason to think the person driving that car would be a good GM hire as we do for briere. as you say, just about anyone would be an upgrade on what's in place now, it's just weird that the "anyone" value in that statement is being consistently filled by one particular random person. like SCFlyguy said, why point at briere over, say, hartnell? why not mccrossin, get him out of the trainer's room and into the GM chair? why not that one beer guy that works in section 224?

kinda love his answer. analytics are a false god, in almost all cases. as he said, it's a game of results. analytics look backward and explain results, but they are by nature closely tied to the meta of the game over that time frame. using them to build towards an unknown future meta is how you get whats-his-name in toronto. they struggle hugely in predicting results over a multi-season timeframe. good on torts for pooing on most of them. win the games, don't specifically work to make sure you have the best xG rating. and hey, 7 games in, not bad results. ugly, but points are on the board. 2nd in the east!! (lulz)

i really was impressed. and it wasn't just out of the norm for a flyers coach; i've never heard an incoming coach of any team in any sport lay out the "no, really, there is a TON of work to do" quite like that. he even says he doesn't know if he'll be around to see the day the team is truly competitive again, but he's going to make it happen anyway. so, yes, imo: president, GM and coach. and mascot, too.